What does it take to build the most accessible university in Australia, and mean it? In this episode, we sit down with Graeme Innis, Chancellor of CQUniversity Australia and former Australian Disability Discrimination Commissioner, to explore how his organization turned a bold ambition into practice. Graeme draws on his own lived experience as a lifelong screen reader user to explain why accessibility can never be mandated from the top down, and shares how CQUniversity benchmarked its website against WCAG 2.0 AA across more than 4,000 pages and trained 120 staff to sustain it. He also weighs in on where AI can help close accessibility gaps, why it still can't replace human judgment. A must-listen for any leader ready to build accessibility into culture from day one.
CQUniversity Australia. Graeme Innis and Linh Ho
Linh (Host): [00:00] Welcome back to the Accessible Brand Podcast. Today I'm joined by someone who has spent decades fighting for accessibility, legislating it, but also living it. Graeme Innis is a Chancellor of CQUniversity Australia and one of Australia's most recognized voices in disability rights. [00:17] Over a 20-year career at the Australian Human Rights Commission, including nearly nine years as Australia's Disability Discrimination Commissioner, helped shape the legal and policy framework that defines how Australia thinks about inclusion. Graeme joins us today representing CQUniversity Australia, whose ambition is to be Australia's most accessible university, and whose digital accessibility work has recently been recognized with the Education Website of the Year Award at the Centre [00:46] for Accessibility Access Awards, as well as Site Improve's Global Digital Accessibility Awards, winning the best of APJ category. Graeme, it is such an honor and a privilege to have you on this show. Thank you so much for joining me. Your background is amazing and beautiful and all at all at the same time. Thank you for joining me. Welcome to the show.
Graeme (Guest): It's great to be here, Linh. Thanks for the opportunity.
Linh (Host): [01:10] Well, before we dive in, Graeme, maybe share a little bit about your background, your journey and your charter here at the university.
Graeme (Guest): Becoming chancellor of the university wasn't the career direction I would have expected. I've been a human rights lawyer all my life. I've worked in that field. As you've detailed, I was asked to consider a role as chancellor of the university. And the reason I did it was that my value set matched the university's value set [01:40] so well. CQUniversity is a not-for-profit, or it's a for-purpose university, and its purpose is to be the most accessible and supportive university in Australia. The reason for that is so that it can encourage people who are disempowered either because of their disability, their First Nations status, the fact that they live in regional communities, they're disempowered from learning. [02:08] And we know that all those groups in Australia don't learn to the same extent and don't study at university to the same extent as others. We want to change that. So we focus on that group. And for me, that's a really important part of the community, to reinforce people's inclusion journey, to give people the chance to go to university. And so I was very pleased to become chancellor of Central Queensland University because it ticked all [02:37] the values boxes for me.
Linh (Host): Well, thank you for that. What a privilege to have you on this podcast. And Graeme, you've got this remarkable career and journey that you just described, two decades at the Human Rights Commission, landmark legal action, policy change at the highest level. What's kept you energized throughout these two decades?
Graeme (Guest): My parents taught me the importance of giving back to your community. They were always working, as well as their [03:05] day jobs, they were always working in charitable organizations to support people who were more disadvantaged than them. And then I grew up as a blind person and I was mentored by a number of other blind people who just showed me that it was possible to go out and live the life that I chose, do whatever I wanted to do as a blind person. So I wasn't held back in any way. [03:35] Many people with disabilities, with the best of intentions, are limited by the soft, what I describe as the soft bigotry of low expectations. I didn't experience that expectation. I had the expectation that I would do whatever it was that I wanted to do. And so I've always wanted to give back. That's what energizes me and keeps me energized. I mean, all of us, Linh, have tough days where [04:02] work is a bit difficult and it gets a bit overwhelming, but I've been able to work through those, and advocacy is a long-term commitment. You don't achieve the sorts of things that I've been involved with in advocacy in the short term, it takes a long, long time. And so that's what I've been committed to throughout my life.
Linh (Host): Well, thank you for sharing your story and your parents' guidance. What influence and impact you've had [04:31] on your life, but also the broader impact that you've had on the community. The university has this very bold ambition that the university wants to be Australia's most accessible university. So what does that actually mean in practice, and how do you hold an institution accountable for it?
