Dear Mr Burke, Please accept my apology at the lateness of my response to our Twitter conversation as I am a mother to two children with

Autism and we had our one hour a week of Government funded therapy for my son so I was a little tied up. I also have to say that I was a little taken aback by your reply and I felt that responding out of anger would not help me to get my opinion taken seriously. So I have thought about your comments and thought that I would respond to you in a letter rather than a tweet as what I have to say takes more than 140 characters, as that is what Twitter allows. Now as I am aware you are The Arts Minister and it would be incredibly remiss of me to not point out the fact that you are not the minister for health or disability but because you answered my tweet then you get my response. Please feel free to pass this on to the relevant ministers if you deem it necessary. As stated earlier, I am a mother to two children with autism. I am also the host of Australia's first radio program dedicated to all things ASD. I have become heavily involved in the ASD community since my children were diagnosed two years ago and I am trying my darnedest to help bring real change and support for children, teenagers and adults living with an ASD. Its hard work but is also very rewarding to see the people you can help benefit from it so much. My life was very different before Autism entered my life. I was heavily involved with the Arts as a writer, filmmaker and theatre director but all of that changed two years ago. Now I am not writing to you to whinge and whine about my lot in life and how hard I have it, but to inform you a little bit about why your statements to me cut to the bone a little. Your comment that the offset money doesnt disappear (which I never said it would) and that it would bring 150 million here and pays for itself My retort to that is- The Australian Bureau of Statistics states that Australias population is at nearly 23 million, diagnostic rates for ASD in this country is officially 1 in 100 people (American CDC has revised their figure to 1 in 50 we should follow suit) if you break those numbers down you are looking at approximately 230,000 people living with an ASD in this country. If you factor in the number of people affected by ASD say at four people (mother, father and siblings) per 1 in 100 you are then looking at over 1 million people affected by Autism in this country. That isnt even counting grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins teachers and students affected by having an ASD individual in their lives. From a political point of view, its a lot of votes!!! Currently funding is only available to children under the age of 7. Now we all know that Autism does not stop when you turn 7 so the costs to families and individuals living with ASD is enormous. That funding is $12,000 but in reality it is $9,000 as there is a loophole that our government has not closed that allows therapists approved for FaHCSIA to charge administration fees which can vary from $45 to $65. A year ago I started my journey into trying to get meetings with local and state politicians to speak to them about why this country has not got a Whole of Life Autism Centre. Murray Dawson Smith CEO of Autism Victoria Trading as Amaze helped me with the proposal put forward and there has been meeting after meeting and promise after promise but still no definitive answers. The outlay for a facility like this is 10 to 15 million dollars over four years, and would support children, teenagers and

adults living with Autism through education, tutoring, support groups, training and resources. The mission goals are as follows To socially enhance the lives of individuals living with an ASD. To provide families and caregivers with the assistance and education to support their child through social and life situations and prepare them for mainstream education. To provide a state of the art facility that invites all members of the community to be a part of. To provide rotational places for university students and hopefully lure them back to the centre upon graduation to work and assist clients thus building a network of new therapists in the region. To give ASD clients the social, life and emotional skills to integrate themselves into a society that they might find challenging. To have a haven for teenage ASD clients to socially interact with one another and build friendships with. To provide swimming lessons to ASD clients to promote water safety and assist them when it comes to school sports days. To promote ASD awareness in the community so there is more understanding and empathy. To educate and train individuals with an ASD how to prepare themselves for employment thus targeting young adults to help transition them from year 12 to Higher Education or employment rather than them seeking Centrelink assistance. Please note the highlighted red section, as this is very important. So the point I am trying to make is that, yes your $22 Million investment would pay off $150 Million but what is the breakdown of where that projected figure will be spent? Will it continue to make the Government $150 million every year? How many people living with Autism will be educated to be prepared to enter Uni or the workforce from this $150 million? Mr Burke if I had $22 million handed to me from the Government to build this facility the government would start seeing returns for their investment in the first year of full operation. People who are living with Autism would be taught the skills to help make it in this world and start contributing as tax payers instead of becoming recluses and living off disability payments. To address your second comment about the work I was talking about being of extraordinary importance, yes it is!!! Very important, yet still we are being ignored. Adults living with autism have absolutely no support or access to any funding for them to help integrate in to mainstream society (by the way, these people are voters as well) children aged over 7 have absolutely no support or funding, some families are living in third world conditions to pay for therapies that is so desperately needed, children who are going through the mainstream education system who qualified for an aide two years ago no longer qualify due to cuts by our government. So if it is of extreme importance then please pass this on to your boss and the Prime Minister as she needs to know how her Governments choices are affecting the little people.

So now to the comparison part of the conversation, you dont see how the comparison works. Well here it is! Everytime the current Government makes an announcement regarding funding for this or funding for that the Autism community rolls its eyes and starts banging our heads against walls as we know how much that money, if invested into ASD would make a difference. Disney Pixar is a big deal and if they made a film here it would be fantastic for the film industry, but how sustainable is it? It will employ people for the short term but your 22 million dollar investment has a cut off date and the $150 million you projected it would bring here is short lived and is not ongoing. If $22 million was invested in a Whole of Life Autism Centre the government would be seeing yearly cheques to flood its coffers and at the same t ime know that their investment will benefit families and people living with Autism for the rest of their WHOLE lives!!! Lastly Mr Burke I would like to extend an invitation for you to come to my house for a coffee and spend time with my children and get to know us. We really are lovely people and are not nitpickers, its just that when you have to fight for every cent you can get for your children and when you meet some truly inspiring teenagers and adults living with Autism who will not leave their house because society does not understand them or you meet families who are about to relinquish their children to the State because they will then get funded for services, you read statements like Government grants 21.6 million dollar payment, we think WOW $22 million what we could do for Autism with $22 million!! Do you see my comparison now?? Thank you for taking the time to read this and I really do hope you pass this on. Much appreciated Regards Rebecca Kelly