“I chose Macquarie mainly because it was the most wheelchair friendly campus in Sydney and was the closest to my home,” John Moxon.

Following an accident that left him with quadriplegia and ended his engineering career, John Moxon (BA (Hons)1983) came to Macquarie to study psychology and launch a new career.

“I chose Macquarie mainly because it was the most wheelchair friendly campus in Sydney and was the closest to my home,” he says, adding that once he started studying the friendship and support he received from both other mature age students and staff stands out in his memory.

“When I enrolled at Macquarie I had the aim of pursing clinical psychology as a career, but discovered that it was not for me,” he says, explaining that after graduation he had great difficulty finding a job, so he began volunteering at a disability advocacy organisation.

“I was subsequently employed there for 12 months or so until I was appointed to the NSW public service as a senior policy officer with responsibility for disability policy and recruitment. That position was followed by mainstream HR policy, industrial relations, management of a department’s staff training and development section, and a strategic planning role.”

Resigning from the public service in 1998, he established his own consultancy business and ran that for the next 10 years.

John says that at the same time as he worked full-time in the public service and managed his own business, he continued to be an active disability advocate.

“At various times over a period of 30-plus years I was a founding member and president of the Macquarie Association of Disabled Students, coordinator of the Wheeling Free program on 2SER-FM, president of the Australian Quadriplegic Association (now SCIA), president of Physical Disability Council of Australia (now PDA) and of its NSW counterpart, PDCN, chair of Active Job Services (a job placement agency for people with disabilities), and a member and one-time chair of Parramatta Council’s Access Advisory Committee.

“Since retirement, I’ve continued my involvement with Parramatta City Council and helped establish, and was president of for six years, Parramatta Computer Pals for Seniors,” he says. Parramatta City Council awarded him Senior Citizen of the Year in 2010, while the Federal Government presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Disability in 2013.



John attributes his disability advocacy work to a chance conversation with a fellow student.

“He revealed to me the folly of not being involved in the disability community and the need for educated, enthusiastic people with disabilities to join the fight for justice. He and I remain best friends 35 years later.”

He says he hopes he has been a role model for other people with disabilities to study and pursue a career.

“I also hope that my efforts to influence governments to have more equitable policies and practices for people with disabilities have borne some fruit.