Graeme (Guest): It means that we want to include all those disadvantaged groups that I talked about. And so I want my university, or the university that I lead, to include all of [05:00] the learners that I talked about. So in order to include people who use screen readers or have other access needs, we need to make our university accessible. And these things don't happen because the chancellor says they have to happen, or because someone in the IT section says that they're going to institute this sort of policy. They happen because you encourage buy-in or ownership throughout the university for this process. [05:30] You know, when I first became chancellor of the university, the first few graduations that I was involved with, that is, presenting the testamurs to students, I noticed that some of the stages we used, some of the platforms we used, had steps to that platform, so that people who needed to use mobility devices or wheelchairs were treated differently. Either they would come in from the back of the stage, or the chancellor would need to go down onto [06:00] the floor of the hall in order to present them with their testamurs. And I said to staff, you know, we're sending a signal to those people that they are not welcome to our graduations in the same way as other students, because we're treating them differently. And so now all of our platforms have ramps, and that means that those people can cross the stage the same way as everyone else. And it's the same with accessibility. [06:30] I've been a screen reader user for all of the time that computers have been available to us and the internet's been available to us. And before that, I was a Braille user. So I knew what it was like to be excluded from information because the website wasn't accessible. So I'd had that lived experience. So I encouraged the university to address this issue, as well as the issue of platforms and stages and access to buildings. [06:59] We are working towards that accessibility goal. And it's not just, you don't make a university accessible because the chancellor says you have to, or because senior staff mandate this. You make a university accessible, truly accessible, by having all staff at the university engaged and owning this process. And that's what we've tried to do with our accessibility plan, so that in every instance [07:28] where a student is experiencing a particular challenge in terms of accessibility, we address that challenge.
Linh (Host): Thank you for sharing that. I was just thinking, usually when you think about higher education, and from conversations with other higher education clients, it often starts with physical campuses, as you say, the ramp to a graduation stage, and then you incorporate now a digital accessibility perspective. [07:57] Do you feel like this matters just as much, in similar contexts of why exclude, you know, a set of audiences who have the right to be there or have the right to experience the same digital experiences? And what's at stake when those experiences fall short?
Graeme (Guest): Yeah, well, I've learned over the years the disadvantage of trying to bolt on access later in the process. It's a bit like building a house. [08:24] So if you build a house and then you decide you want to change something in the house, you do some renovations or some changes, it's never quite the viable, inclusive solution that it could have been if you'd built access in right from the start. And so with our digital access, we're trying to say we want to get this right from the beginning. We don't want to wait until a particular student who uses a screen reader comes along and says, [08:53] "I can't use your website." I've worked with the access team at Central Queensland University to start that from-the-ground-up development, to make our website and our processes accessible from the beginning, so that it's a smooth, inclusive journey for all students, not just for students who don't need that digital access.
Linh (Host): I love that, right? At the source, or at the start of creating these [09:20] digital experiences or content creation. And similarly, as you say, if you're building a house, you build it in from the start versus bolting it on after the fact. And now I feel like with a lot of tech, especially AI, it just makes it easier for people to create digital experiences and content. And if we don't catch those accessibility issues, or design it with accessibility in mind from the start, [09:49] then we're just amplifying and multiplying the problem. And this is one of the things that I know Siteimprove definitely, we deeply care about it, and we're also deeply looking at ways to make sure that we catch these, that we help customers catch these right up front.
Graeme (Guest): Yeah, you're right, AI is a great opportunity for us to improve accessibility, but we have to make sure we put guardrails around AI so that it doesn't build in [10:18] exclusion. When AI originally became available a few years ago, because of the general approach in our community, it made some very negative assumptions about people with disabilities. And I know that organizations like the National Federation of the Blind in the US, and other similar organizations, have been doing a lot of work with AI companies [10:44] to remove these negative assumptions. When AI first started, and when I started to use it, it used to make some awful negative and limiting assumptions about the impact of blindness, whereas in fact most of those things aren't true. And the limiting assumptions can really hold people back and disadvantage people. So we need to make sure that as AI develops, it has that accessibility built in right from the start as well.
Linh (Host): Absolutely. [11:13] And I think that's where the responsible and ethical AI can also come into play, where, as we all know, AI does not have the lived experience. And we need to bring the lived experience into the design, into the development, right from the beginning, so that it isn't inadvertently or unintentionally creating bias or creating more societal issues for us down the road. [11:43] You know, one of the things I see from CQUniversity is that you've also taken on a significant piece of work to benchmark and remediate your website against WCAG 2.0 Level AA across more than 4,000 pages. And you've got quite a large staff trained as well, 120 staff trained. From a governance perspective, what does it take to mobilize an institution around something like that?
