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Media Release: Major Parties new commitments to Shifting the Dial on Autism

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The Australian Autism Alliance (Alliance) welcomes the commitment from the Coalition, Labor and the Greens to introduce a new National Autism Strategy in the next term of Parliament. The Alliance believe this will be critical in shaping the future policy agenda and help improve the life outcomes of hundreds of thousands of Autistic Australians.

The National Autism Strategy is a major step forward from the current disjointed approach that autistic people and their families face in getting the support they need and will make a considerable difference whether they are NDIS participants or accessing other support services. However, the Alliance highlights that more action is required.

Prior to the start of this year’s election campaign, the Alliance asked all major parties for commitments that lead to a holistic approach to improve the life outcomes experienced by autistic Australians and their families to result in better outcomes for all. Our scorecard below reflects their responses as we enter the last two weeks of the campaign.

“The current approach to autism policy is inadequate and we need a more coordinated, government approach so that all portfolios can do better to achieve enduring outcomes for autistic Australians,” said Co-Chair of the Alliance, Jenny Karavolos.

The key commitments asked for in the current election campaign by the Alliance is consistent with the findings of this year’s Senate Inquiry Report into Autism that highlighted “life outcomes for autistic Australians are unacceptably poor”.

We know that hundreds of thousands of autistic people in Australia continue to experience much poorer life outcomes in education, health, employment, mental health and participation in society than other Australians, including other major disability types.

“Our Shifting the Dial campaign aims to ensure that regardless of who forms the next Federal Government, they will already be aware of the areas requiring urgent improvement to fundamentally lift life outcomes for autistic individuals in Australia,” said Co-Chair of the Alliance, Emma Goodall.

“COVID-19 has also presented significant additional challenges to autistic people. Ensuring we are not forgotten in the pandemic recovery plans will be vital for those of us who are already facing much worse outcomes than our fellow Australians,” said autism advocate and mother to autistic children Monique Blakemore.

The Alliance has published a more detailed version and provided links to policies and/or other sources on their website.

Media enquiries: Jenny Karavolos, 0401 988 186, [email protected]

Scorecard (as of 13 May 2022)

The scorecard does not constitute an endorsement of any party. The commitments expressed have been extracted from information originating from the respective relevant party.

Find the scorecard in table form on the Alliance website, or read it below.

  1. 🟢 Develop and fund a National Autism Strategy (NAS) for the lifespan: Committed, $1m funding to develop.
  2. 🟠 Convene an ‘Autism and COVID Summit’ in 2022 to develop autism responsive pandemic recovery initiatives including workforce shortage: No commitment to Summit.
  3. 🟠 Develop a National Roadmap to improve health and mental health outcomes of autistic people (something also called for by the Disability Royal Commission): No commitment to Roadmap.
  4. 🟡 Ensure an enduring and effective National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) for the benefit of all people with disability: Partial commitment, additional funding for the NDIS through to 2025.
  5. 🟡 Medicare – lift rebates and remove the age cap for people seeking an autism assessment together with initiatives to drive timely and quality assessments: Partial commitment, initiated lifting the age cap from 13 to 25 and in implementation.
 For more detail:

Research:

Autism and other relevant commitments:

  • $1.2M resources to support Autism Awareness Australia to provide resources to help individuals and families navigate the first year following an autism diagnosis
  • National Autism Strategy will:
    • identify actions to drive better integration between federal and state service systems, including a roadmap to better integrate mainstream services for people with autism
    • identify actions to increase community understanding of autism. This will include consideration of a public education campaign about the diversity of the autism spectrum
    • action items for quality, evidence-based information about autism
    • include measures to monitor and report on the social inclusion of autistic people
    • ensure the supply of a suitable and appropriate workforce to deliver services for autistic people
    • include actions to integrate, promote and prioritise the employment of autistic people compatible with the Disability Employment Strategy

NDIS reforms: 

  • $100M to access advocacy & legal support
  • Increasing transparency within the NDIA, particularly in the home and living space
  • Enacting new legislation to improve Scheme bureaucracy, with a focus on enhancing the participants’ experience
  • Prioritise listening to the participants
  • Referring to the IAC and DRCO’s for co-design and ensuring people’s voices are heard
  • Improving access to mid-cost assistive technology
  • Reducing the number of younger people (those under 65) in aged care

