Dr Ben Gauntlett on disability discrimination for job seekers in Australia

Australia’s Disability Discrimination Commissioner Dr Ben Gauntlett will advocate for employment opportunities at the Disability Royal Commission on Friday.

At 16, Ben Gauntlet was a six-foot-tall sport fanatic with a hope of one day practising medicine. But an accident while playing school rugby in Perth left him a quadriplegic and with a completely new course for his future.

He lost the use of his hands and legs and was told he could end up in an institution.

Now 41, Dr Gauntlett has defied the predictions he received as a teenager and went on to Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, excelled as a barrister and is now Australia’s Disability Discrimination Commissioner.

Disability Discrimination Commissioner Ben Gauntlett. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

His remarkable resilience was evident even in the immediate aftermath of his accident.

“On a Monday night I went to play rugby for my school, and I had a spinal cord injury … I then did year 11 and 12 in the one year and started in medicine,” he told the Daily Telegraph.

“I’m a quadriplegic so my hands don’t work as they ordinarily work, and my legs don’t work either.

“I don’t have grip so I felt at the time that being in medicine would be quite tough because the ability to be the type of doctor I wanted to be wasn’t going to be there.

“So, I decided to change into law which was ironically the degree I never wanted to do before.”

But despite his success, he is adamant to not let his stellar career fool people into thinking that all Australians with a disability are afforded the same opportunities – revealing that just 48 per cent of working aged people with a disability are employed.

This is despite the fact that about 88 per cent of employed and 82 per cent of unemployed working-age people with a disability do not require specific arrangements from their employer to work

Disability Discrimination Commissioner Dr Ben Guantlett with his mother Helenda in 1995, before the life-changing rugby accident. Picture: Supplied

Disability Discrimination Commissioner Ben Gauntlett. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“Employment in my career has been dependent often on the goodwill of individuals and there are a lot of individuals with goodwill. But there is a lack of system in place to ensure that people with disabilities have equality of opportunities,” he said.

“That’s why I’m so passionate about employment of people with disability because it’s a great way to build a better life for a person.”

Dr Gauntlett will on Friday give evidence at the Disability Royal Commission in a bid to change these figures.

The inquiry was established in April 2019 to investigate violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation for people with disability and the latest public hearing will focus on barriers to employment.

“What we really need is the largest businesses and organisations in Australia to realise that sometimes our biggest human rights issues exist on our own doorstep and the employment of people with a disability is a significant human rights issue,” he said.