Graeme (Guest): Well, it's really important to benchmark, as you mentioned at the beginning of that question, because your journey isn't going to be as successful if you don't know where you started, if you don't know where you've come from, it's really important to set those benchmarks. Okay, this is where we are now, and then work out where you're going. The university has a culture of inclusion built into its activities. We work to ensure [12:35] that learning opportunities become available for disadvantaged groups in the community, not just people with disabilities, but First Nations people and people who live in remote and regional areas. And so that's the cultural base we're working from. So then, on top of that, you have to build the lesson that for a particular group of people, people with some disabilities, we will exclude them if the IT processes or the web processes [13:04] are not accessible. So it's not hard to build that onto a culture which is already about inclusion and empowerment. And that's what we've worked to do at CQUniversity.
Linh (Host): Now, you know, on the other hand, I see that also in 2025 you've taken on another project, a brand refresh that puts accessible design at its heart: a WCAG-compliant color palette, high-legibility fonts, clear visual hierarchies. [13:34] What does it signal when accessibility is built into the brand itself, and not, as we were talking about, bolted on afterwards?
Graeme (Guest): You know, when the brand refresh proposal came to my council, I was very careful about access being actual, usable access, viable for the people that use it. You know, a lot of providers will tell you, for instance, that an app is accessible. I had this situation [14:04] in the facility where I live now, where we're going to have an app to communicate and control operations around the facility. And I reached out to them and said it's going to be really important that this app is accessible, so that everyone can use it. And I got an assurance back very quickly saying, "Yes, yes." And I said, "You should check that independently, you should test it independently." And I got an assurance back: "Yes, yes, the developers are onto this, [14:33] we know that the app has to be accessible and it will be accessible." I'm cynical enough and experienced enough not to believe that until I actually see it, because I have seen so many examples of websites and apps that assure people they're accessible, but it turns out they're not. At CQUniversity, when the brand refresh occurred, I was very excited because [15:00] the first question that was asked at the council meeting was by me. And I said, I want to make sure before we release this brand refresh that we've built in accessibility. And I was worried about the response I would get, and the people presenting it to our council said, "Yes, of course that's what we've done. We're an inclusive university, and we built it in from the ground up, and we'll show you, [15:27] give you access to the new branding and show you how accessible it is." And I was really excited, because for me that told me that the culture around access that we were building had been successful, because that work occurred before it even landed at the senior board table. It was clear that culture had commenced right at the beginning.
Linh (Host): Yeah, that's great. And, you know, seeing the brand refresh and also [15:56] the benchmark and the remediation that's taken all of the work, what are some of the results you can share, or what drove that progress?
Graeme (Guest): Well, I think what drove the progress is the culture we've talked about, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast every time, doesn't it? So you can have a great strategy, but if you don't have the right culture, the strategy sits on [16:24] a shelf and doesn't really get applied. So I think it was having that culture of inclusion right from the beginning, I think that's what really drove the success, and the keenness by staff throughout the university, not just IT staff but teaching staff and academic staff, to give every learner an equal opportunity to succeed. And in order to do that, you've got to make sure the pathway [16:53] they need to follow is an accessible pathway, whether it's physical or digital. So I think that's what really drove the success and was the reason we won the award we did. But I mean, we weren't doing it for the awards, we were doing it for the students that we support.
Linh (Host): Can you give me a sense of scale, or your reach [17:18], of your students, because it's not only the students on campus, but also your future students, right, and the broader reach that's beyond the campus walls. What are some numbers or metrics just to give me a feel for scale and reach?
Graeme (Guest): A large part of our learning is online, so it's not just within our campuses. We've got nine campuses throughout Australia, because we're a regional university and we provide opportunities for students [17:46] throughout central and northern Queensland, but also, right down, we have campuses in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, and a lot of the learning across all of our campuses is online learning. So the reach is about 15,000 students. We have three or four thousand staff supporting those students. But of course the reach is broader than that, because we know from research that [18:13] for students who complete a university degree, not only will they be better off financially and culturally throughout their lives, but their children, and even their children's children, will benefit from the effort that person put into gaining a degree. So in that sense, the reach is really broad. The students we're training in various areas, such as IT and marketing, [18:42] are learning the importance of accessibility as they go through their broader learning journey. And so they're taking that lesson out into society. We think we have a much bigger reach than the actual student footprint we have.
