OPINION: Disability Voices Tasmania's purpose is to empower people with disability to use their voices

This follows a 12-month pilot project conducted by Disability Voices Tasmania which engaged with people with disability and their supporters across the state.

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It is not widely known that Tasmania has one of Australia's highest rates of disability, with an estimated 119,500 people - or 23.7 per cent of the population - have some form of disability. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most people have no idea of what it is to experience a disability. Simply, it's not having access and inclusion. For example, if a person can't enter a public building because they are aged, or pushing a pram, or using a wheelchair, society has denied them access, not their disability.

Accessibility is about getting in the door - being able to move around freely or accessing information in a format that works for you. Inclusion is having your voice heard at the table as an equal, not a token. To be included is to be recognised as fully human.

Part of the problem is that society thinks they need to do something 'special' for people with 'special' needs. People with disabilities don't want to be seen as special. They want to be equal, which means having the same degree of access as anyone else.

We must squash this notion of special needs. This came from old models of disability, in which disabilities needed to be fixed, altered, managed or controlled. This perspective divided us as equal citizens, blocked our similarities and excluded people with disabilities from full participation in community life. Disability Voices Tasmania's purpose is to empower people with disability to use their voices to raise awareness of the collective experience of barriers and exclusion. Voices to be heard and to be respected. Disability Voices Tasmania will be running workshops across the state to strengthen the citizenship skills of people with disabilities so that they can influence social and economic policies. If people understand what the real barriers to equality there are then attitudes will change. It is only a shift in attitudes that will drive practical initiatives.

The issue of basic human rights was evident in the initial national response to COVID-19, which excluded people with disability. It took the authoritative voices of 70 disability organisations and the Disability Royal Commission to affect that inclusion. However, the Disability Support Pension and the Carers Pension, unlike other social programs, was not increased. Why would people with disabilities be any less affected than anyone else by the COVID-19 crisis? Basic human rights are also at issue in medical COVID-19 protocols of who gets care when there are limited resources. Can you imagine the fear people living with disabilities could feel when admitted to hospital right now? This is a reality, reinforced by the background of broader societal attitudes. Each year, the Equal Opportunity Commission receives more complaints of discrimination by people with disability than those based on race and sex discrimination together.

Disability takes so many forms that the voices of people with disabilities can become fractured and diluted. But whatever the type of disability, it does not exclude a person from basic human rights. The ability to live dignified lives as richly as anyone else. Disability isn't a 'fault'. The fault lies in the barriers we fail to recognise and then the decisions we make as a society. This isn't due to a lack of empathy, it's due to a lack of understanding.

We so often see images of people with disabilities doing extraordinary things - climbing mountains, breaking through in quantum physics or becoming a fashion model. But like the rest of humankind, most people with disabilities are not exceptional. They are just human, and equal, in every sense of the word. Disability rights are human rights.