Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 2: This is seven AM. As a young child, Grace Tame
Speaker 2: often felt misunderstood. When later on she received an autism diagnosis,
Speaker 2: it helped explain that feeling. It's a common experience for
Speaker 2: autistic people who've long been misrepresented, misdiagnosed and mistreated. The
Speaker 2: government now hopes to fix that, unveiling Australia's first ever.
Speaker 1: National Autism Strategy, which it says.
Speaker 2: We'll put the voices and experiences of autistic people front
Speaker 2: and center. There's plenty of hope and optimism, but with
Speaker 2: the plan stretching over six years, there are still questions
Speaker 2: as to whether it.
Speaker 1: Will bring about genuine change.
Speaker 2: Today, former Australian of the Year Grace Tame on what
Speaker 2: the success of the National Autism Strategy hinges on and
Speaker 2: what you'd like to see as an autistic person living
Speaker 2: in a neurotypical way world. It's Wednesday, January twenty nine. Grace,
Speaker 2: First of all, welcome to seven AM, Thanks for coming.
Speaker 1: On the show. Thanks for having me on so Grace.
Speaker 2: The National Autism Strategy has just been released and this
Speaker 2: is the first time that we've ever had something like
Speaker 2: this in Australia. So to begin with, how significant is
Speaker 2: the moment of its release?
Speaker 3: That there's a strategy is a huge thing to celebrate.
Speaker 3: It's a starting point and we haven't had that before.
Speaker 3: As you just said, the.
Speaker 4: Federal government has unveiled its seven year plan to improve
Speaker 4: the lives of Australians living with autism.
Speaker 3: And these sorts of government initiatives in their infancy are
Speaker 3: always a little messy, a little clunky, but they can
Speaker 3: be workshopped.
Speaker 4: The forty two point three million dollar National Strategy aims
Speaker 4: to create a safe and in inclusive society where all
Speaker 4: autistic people are supported and empowered to thrive.
Speaker 3: And I remain hopeful that it'll be the point of
Speaker 3: leverage for a lot of advocates and people in the
Speaker 3: autism community and their families.
Speaker 2: And when you talk about the autism community and their families,
Speaker 2: what was your experience growing up and what assumptions did
Speaker 2: you come up against from other people about what they
Speaker 2: thought that it meant to be autistic.
Speaker 3: What strikes me is interesting is that my mother, who's
Speaker 3: always been a huge advocate for me in many areas,
Speaker 3: was taking me to health professionals from a very early
Speaker 3: age because I was exhibiting signs of autism. I think
Speaker 3: I was about three years old when she took me
Speaker 3: to get my hearing tested because she thought I was deaf.
Speaker 3: But it's not that I'm deaf, it's that I can't
Speaker 3: filter out background noise, which a lot of autistic people
Speaker 3: also experience. And then when I was in my early teens,
Speaker 3: as a mean of asserting my own agency, I suppose
Speaker 3: or control and a sense of routine where I didn't
Speaker 3: have a lot of routine in my life because my
Speaker 3: parents separated when I was two and I lived between
Speaker 3: two houses, so, you know, to establish some agency for myself,
Speaker 3: I would eat safe foods, foods that made me feel comfortable,
Speaker 3: you know, And I still do that very much. So
Speaker 3: I eat at the same times, and I eat the
Speaker 3: same foods every day pretty much. And I developed an
Speaker 3: eating disorder. I became severely and arecxic to the point
Speaker 3: of involuntary hospitalization. And when I was actually in treatment,
Speaker 3: my mother flagged, or she attempted to flag with the
Speaker 3: professional team that I might be autistic, and she was
Speaker 3: actually dismissed and spoken to in a kind of condescending way.
Speaker 3: But as in recent years, probably over the last decade,
Speaker 3: especially more resources that have previously been in the silo
Speaker 3: of academia and understood by mental health professionals. As those
Speaker 3: resources have become more publicly available and more accessible and
Speaker 3: more broadly representative, not just of a narrow representation of autism,
Speaker 3: it's become easier, I think, while there's still obviously a
Speaker 3: lot of work that needs to be done, it's become
Speaker 3: easier to be recognized, to be identifiable as an autistic person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like to talk a little bit more about
Speaker 2: the importance of diagnosis, because that is one thing that
Speaker 2: the strategy is designed to do to fund research into
Speaker 2: the true prevalence of autism. It's likely that there is
Speaker 2: a lot of people who are undiagnosed. So how important
Speaker 2: was it for you to get a diagnosis and how
Speaker 2: did that change your experience?
