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An Audience with Autism

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Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia (A4) held the first national autism awareness event at Parliament House on September, 2004.

safety for people with autism: improve industrial manslaughter legislation for PwD

Submitted by bobb on Thu, 12/01/2012 - 12:49pm
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John Stanhope, the former ACT Chief Minister, called for national laws on industrial manslaughter. He said:

...

Second, Australians die in mental health institutions. The Age, for example, reported in September 2011 that 36 people died unexpected, unnatural or violent deaths in Victorian mental health facilities alone between 2008 and 2010 according to Coroner's Court files.

Report on mental health and autism spectrum disorders

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Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia (A4) released a new report on the relationship between autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and mental health.

I deals with a number of perception and outcomes about ASD in the context of mental health.

This report may or may not relate to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into mental health and its "omission" of A4's submission to the inquiry (see http://a4.org.au/a4/node/417).

Follow-up with new Attorney-General

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A4 wrote to the previous Attorney-General (see Open letter ... disappointment over autism discrimination) but our members were not impressed by the response (see Attorney General reply to open letter).

A4 sent a letter about this to the new Attorney-General (see the attachment below). The letter says ...

underwhelming results from DSP "reforms"

Submitted by bobb on Thu, 29/12/2011 - 8:16am
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A report1 says "the growth rate for the [Disability Support Pension] DSP is falling, with a 1.4 per cent drop in the rate between June 2010 to June 2011, compared with the previous year".

In the 2011-12 Federal Budget, the Government announced changes2 that it said would reduce DSP recipients by around 40% ... so an outcome of 1.4% can hardly be said to confirm reforms are working as intended; this is just spin.

Australian governments ignore bad outcomes for autism/ASD

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As yet there is no sign that governments in Australia even recognise the particularly bad outcomes reported for people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A4 says, so far the parts of governments in Australia that are responsible for treatment, rehabilitation, education, etc. just ignore reports from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) that people with ASD have especially poor education, employment and disability support outcomes.

first report on the National Disability Strategy

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It seems the first report on the National Disability Strategy is out. It's the report that purports to 'lay the groundwork' for the Strategy, which covers every area of the lives of people with disability, from education to employment, justice and economic security.

The peaks - ONLY the peaks - have been charged with consulting with PwD and their families over the Christmas break - until Jan 30 - but the first report is 'highly confidential' because it is a 'living document' blah blah.

Liberals rear up over disability scheme

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BY EMMA MACDONALD, 07 Dec, 2011 04:00 AM

Opposition disabilities spokesman Mitch Fifield yesterday abandoned his "bipartisan" support of the Government's National Disability Insurance Scheme to warn that Labor rhetoric is far outweighing its financial commitment to the policy.

Disabilities Minister Jenny Macklin yesterday visited the Pegasus Farm - a horse riding school in Holt for children with disabilities - after Labor adopted the National Disability Insurance Scheme into its party platform at its national conference last weekend.

Australia: poor ranking on disability employment and poverty

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PricewaterhouseCoopers released Disability expectations; Investing in a better life, a stronger Australia; a report on disability (see http://www.pwc.com.au/industry/government/publications/disability-in-aus...) and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). It says Australia does especially poorly on disability issues when compared with other OECD countries ...

Disability report chronically understates ASD diagnoses

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A just-released report (see PriceWaterhouseCoopers) presents a range of information supporting the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The paper 'Disability expectations: Investing in a better life, a stronger Australia' is "developed in collaboration with key leaders in the disability care and support field, this PwC report considers: what needs to change if the NDIS is to make a meaningful difference?"

The report indicates that:

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