Disability Australia calls on all political parties to support our Election Platform to address the chronic disadvantage of people with disability.

We ask all major political parties to maintain a long-term commitment to the following five objectives:

Connie Vella had high expectations for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and what it would mean for her four-year-old daughter Hannah, who has bilateral hearing loss.

The Cranebrook woman went to her meeting with an NDIS planner earlier this year, well prepared with quotes from a range of hearing specialists and a list of the supports Hannah would require.

All up, the quotes came to $34,000 including early intervention services, speech pathology, language therapy, a school readiness program and hearing aids.

Mrs Vella was stunned when the planner returned with a package worth $12,000.

"It was a massive gap," she said. "We are supposed to be no worse off under the NDIS. We're a lot worse off. I'm a good advocate for Hannah but there are families out there who'll just accept what's on offer and that worries me for these children."

The histogram shows the prevalence calculated from the population of children who receive Carer Allowance for Autistic or Asperger's Disorders (DSM-IV) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (DSM-5) at June 2014 relative to the ABS population numbers for the age group ... on both a national and a state/territory basis. 

There is clear variability in diagnosis rates between states/territories with the Northern Territory, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory having notably lower diagnosis rates for autism/ASD, well below the national average.

The latest Burden of disease study from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) puts "autism spectrum disorders" as 14^th for males in their list of non-fatal burden (of disease) - see Table 4.3, page 36. "Autism spectrum disorders" rank 3^rd for males ages 5-14 years in the "total burden" given in Figure 3.6, page 26, but autism is otherwise absent.  This study is based on data from 2011. 

Rick Morton, Social Affairs reporter; Melbourne

The bosses of the $22 billion ­National Disability Insurance Agency lamented their lack of control of the autism “narrative” at a meeting this year in which they finalised a plan to curb ballooning costs, documents show.