My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadighal Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
This episode will deal with mental health and suicide. If you need help, you can call Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen. Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's Wednesday, the sixth of September. I'm Zara Seidler.
I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Australia's first ever autism strategy is being developed to try improve outcomes for autistic Australians in everything from mental health to social inclusion.
We really want to ensure that all autistic people can truly participate socially the community.
Stick around until the Deep Dive to hear my conversation with Andy Shim Andy's a member of the council overseeing the new strategy. But before we get to that chat, Sam, yesterday was the first Tuesday of the month, which is RBA Day.
That's right, and the RBA decided not to make any big moves Yesterday they kept the interest rate on hold at four point one percent for the third month in a row. This was the last rate decision and RBA meeting for outgoing Governor Philip Lowe, who didn't rule out future hikes to the cash rate, but he did say that inflation had passed its peak. Michelle Bullocks starts as the new RBA governor on the eighteenth of September.
PM Anthony Alberizi is in Indonesia today, kicking off what will be a three country diplomatic visit. The PM will attend the Asian Summit, which is a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. For his first stop in Jakata. He's expected to meet with other leaders over the next two days before heading to the Philippines for talks with their president.
The last of the Aussies have been knocked out of the US Opens singles competition. Top ranked Australian men's player Alex Demenor made it to the fourth round of the Tennis Grand Slam before being knocked out by previous champion Daniel Medvedev on Tuesday morning. The men's and women's finals will be played over the weekend local time, with the competition wrapping up early Monday morning for those of us in the AEEST time zone.
And the good news, Sydney FC has launched a pathway to develop and encourage more female footballers to play at a professional level. The program will develop footballers aged between eleven and sixteen years old and will provide a link between community soccer and professional competition. Sydney FC and Matilda's World Cup squad forward Courtney Vin said the program would provide an enormous benefit to the future of Australian women's football.
Australia's first ever autism strategy has been released for public feedback to help us understand what the strategy is and what it will do. I'm joined by disability Right to activist and an autistic member of the Council overseeing the National Autism Strategy, Andy shim Andy, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
Well, thank you for having me. I'm very still honored to be here today.
Let's start at the beginning. I know that you're on here today to talk about the strategy but I do really just want to take a step back first, and I was wondering if you could help us explain in your words what autism actually is.
Well, ah, that's a very big question. There's a lot of different ways to describe autism. It's a condition which impacts communication and can impact the way that you perceive and navigate the world. Being autistic to me means that I sometimes miss what other people catch, but then also catch what other people miss.
I'd love to know what you think you catch that other people might miss.
Well, I think for me, I think I have a really good eye for detail. But at the same time, you know, my sensory sensitivity is specifically, my hearing can be really high, so I might have noise caancingly headphones, but in in exchange, I might, let's say, notice something in a in a picture that other people might have missed. And it makes me, you know, a really good asset to having an escape room, because I think you know,
that's what neurodiversity is about, right. I love that diversity in skills and thoughts.
So that is excellent and I will be sure to call you next time I am going to an escape room. So let's shift gears a bit, and let's talk about the National Autism Strategy. Can you tell me what you think it is setting out to do?
So with some context, I'm an autistic person and one of the members of the National Autism Strategy Overside Council, which is overseeing the National Autism Strategy and the development there are, specifically the National Autism Strategy. What we're doing is that we are attempting to ensure that policies about
autistic people are designed by and for autistic people. The disability community often says nothing about us without us, which is why we've released the discussion paper, and we are hoping to solicit and collate feedback from the community directly because ultimately, for so long, policies and strategies and discourse, whether it's about the NDIS, whether it's about the Disability or le Commission, the Disability Discrimination Act, they were those
conversations were often driven by non autistic people, by neurotypical people, and I think it's very important to ensure that the voices of the people that are the most impacted by the policies are the ones who are then in turn driving the policies. I like to think of it like, would you want a you know, a group of men to be discussing policies about reproductive rights without a single woman.
In the room.
No? Does it happen, yes, but we don't want it? No, No, we did not exactly.
So some of the areas that the strategy intends to address, and I know that we're only at the discussion paper stage so far, but the first one is social inclusion. Can you explain to us why that's an area that is so high up when it comes to being addressed.
Absolutely so autistic people. They are experiencing life outcomes regarding social exclusion that are disproportionately higher competitian non autistic counterparts. Some studies were stating that one in three autistic people, for example, were avoiding social situations partially due to fear of stigma, own discrimination, and from a social inclusion perspective, we really want to ensure that all autistic people can
truly participate socially in the community. You know, let's put it this way, do you really want an escape room without someone like me? And there it's really about make you know, just asking ourselves, Hey, is everybody who is on you know, this particular engagement on this at this
particular event, at this particular this particular sausage resort. Is it actually representative of all of all of the Australian population And who are the people who are the most excluded by certain structural barriers from socially participating?
And so that is one of the areas that will be focused on. Another, of course, is education and employment. Yes, what are some of the challenges that exist in those spaces at the moment?
