Equity, Justice And A Unique Shot At Change

Bridie Kean understood the concept of fairness at a tender age. Very tender, in fact. 

“I think I was complaining about someone taking a crayon that didn’t belong to them,” she says of a childhood story her mother recounts. 

“Mum said that when I was in prep school I had what my teacher called ‘an acute sense of justice’. It goes back to the way I was brought up and then, I think, it was amplified through the school I went to, which had social justice as a value.  

“Now I work as a Public Health lecturer, where we teach the importance of equity and social justice from a population health perspective.” 

Dr Kean – two-time Paralympic medallist, academic at the University of the Sunshine Coast and one of three Deputy Chefs de Mission for the Paris 2024 Australian Paralympic Team – can now unite her breadth of experience to work on designing and establishing a truly equitable Australian sport system. 

As one of three new appointments to the Australian Sports Commission, Kean joins fellow Paralympian Kurt Fearnley and former Paralympics Australia CEO Lynne Anderson on the Board, working collaboratively under the leadership of new Chair Kate Jenkins AO.  

“It’s always an important time to work in sport, but we have an opportunity now we’re not going to see again in my lifetime, I think, with the Brisbane Games,” Kean says.  

“It’s a privilege to be involved in that now and have a role to play in what the future of sport in Australia will look like, especially for Para-athletes and people with a disability.  

“I bring (to the ASC Board) a perspective of both participation and high performance sport. I love bringing that together through a public health lens. When we consider how we can improve the lives of people with a disability through sport, we have the Paralympic Games, but we also need to think about how we make participation in sport available to every person with a disability that wants it. I’m always grappling with those two ends of the spectrum.  

“I’ll get to live that high performance experience this year through the Deputy Chef role, but with the ASC Board, it’s about finding ways to utilise the sport system to allow everyone to be involved in the future.” 

Paralympics Australia Chief Executive Catherine Clark said Kean’s appointment would further strengthen and broaden the diversity of experience and perspectives informing the pursuit of a fairer and more accessible Australian sporting system. 

“Bridie will be an incredible asset to the ASC’s Board, expanding her already significant impact on our sport system through her various other roles,” Clark said.  

“We are both very excited by the opportunity that a Home Games presents, and equally we have discussed the sense of responsibility to get it right. I know how alive Bridie is to the opportunity we have over the next eight years. 

“Bridie brings a wealth of experience and expertise from her personal and professional journey, as well as her deep connections across our Paralympic community”. 

Those connections came only after Kean endured early experiences of exclusion.  Her mother regularly played basketball and her father played Australian rules football.  

“My older sister was an incredible athlete, too,” she says. “There’s a photo of my sister and I and we’re both holding ribbons from a Little Athletics carnival. I thought ‘Oh, I can’t believe I won a ribbon’ because I always remember myself coming last in everything. 

“That was my reality. I was never going to win anything because there wasn’t any inclusive sport for me to be involved in. I was ashamed of not being competitive.” 

As she entered her teens, Kean felt further away from sport than ever.  

“I grew up thinking it was really unfair. My family all loved sport and it wasn’t fair that I had to sit on the sidelines. I felt really angry about that as a teenager, that I didn’t have a pathway.  

“I wasn’t aspiring to be an Olympian, I just wanted to play. Then when I saw the Paralympics in Sydney, I saw it as an opportunity to play sport. That mattered more to me than high performance. I just wanted an equal opportunity to play sport. Once I came across wheelchair basketball, I was finally able to play without being restricted.” 

It changed Kean’s life. She travelled widely, including playing for the University of Illinois on a scholarship, a season in Germany’s top league and the best part of a decade as a member of the Gliders, Australia’s women’s national team. She was part of the bronze medal-winning team at Beijing 2008 and captain of the team that won silver at London 2012.  

Along the way, Kean has learned from exceptional leaders. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she counts Paralympic legend Liesl Tesch among her biggest influences. It was Tesch who during Sydney 2000 encouraged Kean to take up wheelchair basketball.  

“Now I watch Liesl navigate her life (as a member of the NSW Parliament), with so much passion, so much humility, and always with such a sense of social justice through her different roles. She’s inspiring.” 

Other role models in Kean’s life include her mother Mary, who also worked in health and “always has a great sense of everyone playing a role in the system”, and her discipline lead at university, Associate Professor Jane Taylor, a renowned health promotion and equity researcher.  

“Now I’m also really privileged to work with Kate McLoughlin, who listens so intently and zeroes in on what needs to be done and executes things with such passion,” she says of the Australian Paralympic Team Chef de Mission. “Being involved with her as her deputy, I see good leadership every day.” 

Such influences and experiences place Kean well for her pivotal role on the ASC Board.  

“Equity is about trying to ensure that all people have access to the same experience, or as close as we can get,” she says.  

“If we apply that to a Paralympian compared to an Olympian, the Paralympian might need an additional resource to have the same opportunity to train properly. They might need accessible training facilities in order to have the same experience as their Olympic colleague.  

“It’s a good case for what we can achieve in society. People with a disability generally face barriers to education or employment. These principles can go across various aspects of life. Ensuring people have the same experience when they go to school or when they go to an event at a stadium or use public transport – it’s about focusing on equity to achieve those outcomes.”

By David Sygall, Paralympics Australia

Published 29 May, 2024.