Speaker 3: It changed it in some ways. In other ways it's
Speaker 3: made it harder, you know, as a public figure who
Speaker 3: didn't choose the public life, I've received, you know, all
Speaker 3: sorts of negative comments about autism being a conspiracy, autism
Speaker 3: being you know, retardation, which is obviously a horrific thing
Speaker 3: to suggest, but it has helped me personally to in
Speaker 3: hindsight understand a lot of my childhood where I was
Speaker 3: sort of feeling quite osolated and misunderstood because it is
Speaker 3: so difficult to live as an autistic person in a
Speaker 3: neurotypical world. In other ways, I mean, I'm incredibly lucky
Speaker 3: my best friend Dominic, who I've been friends with since
Speaker 3: we were both seven years old, twenty three years of
Speaker 3: friendship under our belt. He's also autistic, and you know,
Speaker 3: thirty two percent of the autistic population don't actually make
Speaker 3: friends outside of their family. But I had this sort
Speaker 3: of social relief from dom you know, where we could
Speaker 3: be unmasked and free to be ourselves and reassure each
Speaker 3: other and be completely yeah, at ease.
Speaker 2: One of the things that's in this plan is the
Speaker 2: need for sensory friendly spaces. So I wonder if you
Speaker 2: could talk to all more about what it's like to
Speaker 2: be in a world that is not set up with
Speaker 2: you in mind, and then for that to be changed,
Speaker 2: because I imagine that must come with a sense of
Speaker 2: relief to find.
Speaker 1: Yourself in a space that is designed for you. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, I think like if I go now to events
Speaker 3: that know that I'm autistic, or they're held by an
Speaker 3: autistic advocacy body. They will have a sensory room and
Speaker 3: you'll find me in there. I personally don't have a
Speaker 3: lack of energy, and I think that a lot of
Speaker 3: autistic people that I know experiences as well. It's not
Speaker 3: that we have a lack of energy or a lack
Speaker 3: of attention or a lack of it ability to participate
Speaker 3: in anything. It's that we've got so much of it.
Speaker 3: But it's really hard to organize when we're competing with
Speaker 3: this cacophony of sound and light and all of these
Speaker 3: other different sensory inputs that are just happening too rapidly
Speaker 3: for the autistic profile and.
Speaker 1: The planets has been released.
Speaker 2: There was one other area I wanted to kind of
Speaker 2: talk a bit more about unemployment. So autistic people are
Speaker 2: six times more likely to be unemployed. What kind of
Speaker 2: I guess practical measures would help.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a very big question because it entirely depends
Speaker 3: on the you know, the sector of the industry, and
Speaker 3: you know, the specific workplace environment as well, and the
Speaker 3: understanding from colleagues of what a particular individual's experience of
Speaker 3: autism is. And I think the conversation needs to start
Speaker 3: there because the neurotypical population I think could learn a
Speaker 3: lot from autistic people if they were given the understanding
Speaker 3: and that comfortability to actually express themselves and demonstrate their
Speaker 3: skills in their unique way. I think at that first
Speaker 3: point of contact, if someone says that they're autistic, they're
Speaker 3: going to often contend with stereotype of with received information
Speaker 3: that a particular person has about what autism means, and
Speaker 3: autism means something I think entirely different to the mainstream
Speaker 3: stereotype of autism. For example, my father was a public
Speaker 3: high school teacher for over thirty years. He worked in
Speaker 3: a Tasmanian education department, and in his the later part
Speaker 3: of his career, he was working exclusively with children who
Speaker 3: have higher needs, many of whom were autistic. When I
Speaker 3: was diagnosed as autistic, he was surprised, and you know,
Speaker 3: he was like, oh, but she's not autistic. I teach
Speaker 3: aut children every day, and she's nothing like those autistic children.
Speaker 3: And so I think, you know, as with any particular
Speaker 3: subject matter, we have a tendency as human beings to
Speaker 3: be very you know, sort of insular and focused on
Speaker 3: a particular thing, and we don't pay attention to other
Speaker 3: content until it is in its most desperate or extreme state,
Speaker 3: and then that's what we think of that thing as
Speaker 3: and we don't see a whole backstory or a whole
Speaker 3: spectrum that actually encompasses it. If people understood that fundamentally,
Speaker 3: I think that would be a great starting point for change.
Speaker 3: And if there's anything else that needs to be mentioned,
Speaker 3: it's that there are really great service providers out there
Speaker 3: who have that specialist knowledge of what it's like to
Speaker 3: be autistic, of autism itself and all its different nuances.
Speaker 3: They need to be funded properly.
Speaker 2: So is the funding for the National Autism Strategy enough?
Speaker 2: That's coming up after the.
Speaker 1: Break, Grace.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the funding for the National Autism Strategy,
Speaker 2: because there are these twenty two commitments in the strategy
Speaker 2: and there's forty two point three million dollars at least
Speaker 2: initially set aside to fulfill the commitments.
Speaker 3: Over a seven year period. Yeah, which breaks down to
Speaker 3: about six million per year.
Speaker 1: Is that enough?
Speaker 3: It's funny because you know, for the average Joe public,
Speaker 3: it's it sounds like a lot of money, you know,
Speaker 3: and in a way it is, but it has to
Speaker 3: go not just a long way but to it a
Speaker 3: lot of different places and where there's a possibility to
Speaker 3: directly inject funds into frontline services that are equipped and
Speaker 3: they're knowledgeable, they're ready. Otherwise they're just waiting on money
Speaker 3: to get resources to be able to lift themselves beyond
Speaker 3: crisis point and.