Thank you for asking. So the reason why I think we are really interested to hear about, you know, the barriers that preclude economic participation is primarily because, well we know from the Disability or Commission as well as the Senate Select Community Autism that you know, autistic people are disproportionately impacted by bullying, by alienation, by assault, violence, ableism.
One study reported that three out of four autistic students in universities do not even disclose their autism to their university out of fear of discrimination. I think you know autistic people as well as you know people with disability. In general, we are not a liability around which to retrofit. We're actually a asset into which to invest. We have to look at you know, how people are being excluded at workplaces, whether our current employment laws are actually sufficiently
preventing you know, disability vilification at the workplace. I personally have been told, and you know, words that I will not repeat on this podcast becausees slurs. Because what I will say, though, is that I think there are thousands of people who are not as lucky as I am. Where at least I was somehow able to find a backdoor whenever a front door was closed. But I think to myself, how many people are not able to access that backdoor or a window let alone, you know, are
they even in the same building. That's why I think education and employment are really fundamental to considering that economic conclusion question.
I want to also talk about diagnosis. I know that in the discussion paper there was also some commentary about the diagnosis of women and girls. What can you tell us about what is needed in this space when it comes to diagnosing autism.
We know from the literature that autistic girls and women, as well as autistic people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, especially those from immigrant and refugee backgrounds, as well as people from the LGBTQA plus community or people from those communities are experiencing greater rates of US structural barriers that
are precluding them from accessing our timely diagnoses. For example, the average age that a autistic girl may get diagnosed, some studies have noted maybe up to five to ten years later than that of a cist gender man. You know, as much as people may love say something like the Big Bang theory or rain Man or what's eating Gilbert grapes, you know, not all autistic people are a one size fits all approach. Who fits that you know media stereotype of a you know, good doctor s you know, white
cich gender man who you know may like puzzles. I myself mentioned that I like as staterooms and puzzles, But there are so much more to me than just that one domain. And I think with diagnoses and support services, we really are key to hear from autistic people from First Nations, the First Nations communities, as well as from autistic girls and women and other other focused focus groups and demographics who have been are disproportionately impacted by those
barriers to accessing diagnoses. Because diagnosticians are ultimately people, that means that as people and as humans, they are you know, not invulnerable to human bias and to implicit biases.
And Andy you've already eluded a couple of times to the mental health element of all of this. But I mean, what can be done in this space.
I think we have to address the elephant in the room. We know from the Senate Select Medium, Autism and the Disability or Commission that suicide is something that is affecting autistic Australians. The bipartisan report from the Senate Select Comedian and Autism reported that autistic Australians have a life expectancy twenty to thirty six years shorter than that of the general population, with two times the mortality rate, with suicide
being the number one cause of death. Another study reported that nine out of ten autistic women have experienced sexual violence. These are rates which I think really demonstrate that we
need urgent action and we need it now. The reason why we have a working group on Mental health and we are trying to build a roadmap to improving mental health and health outcomes in general for utific people is because that impact of discrimination, as well as the reports we're hearing of health services, mental health services refusing services for autistic people by putting them in the quote unquote
too hard, too complex basket. These are what are I think essentially contributing to so many people in our community not being able to live the life to the quality that they deserve and to the lifespan that they are entitled.
I feel incredibly hopeful and incredibly honored to be a part of this national Autism strategy because I know that if the community engages with this strategy and they're willing to continue sharing their stories as they already have and offering solution for what they would like to see, we can actually start implementing practical and accountable strategies and policies that will really enact better outcomes for all of us.
We want outcomes ultimately, not merely opportunities. And in the UK they have a national Autism strategy, and you know, we can't let the Brits beat us. We've got to catch up with them. You know, if we have definitely exactly if we have that competitiveness when it comes to say, you know, soccer and football, you know, let's you know, put that same energy we put towards the Matilda's winning, towards getting our national autism strategy on par with the British.
One, love it and so Andy. As a final note, if we have listeners who are autistic and wanting to share their lived experience, can you just tell our listeners how they can do that please?
Absolutely so. There are many ways that the community as well as allies can share their thoughts, share their stories. We are really keen, as you know, the team behind overseeing the development of the National Autism Strategy, to capture as many diverse voices as possible. So we have community events and you know, I'm happy for the link to those community events if you included in the show notes, but we have.
We will absolutely do that.
We have forums for the community at large as which is for allies as well as autistic people, as well as forums adjust for autistic people but for those who you know may not feel as comfortable to you know, be in a workshop or a forum. We also are
very happy to receive information through ridden feedback. So there is a discussion paper that summarizes what we're trying to capture information about, and they'll be ways to essentially provide your ridden thoughts in response to that discussion paper.
Brilliant Andy, thank you so much for your time today. Really really appreciate it.
Likewise, thank you so much for inviting me. You know nothing about us without us.
I'm sure everyone will love having heard from you.
Thank you so much, Thank you, buy Zarah.
Thanks for joining us today on the Daily OZ. If you want more information about how to make a submission to help shape the nation's autism strategy, or where you can join a community forum, those links are in the show notes. We'll be back again tomorrow, but until then, have a great day.