Dear Mr Buckley

Thank you for your email and letter of reply to my letter sent to you on 17 January 2017.

Having made no progress on this issue, here is a letter that I sent to the Prime Minister:

Dear Prime Minister

Since June 2016 I have been unable to access my son’s myPlace webpage via the myGov website.

I have raised this several times. Yesterday, I spent about 2 hours mostly on hold with the NDIA and the myGov helpline.

The NDIA said their system is working perfectly and that the problem is with the myGov website. The myGov help people check out their system and said the problem is the NDIA’s myPlace system.

The Anne McDonald Centre made an alarming submission to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Services for People with ASD.

It alleges inappropriate testing of non-verbal children, many of whom have ASD ... and subsequently, inappropriate and ineffective teaching in Victorian schools.

The submission can be downloaded from http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images…;

On 21^st December 2016, Bob Buckley, A4 Convenor has a video meeting with several NDIS staff to discuss A4's concerns over the NDIA's Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) Approach. The NDIA then sent the email and letter (download below) to follow up.

email

Good afternoon

Please find attached response as follow up after our video conference on 21 December.

Included are a Signed PDF and a Word document for accessibility.

Regards

The Hon Christian Porter MP

Minister for Social Services

Parliament House

CANBERRA ACT 2600

Dear The Hon. C. Porter MP

Thank you for promoting a meeting of Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia (known as A4) with the Hon. J Prentice MP, Assistant Minister for Disability, on 25th November 2016. I am optimistic that further discussion will lead to benefits for autistic people and people living with autism/ASD around the country.

Dear The Hon C Porter MP

Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia, known as A4, is disappointed that the Australian Government decided to defraud vulnerable autistic people and that it chooses to discourage autistic people from working.

Your government’s latest debt fabrication scheme

1. takes money from autistic people who made the effort to get some employment, and

2. sends a clear message to unemployed autistic people that unless they can get a permanent full-time job, they should not try to get work at all.

A SUMMARY OF AUTISM DISCOVERIES IN 2016 AND WHAT THEY MEAN TO FAMILIES

For decades, the autism community has known that autism affects the entire family. Biological parents have been included in autism studies to examine where genetic mutations come from, but always with an eye for understanding the affected individual. This year in research saw a much bigger focus on family members of those with autism, particularly siblings. The goal of these studies is to understand the genetic and biological nature of autism so that help can be provided not just to those with a diagnosis, but to family members.

Many studies focused on what is known as the broader autism phenotype, previously explored in biological parents. The broader autism phenotype refers to some behavioral features of autism, including those in emotion, language, and social skills that do not meet the level of a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Rather, they have been termed anything from “intermediate” autism to “a hint of autism.” Joe Piven and James Harris hypothesized this year that Bruno Bettleheim may have tragically misinterpreted these features, in the absence of a true understanding of autism, as “refrigerator mothers.” Clinicians have urged scientists to note these symptoms in a way that does not create a new diagnostic category and noting certain social, personality and language characteristics in family members has been crucial for nailing down the underlying biology.