Speaker 1: Help more people.
Speaker 3: That's a great immediate action I think that can be
Speaker 3: taken and grace.
Speaker 2: This plan comes at a time when many people with
Speaker 2: autism are struggling to get the support that they need
Speaker 2: from the National Disability insurance schemes. So how should we
Speaker 2: be thinking about that?
Speaker 3: So as we speak, there are autistic children and aalgick adults
Speaker 3: who are being puted off the NDAs, and the NDAs
Speaker 3: is facing cutbacks in funding, and that's an existing support
Speaker 3: mechanism nationwide. So I think that needs to be looked
Speaker 3: at because there are many autistic people who need that
Speaker 3: support to contend with the world as it is.
Speaker 1: Then there's also the.
Speaker 3: Roadmap, you know, and this is more than anything, even
Speaker 3: though it's the Department of Social Services that are governing
Speaker 3: this particular initiative, really it is an issue of public health,
Speaker 3: you know. Part of why the situation is so dire
Speaker 3: for the autistic community is that we have been living
Speaker 3: so long in a neurotypical world and not being accommodated,
Speaker 3: and so our unmet needs are manifesting as a raft
Speaker 3: of different health issues. You know, mental and physical health
Speaker 3: are not separate. It's a whole body, holistic approach that
Speaker 3: needs to be taken.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you kind of touched on this, but do
Speaker 2: you think that there is this risk here that a
Speaker 2: strategy like this becomes too bureaucratic and isn't really focused
Speaker 2: enough on the practical.
Speaker 3: Well, as an anarchist who's wearing a T shirt that
Speaker 3: literally tells you I'm an anarchist, I'm always going to
Speaker 3: say that a bureaucraatic document is too bureaucratic. There's lots
Speaker 3: of jargon that you've got to cut through to actually
Speaker 3: find the very direct actions and the ones that aren't
Speaker 3: just sort of you know, differently worded versions of a
Speaker 3: previous one, sort of wading through information that's interspersed with actions.
Speaker 3: You go like, all the actions are here, the information
Speaker 3: about autism is here, instead of it sort of like,
Speaker 3: you know, every point being given far too much context
Speaker 3: that's actually a repetition of context that's provided earlier in
Speaker 3: the document. I can't speak for the entire autistic community,
Speaker 3: but as a person who is autistic, I know that
Speaker 3: not just myself, but many close friends of mine who
Speaker 3: are also neurodivergent, we really appreciate that direct communication where
Speaker 3: there's no ambiguity, because there's a tendency, at least in
Speaker 3: my experience certainly, and I know that other friends in
Speaker 3: Minder like this as well, is that we will take
Speaker 3: things literally, we take things at face value, and we're
Speaker 3: not good at particularly reading subtext.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think we could all be more direct.
Speaker 2: I often think that it's easy to hide in ambiguity
Speaker 2: for people, but also for governments, and sometimes complexity is
Speaker 2: used as a way to kind of provide cover for inaction.
Speaker 2: So I hope that the National Autism Strategy really means
Speaker 2: that they will be real change.
Speaker 3: I hope so as well. And again, even as an anarchist,
Speaker 3: I am very hopeful that this is this is at
Speaker 3: least a platform for change and for more specificity to
Speaker 3: be called for from the autistic community who really need
Speaker 3: to be leaders in this. And I think it also
Speaker 3: needs to be acknowledged that a lot of contributions have
Speaker 3: come from various autistic bodies and various autistic individuals, and
Speaker 3: that needs to be lauded, and that we need to
Speaker 3: make sure that the entirety of the spectrum, as best
Speaker 3: it can be, is represented, and that includes autistic people
Speaker 3: who are minimally speaking or in fact non speaking, you know,
Speaker 3: because there's a tendency to speak for them instead of
Speaker 3: speak to them and allow them to communicate in ways
Speaker 3: that are actually effective for them and accessible to them.
Speaker 2: Well, Grace, thank you so much for your time today. Yeah,
Speaker 2: thanks for having me. Also in the news today, the
Speaker 2: US markets are still recovering from a major crash in
Speaker 2: the tech sector sparked by growing concerns among investors about
Speaker 2: the future of AI technology. US tech company and VideA,
Speaker 2: known for producing the chips used in data centers, had
Speaker 2: almost one trillion dollars wiped off its value on Monday,
Speaker 2: the biggest one day loss in US history. The downturn
Speaker 2: was triggered by the launch of deep Seek, a China
Speaker 2: startups new AI model, which reportedly outperforms some of the
Speaker 2: US's leading models at a fraction of the cost. This
Speaker 2: development raised concerns about the potential impact on demand for
Speaker 2: nvidia's advanced chips and oceanographer and entrepreneur Tony Hayman has
Speaker 2: been appointed as Australia's new Chief Scientist. Professor Haymott will
Speaker 2: serve a three year term providing independent scientific advice to
Speaker 2: the government. When asked about the coalition's plans to pursue
Speaker 2: nuclear power, Professor Hayman said he thinks Australia should be
Speaker 2: open to any form of energy.
Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See you tomorrow.