A4's submission/feedback on the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) Issues Paper on "Access to justice in the criminal justice system for people with disability" (see https://www.humanrights.gov.au/access-justice-criminal-justice-system-pe...) can be downloaded below.

A4 highlights that for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Australia does not have a "justice system", what it has is a legal system; a system of legal processes that rarely delivers justice for people with ASD.

A4's Management Group endorsed the submission that Bob Buckley sent (originally as a personal submission) to the Senate Inquiry into the draft Act.

The draft legislation aims to consolidate a number of existing acts.

Previously, Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia (A4) wrote to Attorneys-General about the rights of people with a disability (see http://a4.org.au/a4/node/438). The letter was emailed twice (once each on 4/1/2012 and 5/1/2012) and there was no indication that it did not arrive at its destination.

There was absolutely no response to the letter, so we put in a request using the Freedom of Information process. The response says:

A4's Convenor received the following message from the Government on 25/9/2012 ...

Dear Friend

We believe that an independent and innovative Not-For-Profit sector is essential to building a fair community.

The past few weeks in Queensland have reminded us how Liberal governments treat community organisations.

Premier Newman has introduced gag clauses into community services contracts which prevent funded organisations from advocating for the most vulnerable in our community. The Howard Government gagged the community sector too.

The autism/ASD advocacy group, Speaking Out for Autism Spectrum Disorders in the Australian Capital Territory (SOfASD ACT) wrote to ACT political candidates asking about their policies and plans for people affected by autism. There is an election in the ACT in October and the group feels the ASD community in the ACT need to know what prospective governments plan to do to improve outcomes for people with ASD and their associates.

SOfASD asked specific questions about policy and plans for:

• diagnosis
• early intervention
• school age: education and other needs
  

June 11, 2012 in Autism spectrum disorders

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) require an array of specialized health care services. With these services come higher costs for parents and insurance providers. University of Missouri researchers compared costs and types of services for children with ASD to costs and services for children with other conditions like asthma or diabetes. The researchers found children with ASD paid more for health care than children with other conditions. In addition, children with ASD used more services yet had less access to specialized care.

A court case is running in Victoria (see http://a4.org.au/a4/node/481) about education for a child with a disability. So far the department has said that the reason for the young man’s failure to learn is that, he ate too many donuts.

An expert witness for the Education Department told the court said standardised assessments are not as good as unwritten teacher observations because, teachers have a special gift.

The department lawyers and their expert witness said that people with an intellectual disability don’t learn, so no matter what you do with them they don’t improve.