My name's Nick.
I'm 71. I'm an autistic elder.
That's what I call myself now, being that old.
I didn't have a clue, actually, I didn't have a clue until I was 60, that I was ... that I was autistic.
I have a passion for helping people understand autistic people and see them as human and as having human rights like everyone else and that’s what hopefully the strategy, the Australian strategy should sort of be another way to know More accessible diagnosis for older people, subsidised hopefully with Medicare and a real emphasis on a real, an attempt to build connectivity between autistic people in Australia so that they can relate to each other.
For friendship purposes, for support purposes, for getting accurate information about what's it like being autistic at any age, including when you're older.
So that they as a community will have their own sense of a network.
In other words, they come out of just being nothing to having an actual community in name rather than just in the label autistic community.
That will .... they’re the two things that would make a real difference to the lives of every autistic person in Australia.
This is the first time that any government, let alone Parliament, has said, look, we really need to kind of pay a bit more attention to these people who have been neglected for decades, this is acknowledged by the government and that we needed to have an all ages, all cultures type strategy to address that huge gap that is there.
It's really worthwhile for us as individuals, for all autistic people in Australia to speak out and be heard.
It's not easy.
It may be even a bit scary, but it’ll be a supported process, a trauma informed process.
There'll be a series of questions, but there will also be opportunities to talk about, like I am, just about your lived experience, you know well what is it like being autistic?
How are you part of society, which we are.
Use your voice with government, use your voice with state governments, be activists, be very active.
That really will help everybody.