MEDIA RELEASE 17/2/2013

New Autism Collaborative Research Centre welcomed but not without concerns.

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network of Australia and New Zealand Inc (ASAN AUNZ) welcomes the Australian Federal Government’s announcement of funding for the Living With Autism Spectrum Disorders CRC. This is a project that will have a significant impact on the Autistic community.

However, ASAN AUNZ does have some concerns about the project.

“We welcome this Collaborative Research Centre but have concerns about the way in which the research will be carried out. We are very keen to see some participatory research in which Autistics can contribute to the research paradigm and not just play the role of the research subject.” says Katharine Annear Chair of ASAN AUNZ

ASAN AUNZ Secretary Geraldine Robertson says she hopes that the research “will consider other lifespan issues such as relationships, parenting and aging” as she holds a great deal of concern for what happens to Autistics when primary relationships end and aging increases dependency.

ASAN AUNZ looks forward to the outcomes of the proposed research activities and reminds the new CRC, “Nothing About Us, Without Us”

Media Contacts: Katharine Annear 0400 003 656 & Geraldine Robertson 0488 651 500

The Australian Government has released a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Consultation Paper on the Rules that explain in detail how the NDIS will operate.

The purpose of this Consultation Paper is to explain what is intended to be covered in the NDIS Rules and to seek feedback from people with disability, their families and carers, service providers and the broader community.

The Rules will guide the detailed operation of the scheme and accompany the legislation that the Prime Minister introduced to Parliament last year.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012 was introduced into the Commonwealth Parliament in November. The legislation sets up the legal framework for the establishment and operation of the NDIS and the NDIS Launch Transition Agency (the Agency).

The NDIS Rules are important for guiding how each person will experience the NDIS and the effective management of the scheme, now and into the future.

The Rules will also enable governments to manage the technical details critical to running a scheme that will be an historic reform for Australia.

The NDIS Rules are still under development and your feedback on them is strongly encouraged.

Submissions for comment and feedback on the Consultation Paper on the NDIS Rules opened on 1 February 2013 and will close on 1 March 2013.

Provide feedback via email to NDISengagement@fahcsia.gov.au or via the NDIS postal address below:

ATTENTION: SECRETARIAT
NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME
PO BOX 6555
CANBERRA ACT 2600

Consultation Paper

We ask on this day for Autism Awareness campaigns to ditch the shock doctrine, to stop referring to autism as a tragedy, and to stop referring to kidnapped children, empty lives, and massive burdens in the context of people with autism.

On this the 5th World Autism Awareness Day we would like you to take the time to think about people living with autism spectrum disorder, think of us as as full citizens with the right to a fulfilling life. People living with autism are citizens of Australia who deserve the care and protection of the Australian community but also deserve the dignity of being treated as full citizens with the capacity to enrich the lives of all Australians.

We do not deny that our lives can be difficult. We live also on the human spectrum where life is indeed at times difficult. Is it especially difficult to live with autism, at times perhaps it is. At times, it is also especially enriching, rewarding, and fulfilling to live a life with autism.

So as you are becoming aware of autism please become aware of the capacity of autistic citizens to enrich the fabric of Australian life.

A Message from The United Nations
WAAD United Nations

Our “WAAD Hero” living a good life in Australia Tim Sharp

Birthdays can be exciting times. Not just because of the cake and

we changed? How have we grown? What has all that change and growth taught us? Where have we been in the past years, and most importantly, where do we want to go next?

As ASAN approaches our fifth birthday this November, we have an opportunity to reflect on what we’ve accomplished over the course of our short but exciting lifetime as an organization. Sure, we’re excited about our upcoming celebration at the National Press Club. Who wouldn’t be, with such well-wishers as Assistant Secretary of Education Alexa Posny and Administration on Developmental Disabilities Commissioner Sharon Lewis joining us? But more importantly, we’re excited about the chance to think about all that the self-advocacy movement has accomplished over the course of the last five years, and all we can accomplish over the next five if we work together.

