Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia

Rebecca Gredley

Participants in the national disability insurance scheme will keep receiving enough support despite its $4.6 billion underspend, the minister responsible insists.

The Morrison government revealed on Thursday the budget was almost out of deficit, thanks to less money going to the NDIS.

NDIS Minister Stuart Robert has defended the underspend, saying no participant had received less money as a result.

He said 100,000 participants "couldn't be found" or were counted twice, suggesting less money was now needed for the scheme.

The Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is inquiring into the the NDIS's planning process.

A number of autism/ASD-related organisations, including A4, made submissions to the inquiry. The Committee published submissions here. The submissions by autism groups are:

The NDIS sent a letter to A4 responding, on behalf of the Minister, to A4's email 3/7/2019.

This letter is a leading candidate for A4's 2019 Suppository of Wisdom Award. You can view the letter via the link below.

Around the world, the number of people diagnosed with autism is rising. In the United States, the prevalence of the disorder has grown from 0.05% in 1966 to more than 2% today. In Quebec, the reported prevalence is close to 2% and according to a paper issued by the province's public health department, the prevalence in Montérégie has increased by 24% annually since 2000.

Tony Wright

Mr Fischer, AC, died at the Albury-Wodonga Cancer Centre, surrounded by close family members.

He had undergone extensive treatment for acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood cells, over the past 10 months.

Most of his treatment had taken place at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Autism Advisory Group (AAG) met on 1 August 2019 to discuss the implementation of the recently announced Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) remediation plan to resolve delays and backlogs for children with disability in accessing supports.

The United Nations is again reviewing Australia's response to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia (A4) submitted a report on Australia's response to the CRPD in relation to the rights of autistic Australians. The key points A4 made are:

Australian News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt labels 16-year-old environmental activist ‘strange’ and ‘disturbed’

News Corp’s Andrew Bolt showed “absolute ignorance” when he mocked the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg in a column for the Herald Sun, an autism awareness advocate says.

The high-profile columnist for Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers and Sky News commentator attacked the 16-year-old campaigner as “deeply disturbed”, “freakishly influential” and “strange” in the piece published on Wednesday.

Yuval Levental

Autism doesn’t have to define a person’s identity

This article relates to people with disability generally; it is not specific to ASD.

Shannon Jenkins

Males and people with higher incomes are more likely to benefit from the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) than other demographic groups are, according to a new report.

The article by BMC Public Health, a journal which looks at the community impact of health policy and practice, studied how social determinants of health at the individual level can contribute to deep-seated health inequalities when combined with complex policy-delivery systems.

It found the ability to exercise choice is distributed unequally through personalisation schemes like the NDIS.