Community insights and unheard perspectives: Inclusive community engagement in the National Autism Strategy

This report documents community consultation with autistic people and families who are frequently absent from national policy conversations — including people with complex support needs, those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, LGBTQIA+ autistic people, and those living in regional and remote areas.

Why “unheard”?

Standard consultation processes tend to reach the same voices: those who are already connected to services, who can navigate complex information, and who have the time and energy to participate. This project deliberately sought out those who rarely contribute to national discussions, because their experiences reveal gaps and blind spots in how autism policy and services are designed.

What communities told us

Participants shared experiences across four broad themes:

Access and barriers: Many described insurmountable obstacles to diagnosis — long wait times, high costs, and assessors who don’t understand their cultural context or communication styles.

Services that don’t fit: Support services designed around a narrow model of autism often fail people whose needs or identities fall outside that model. This was especially true for autistic women, gender-diverse people, and people from non-English-speaking backgrounds.

Intersecting disadvantage: Participants who faced multiple forms of marginalisation described how each compounded the others — disability, race, poverty, and geography interact in ways policy rarely accounts for.

What good support looks like: Despite barriers, participants described what meaningful support would look like: flexible, culturally safe, led by people with lived experience, and connected to community rather than siloed in clinical settings.

Easy Read version

An Easy Read summary is available for autistic people and others who prefer accessible formats.