Five years ago, the idea of self-advocates serving on autism-related boards and commissions was still considered novel and controversial. Five years ago, offensive and unethical ad campaigns like the NYU Child Study Center’s “Ransom Notes” campaign could go forward without a strong, unified response from the autism and Autistic communities. Five years ago, Autistic people were excluded entirely from the national policy-making occurring about us, without us. Five years ago, autism research was almost entirely something conducted on Autistic people instead of with Autistic people. Five years ago, society could get away with ignoring our voices.

Today, things have begun to change. We won’t claim we’re all or even most of the way there yet. And we can’t and won’t try to take all the credit for what has been accomplished – this has been a team effort, with self-advocates from all walks of life and many different organizations working together with our allies in the parent and professional community to empower disabled voices. Still, we have much to be proud of.

We’ve teamed up with family and provider organizations to get groundbreaking new legislation introduced on issues like restraint and seclusion and transition to adulthood for youth with significant disabilities. We’ve put ethical issues on the map in autism research circles, and this December ASAN will be teaming up with partners atHarvard Law School to conduct a symposium on Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Autism Research. Through collaborations like the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education, self-advocates and traditional researchers are finally working together to address issues like health care access in a participatory fashion - looking at us as partners in research instead of just test subjects. Today, Autistic self-advocates have more representation in policy-making, research, media, and other walks of life than we ever have before. Much more is necessary, but what we’ve achieved is worthy of celebration.

As part of your reflection, please consider supporting ASAN’s work by buying a ticket to our five-year anniversary celebration fundraiser on Nov. 16 at the National Press Club. Or, if you aren’t able to attend, consider making a donation anyway or asking another organization or a local business to contact us about becoming an event co-sponsor. Your support will help make a difference to ensure those in power hear all of our voices. Our community is strong and has room for much diversity. Whether it is long standing bulwarks of our community like Autreat or innovative new initiatives such as AASPIRE or the Autistic Passing Project, the Autistic Community has achieved much to be proud of. If we stand together, we can achieve even more in our next five years.

See the full newsletter HERE

from news.com.au

The book – Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography – reportedly includes his first direct comments on allegations of rape in Sweden that led to the former computer hacker fighting an extradition battle in Britain.

Publisher Canongate said it was the first draft of Assange’s autobiography as delivered to them in March 2011, and that they were going ahead with publication despite Assange’s attempts to prevent them.

“On 7 June 2011, with 38 publishing houses around the world committed to releasing the book, Julian told us he wanted to cancel his contract,” said Canongate, a small Scottish publishing firm that beat larger rivals to sign the original deal.
“However, he had already signed his advance over to his lawyers to settle his legal bills. We have decided to honour that contract and to publish.

“Once the advance has been earned out, we will continue to honour the contract and pay Julian royalties.”
Assange disowned the publication, saying in a press statement released on Thursday: “I am not ‘the writer’.”

The former hacker accused Canongate of acting in breach of contract, and called the book “a narrative and literary interpretation of a conversation between the writer (ghost writer Andrew O’Hagan) and me.

“It is entirely uncorrected or fact-checked by me,” he added.

Extracts from the book appeared in today’s edition of British newspaper The Independent.

In the first published excerpts, Assange describes his early days as a hacker and his first run-ins with the law and claims that he may be autistic.

“When I became well known, people would enjoy pointing out that I had Asperger’s or else that I was dangling somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Let’s just say I am; all hackers are,” one extract published in the Independent revealed.

Further passages document Assange’s teenage experiences of hacking into the US government’s defence network, describing it as “like being able to teleport yourself into the interior of the Pentagon in order to walk
around and take charge”.

The publisher said Assange had spent more than 50 hours sitting for interviews for the book at a friend’s country house in eastern England where he is staying under strict bail conditions.

“We disagree with Julian’s assessment of the book. We believe it explains both the man and his work, underlining his commitment to the truth,” it added.

The Independent said on its website that an entire chapter was dedicated to explaining his side of the allegations against him in Sweden, his first full account of the events in which he is accused of sexually assaulting two women.

“I have kept my own counsel about the matter until now,” it quotes him as saying in the book.