Linh (Host): Yes, because your reach has depth. And when you start talking about future generations as well, I think it goes deeper than just the broader horizontal reach. [19:09] My next question is, we were just talking about some of the results, and you've recently been recognized both by Siteimprove's Global Digital Accessibility Award for Best of APJ, and also the Education Website of the Year at the Centre for Accessibility Access Awards. What does that mean to you? And you touched on it briefly already, saying it's beyond, you don't do it for the awards, right, there's more purpose there. So what does meaningful progress look like to you, beyond the awards?
Graeme (Guest): The reason we do it is because we want to make every student's journey inclusive. I drive this as chancellor because it's my lived experience, and I really understand it. But as I said right at the beginning of our conversation, I can't just mandate that we have an accessible culture and it will happen, life doesn't work that way. We have to get buy-in from all of our staff who are committed to this journey [20:08] and make sure that flows through to the students. So when we decided to make CQU Australia's most accessible university, we set up a committee of access staff, teaching staff and other people related to the website. Together, they put together that accessibility plan.
Linh (Host): I love that, what you've just said. Again, it's back to the depth, right? It's not just surface level at the top, it proliferates within the institution, [20:38] down to the individual contributor level, and also with passion, because I definitely felt the passion when the award winners were announced. But to your point, it's meaningful, purposeful work that goes beyond the awards.
Graeme (Guest): Well, all of us love to receive an award, I mean, let's not hide from that. And I think it's really important when you [21:06] have a culture like this to celebrate the achievements of that culture. So I'm not, when I say it's not about the awards, I'm not dismissing the importance of the awards. They are important, but that's not the driving purpose.
Linh (Host): Absolutely, 100%. And I definitely felt the excitement of the recognition from thousands of miles away. And again, congratulations to you and the team for winning the Siteimprove Global Digital Accessibility Award. [21:34] Shifting gears a little on your broader perspective, Graeme, you've spent a career on the legal and policy side of accessibility, which is unique, right? Unique that you've been driving accessibility strategies, you're a passionate advocate as well, but you've also been on the legal side of it, making the case in courts, but also commissions, in the parliament. [21:59] How does that experience change how you think about what organizations like CQUniversity are doing on the digital side?
Graeme (Guest): Well, my legal and policy experience isn't the thing that has an impact, what has the impact for me is my lived experience, because I know what it's like as a blind person to be excluded from communities. And so my passion is driven by wanting to change that situation, wanting to improve [22:28] society so that people with particular access needs are more included than we have been. And the legal and policy work I've had the opportunity to do is the consequence of that, because I know that's how the world can be changed. But what drives me is the passion I've gained through my lived experience as a person who's blind.
Linh (Host): Yes, thank you for sharing that. [22:54] As we said earlier, when you think about where the world is headed, when you think about the broader perspective of AI, and the tools that are now in the hands of everyone to create more content and websites a lot faster, people talk about vibe coding and so on, if you don't bring that lived experience, like your lived experience, [23:20] and similarly, in other areas we touched on earlier about ethical AI, you've got to bring that lived experience to AI, because it will never know, it will never truly understand the context or how to address accessibility without that human lived experience, that human context in the actions it's taking on behalf of us humans.
Graeme (Guest): I think that's right. [23:48] And so it's that, the importance of including everyone, that drives the process.
Linh (Host): And so what's your honest assessment of how Australian institutions are doing on digital accessibility right now, and where are their biggest remaining gaps?
Graeme (Guest): I think as a whole, Australia's universities and institutions aren't doing so well on accessibility. The feedback I hear from other people who are users of accessible technology [24:18] tells me that we have room for improvement. And I know, in terms of websites I want to access, that there are many websites in Australia, and in other countries, the US, Canada, that are difficult for me to access. I have to use particular tools to get around some of those challenges. We've got a long way to go. The problem [24:48] is that a lot of organizations try to bolt access on later, rather than building it in from the beginning. Inclusive design is such an important part of the access journey for people with disabilities. You can never design a website or an app that works as well, and as intuitively, unless you take the decision, as companies such as Apple and others have taken, [25:18] and Microsoft perhaps as well, to build their product accessibly from the start. There are two advantages to beginning from the design phase up. The first is that it's a far better experience for users if that access is built in. The second is that it's far less expensive for providers to build it in at the beginning, rather than trying to bolt it on later. And I go back to my house analogy, it's the same thing. [25:47] If you build a house and then decide you want to make it accessible afterwards, that's a much more expensive process than if you build the access in right from the start. So it's all about inclusive design and building in that access from the beginning, which I think as a society we haven't yet done successfully. So the second thing I'd say is that accessibility is not accepted [26:15] in Australia, or around the world, as a right. It's seen by many as an add-on afterwards, something that's nice to have but not necessary. When we get to the point of accepting access as a right, and designing for it from the start, that's when we'll have a truly accessible global community.
