Graeme Innes

Graeme Gordon Innes AM (born 9 August 1955) is a lawyer, mediator and company director, and was Australia's Disability Discrimination Commissioner from December 2005 to July 2014. As a human rights advocate for the past 30 years he has played a role in many human rights and disability initiatives, including the drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In 2013, Innes won a case against RailCorp, which was found to have discriminated against blind and visually impaired passengers. Innes was admitted as a Member of the Order of Australia in 1995 in recognition of his human rights work and his contribution to the rights of people with disability in Australia.

Innes was born in Sydney, Australia. The son of Alwyn and Dorothy Innes, he has an older sister and younger brother. Alwyn Innes had been a councillor on Ashfield Municipal Council. Due to congenital issues, Innes was born totally blind. His parents were shocked by the news of his disability but endeavoured to treat him in the same way as his siblings. Innes believes this approach benefitted him in life.

At age four, Innes and his family moved to a residence in the grounds of the Masonic Hospital (now the Sydney Private Hospital ) in Ashfield, when Innes’ father Alwyn was appointed its CEO. Innes grew up there.

Innes attended the North Rocks School for Blind Children, run by the New South Wales Department of Education on a site owned by the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children. He was made school captain in 1971 in early recognition of his leadership capacities. He was thereafter one of the first blind children integrated into the mainstream school system, attending Ashfield Boys High School for Years 11 and 12 in 1972–73. He was a prefect at this school, and a member of the 1972 debating team that won many competitions. He then undertook law studies at the University of Sydney, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1978, and gained the foundation for his later specialisation in social justice and human rights law.

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