  1. 🟢 Develop and fund a National Autism Strategy (NAS) for the lifespan: Committed, $1m funding to develop.
  2. 🟠 Convene an ‘Autism and COVID Summit’ in 2022 to develop autism responsive pandemic recovery initiatives including workforce shortage: No commitment to Summit but Workforce plan will contain specific autism stream.
  3. 🟢 Develop a National Roadmap to improve health and mental health outcomes of autistic people (something also called for by the Disability Royal Commission): Committed, $300k funding for initial development of a Roadmap.
  4. 🟢 Ensure an enduring and effective National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) for the benefit of all people with disability: Committed, fully fund the NDIS & 6 Point plan.
  5. 🟡 Medicare – lift rebates and remove the age cap for people seeking an autism assessment together with initiatives to drive timely and quality assessments: Partial commitment, match lifting of the age cap from 13 to 25 years of age.
 For more detail:

Research:

  • Additional $2M to Autism Cooperative Research Centre (CRC)
  • $15M for a National Disability Research Partnership

Autism and other relevant commitments:

  • Make the National Disability Strategy accountable by measuring its implementation, to ensure that real progress is made on important outcomes like employment and education
  • Double existing support for individual and systemic advocacy with an additional $10 million over 4 years to address systemic abuse, neglect, and exploitation, and support to navigate services
  • Ensure people with disabilities are given priority status during the pandemic and other emergency response policies
  • Improve employment outcomes with Disability Employment Centre for Excellence that will provide a clearinghouse for ideas and increase capacity among employment services

Accessibility:

  • Improve disability access in the community by ensuring there are enough ‘Changing Places’ – disability toilets (400) for people with high support needs available across the country.

NDIS reforms: 

  • An Expert Review Mechanism to ensure individual NDIS plans are not arbitrarily cut
  • Lift the NDIA staffing cap (additional 300 staff), reduce service provider fraud, and investigate AAT appeals and spending on external lawyers and consultants
  • Bring forward a planned review of the scheme and consult on terms of reference that will consider all available evidence and look at benefits/ problems inside and outside the NDIS.
  • Codesign with people with disability, their families and carers, and service providers and workers
  • Share governance with people with disability and their families and State and Territory Governments, and ensure the scheme is working with mainstream services. Increase the number of people with disability on the NDIA executive and board
  • A review of NDIS pricing, markets, and compliance, and develop a comprehensive NDIS workforce strategy
  • Match additional funding for NDIS Appeals providers to cope with numbers of AAT cases
  • Pause current government’s change to Supported Independent Living (SIL)
  • Investigate the $500 million Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) underspend to ensure people with disability can access appropriate housing
  • Publish data so the scheme can be properly monitored, evaluated, and interrogated
  • Consider continued support for a National Disability Data Asset to ensure changes to the NDIS are based on proper evidence
  • Fix the planning pathway and appeals to make NDIS decision-making more efficient, fair, and investment focused
  • Appoint a senior officer within the NDIA to tackle the barriers to service delivery in remote areas of Australia and other areas
  • Investigate the NDIA Call Centre operation so participants and their families get the best possible service
  • Make all proposed changes to the scheme transparent to rebuild trust between the NDIS and the people who rely on it for support

  1. 🟢 Develop and fund a National Autism Strategy (NAS) for the lifespan: Committed, see Senate Inquiry Dissenting report.
  2. 🟢 Convene an ‘Autism and COVID Summit’ in 2022 to develop autism responsive pandemic recovery initiatives including workforce shortage: Committed, support convening Summit.
  3. 🟢 Develop a National Roadmap to improve health and mental health outcomes of autistic people (something also called for by the Disability Royal Commission): Committed.
  4. 🟢 Ensure an enduring and effective National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) for the benefit of all people with disability: Committed, fully fund the NDIS and Age cap removal for NDIS eligibility.
  5. 🟡 Medicare – lift rebates and remove the age cap for people seeking an autism assessment together with initiatives to drive timely and quality assessments: Partial commitment, support lifting of all age caps and $4.8 billion to fully cover mental healthcare including lifting rebates.
 For more detail:

Autism and other relevant commitments:

  • Improvement of areas outside of the NDIS – for example, accessible infrastructure and inclusive education
  • 2.5 billion to implement national rollout of Individual Placement and Support program
  • 20% quota for full disabled employee reps in Public Service by 2030
  • Extra $30M for disability advocacy organisations over 4 years
  • Increase all income support payments above the poverty line ($88/day)
  • Increase number of peer workers by 1,000
  • A Disability Minister that is disabled

* The Greens will be seeking in the next parliament to remove the Medicare age cap altogether

Accessibility:

  • Make disabled people’s physical and digital worlds accessible, including by establishing a new $3 billion Accessible Infrastructure Fund
 

NDIS reforms: 

  • $300m funding on NDIS Quality and Safeguards commission
  • removal of the cap on staff under the NDIS to at least 6500, that are appropriately trained
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