Linh (Host): Yes, and you've advocated for inclusion your entire career. Now, what gives you the optimism right now, [26:43] going into the next generations?
Graeme (Guest): Well, I'm a generally optimistic person, a glass-half-full kind of person. I see young people, students and others in Australian society using the accessibility tools that have been built into processes, and demonstrating how effective they can be in their work when they're taught, [27:11] or when they're operating in an inclusive, accessible environment. I have a lot of faith in the students of today, who will be the leaders of tomorrow. I have a lot of faith that they're on board with this journey, and that what holds us back is people who are more set in their ways and don't recognize the importance of benefiting from a society where everyone is contributing and allowed to contribute. [27:40] By making society accessible, we have a much better society than if we exclude a group of people from contributing by making society inaccessible. I think people are starting to see that, and the trend is in the right direction. It doesn't mean we don't still have a long way to go, but I think we're heading in the right direction, and that's encouraging for me.
Linh (Host): [28:08] If you were to talk to another peer, another chancellor, vice chancellor, university board member, who maybe has the opposite view, and sees accessibility, say, as a checkbox or compliance exercise rather than a strategic one, the way you view it, what advice would you give that peer?
Graeme (Guest): Well, let me tell you a story about when I was Disability Discrimination Commissioner. I had a meeting with about six or seven of the CEOs of Australia's major banks. [28:34] That was a pretty serious meeting, a great opportunity for me to deliver some messages. My policy advisor, who was going with me, was getting really stressed, because I was messing around in my office and it was clear we were going to be late for the meeting. He'd set this meeting up, put a lot of work into it, and was really worried we were going to damage our opportunity for a successful meeting. [29:01] And we were late for the meeting, frankly, I ensured we would be about five or seven minutes late. When we walked into the meeting, I said, "Gentlemen", and unfortunately, sadly, they were all gentlemen, there weren't any women at the table, "I'm very sorry that I am late for this meeting, but while you went downstairs at lunchtime and withdrew some money from the ATM, [29:29] I had to stand in a bank queue, because the ATM was not accessible." That was a very powerful way of demonstrating to them the impact of a lack of inclusion. A number of people who were at that meeting, or became aware of the story afterwards, have told me they really got the problem when I showed them the impact of not having a fully inclusive society. [29:56] I use a lot of stories in my advocacy work, I tell stories because they're a really powerful way to shift people's thinking and create change. So I'd say to a leader: go and experience exclusion, and then you'll know this is not a box-ticking exercise. It's about getting the best from everyone, not just from the people who don't need the accessibility.
Linh (Host): [30:25] What a powerful example and story, all the CEOs from those major banks walked away formulating a strategy around accessibility. You've got the lived experience, you've also built a career on it. If listeners can take one thing from this conversation, what would you want it to be?
Graeme (Guest): Advocacy isn't a short-term gig, it's something that takes a long time. [30:52] During that journey, you get windows of opportunity, and that story I told just described a window of opportunity. I had them locked in a room, I had them in my control for a short time only, I can't claim that for a long time, but you've got to take advantage of those opportunities when you have them. Advocacy doesn't work in a smooth progression, it works in fits and starts, little jumps forward, and then there's pushback. So advocacy is something you commit to [31:22] for a long time, not for a good time. I guess that's what I'd say people can take away from this, we can change the world, but it's not a process that happens quickly or easily.
Linh (Host): I love that. You started this conversation by talking about lived experience, and what it felt like to be left out, and you've spent your years, it's not just a career, you say, it's beyond advocacy, beyond a career, making sure that feeling stops with you, and not just [31:50] the advocacy, as you just said, but that intentional design and intentional architecture. For that, I really thank you for building something the rest of us can walk into. And Graeme, again, thank you so much for being here today on this podcast. I really appreciated your stories and your journey, and what you've done for society, big shoes to fill to continue on that journey.
Linh (Host): [32:16] That concludes this episode of the Accessible Brand Podcast, and thank you, listeners, for joining us. If this episode inspired you, help us share the stories and subscribe to stay tuned for the next episode. For more information about this podcast series, please visit siteimprove.com/podcast. Again, my name is Linh Ho, your host. Thank you for joining me.