Federal Election 2022 – Scorecard Major Parties new commitments to Shifting the Dial on Autism
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. 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.
Our scorecard below reflects their responses to these commitments and summarises other commitments as we enter the last week of the campaign. We will provide updates if there are additional commitments.
Please feel free to use this score card to inform your vote and local engagement.