National Autism Strategy Discussion paper: An Integrated and Inclusive Safe Society

Despite the high prevalence of autism, it remains a widely misunderstood condition, and the factors that serve to enable (or disable) Autistic people have been largely overlooked in many of the disability inclusion and accessibility efforts to date. As a result, it is critical that the National Autism Strategy (NAS), does not operate in isolation and the broader recommendations in this paper occur to underpin the NAS to ensure it is impactful, provides for longevity of a broad vision for government and society to follow and address the intersectionality and accountability gaps that currently exist in the current ecosystem. It is also critical that it is recognised that the experience of autism is diverse, and a one size fits all solution approach will not be sufficient. This paper primarily focuses to provide an outline of some of the key areas and issues that are often overlooked and has an emphasis on intersectionality issues.