Nem Kearns:

I do not know the ins and outs. I would very much defer to Thriving Autistic and the Adult Autism Practice on that, but it certainly needs to be looked at and, at the very least, the information be made available publicly to people seeking a diagnosis. People are spending their entire life savings and ending up with what is, in effect, a worthless piece of paper. They are completely unable to access support and they are even less likely, without support, to be able to save up the money to go to do the whole process over again with someone who is recognised.

I will also flag something that is not very well recognised or understood outside of the community, that is, the legitimate dangers to receiving a formal diagnosis. There are large areas where it is like playing Russian roulette. One that comes up very frequently when speaking with autistic women and non-binary people is if they are parents, especially in an abusive relationship where custody might be disputed in the future, there is an extreme bias in the system. People, especially women and non-binary people with an autism diagnosis on their file, so to speak, are fighting an uphill battle to prove they are fit parents, based purely on that diagnosis. Many parents will not get a diagnosis for that reason, if they feel there is any chance they will need to access family courts or anything like that. There are also a number of careers where having an official diagnosis is seen as a potential risk to losing one's career entirely, due to stigma.

We need to mention the elephant in the room, in that stigma and prejudice are real. We are making great progress, but it is not equal in all areas of society. Half of employers surveyed said they would not hire a neurodivergent person for any job, whatsoever, no matter their qualifications or experience. Things such as that have real impacts on our lives.

I am aware they are much more difficult to address through policy, but we need to recognise those additional soft barriers, so to speak, that have huge and real impacts on people's day-to-day lives and decisions. Unfortunately, I do not have a magic bullet to offer the committee on how to fix that, but if we do not take a cold, hard look at reality when we are coming up with our policy and account for it, we will ultimately have ineffective policy.