“It will be difficult to keep anger out of this account, owing to the sheer level of malice and opportunism that have driven the case against me, but I want to make this argument as much as possible in a spirit of understanding.”

In one excerpt, the author claims he met both women – named only as A and W – in Sweden during the furore that surrounded his website’s leaking of sensitive US documents, before having consensual sex with them.

“I did not rape those women and can not imagine anything that happened between us that would make them think so, except malice after the fact, a joint plan to entrap me, or a terrible misunderstanding that was stoked up between them,” he says.

“I may be a chauvinist pig or some sort but I am no rapist, and only a distorted version of sexual politics could attempt to turn me into one. They both had sex with me willingly and were happy to hang out with me afterwards.”

Assange also reveals how a contact in an unnamed intelligence agency told him that the American government was considering dealing with him “illegally”.

He said the source said means such as planting drugs and child pornography or embroiling him “in allegations of immoral conduct”, were being discussed.

Warnings about the potential use of a “honeytrap” were also made by people close to him, the book says.

In another passage, Assange talks about the “addictive” thrill of hacking into the networks of high profile organisations, including the Pentagon and NASA, as a young adult.

The book also features diatribes against Britain’s The Guardian and the New York Times, the former partners of

WikiLeaks in its release of thousands of US diplomatic cables before the site fell out with the two newspapers.

Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography goes on sale in the UK on Thursday at STG20 ($A30) for a hardback or STG14.99 for the ebook, which will also be available for purchase online in Australia.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/assange-autobiography-on-sale-despite-row/story-e6frfku0-1226143725545#ixzz1Ymfm5CXK

This is another ASAN Update for bloggers in the Autistic and disability rights communities.  Today, November 1st, is Autistics Speaking Day.  The Autistic Self Advocacy Network encourages the Autistic Community and our allies to speak up on social networks and elsewhere on the Internet to assert the reality of a thriving Autistic community and culture.  ASAN President Ari Ne’eman has written an article reflecting on why it’s important for Autistic people to talk about our lives and our experiences; click here <http://www.autisticadvocacy.org/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=122>  to read the article.

We encourage Australians to contribute to the Shadow Report on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability.

Complete this simple survey

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/01/lottery-fund-gives-grant-for-research-into-autism-hate-crime/

High profile cases like that of the Pilkington family – in which tormented mother Fiona Pilkington killed herself and daughter Francecca Hardwick after being terrorised for years by local thugs – have meant that, in recent months, many people have heard of the idea of ‘disability hate crime’.

However, very few people realise how serious this problem actually is. Unfortunately, in many cases, this includes the police.

As a result, many victims of disability hate crime do not report the crimes for fear that they will not be believed or taken seriously if and when they do so.

So the news that hate crime towards autistic people will be the subject of a new £350,000 Big Lottery-funded research programme run by the Tizard Centre at the University of Kent, which aims to provide a better understanding of the hate crimes and victimisation targeted at such people, will no doubt be welcomed by people with all disabilities, including those who have been fortunate enough never to have been victims of a specific hate crime themselves.

It is to be hoped that news of this research will encourage more disabled people across the UK to report anything that they may consider to be a specific disability hate crime to the police as soon as possible and without fear. In September, Care Services Minister Phil Hope pledged a national autism strategy, reported by Left Foot Forward.

Senior lecturer in learning disability and principal investigator of the new project, Dr Julie Beadle-Brown, told Thanet News:

“It’s partly down to the fact that we have spent the past 30 years moving people out of institutions and into the community, allowing them to live where they like.

“But they can’t really be integrated if they can’t go out, are treated differently or worse if they are robbed or burgled. How often that sort of thing happens we don’t know, but what we do know is that it does happen.”

Maria Bremmers, network co-ordinator of Autism London, added:

“A number of excellent community safety initiatives can be found in the UK, and Kent is no exception. But there is little robust evidence to inform policy and practice, especially concerning the experiences of people with autism.

“There is a strong commitment from all the stakeholders in this project to make a real difference by filling the gaps in knowledge and, where necessary, making real and lasting change.”