I wrote recently about a job rejection. About the silence that followed a process demanding everything and returning nothing.

That article was about one experience. One organisation. One closed door.

But it wasn't really about that. It was about a pattern. A pattern that extends far beyond the hiring process, into the very architecture of how this country treats autistic adults.

Because while I was waiting for a rejection email that never came, the government was busy designing a system that ensures I—and hundreds of thousands like me—will have even less support to find work, build skills, and participate in the community.

The Cut That Isn't About Money

Let's start with the numbers.

The federal government is cutting $13.2 billion from social, community, and civic participation supports over four years. That's the single biggest saving in the NDIS overhaul.

For the average participant, that means losing around $7,000 from their plan. Budgets for social participation are being reduced from an average of $33,000 to $26,000.

The government calls these "runaway budgets." They call this "sustainability." They call it "getting spending back to where it was a few years ago."

Here's what they don't call it: a deliberate dismantling of the very supports that enable autistic adults to build the skills they need to work.

Because what do these supports actually fund?

They fund the support worker who helps an autistic adult attend a social group, where they practice conversation skills in a low-demand environment.

They fund the mentor who helps someone navigate public transport, so they can get to a volunteer placement that might become paid employment.

They fund the community access that allows someone to leave the house, engage with the world, and build the confidence that is the prerequisite for any job interview.

They fund the life-skills training that doesn't look like "employment services" but is, in fact, the foundation of employability.

And they're cutting it.

The Unemployment Cliff They're Pushing Us Off

Here's the context they don't want you to see.

The unemployment rate for autistic Australians is 34.1%—more than three times the rate for people with disability overall and almost eight times the rate for people without disability.

The labour force participation rate for autistic people of working age is 50%, compared to 61% for all working-age people with disability and 85% for people without disability.

Now, the government is cutting the very funding that helps autistic adults build the skills they need to enter the workforce. You cannot build employment capacity while dismantling the supports that create it.

The Commission's Own Verdict

This isn't just my opinion. This is the Disability Discrimination Commissioner's.

Rosemary Kayess, the Commissioner, was asked directly whether these cuts would leave people in unsafe situations. Her response: "We know it will leave people in unsafe situations."

She explained that isolation creates vulnerability. That people become vulnerable when they are isolated from their communities and relationships. That they are at greater risk of "violence, abuse and exploitation."

The government's own submission to the Senate inquiry described social and community participation as "not essential to participant health and safety."

The disability sector challenged that proposition consistently. Witnesses and submitters argued that participation supports are not separate from safety—they are "one of the key mechanisms through which safety is maintained."

The Commissioner agreed.

Tasmania: What The Actual F*ck?!

Nowhere is this more devastating than Tasmania.

In 2023, 35% of Tasmanian NDIS participants were on the autism spectrum—4,505 people out of 13,371. Autism is the second-most prevalent disability in the state, and one in four families are impacted.

Tasmania has been under-resourced for years. The National Disability Insurance Scheme was supposed to fix that. It didn't.

And then, in June 2024, the unthinkable happened.

Autism Tasmania—the state's peak body for the autistic community—closed its doors.

It had been operating for more than 30 years. It provided advocacy, support, connection, and the kind of specialised understanding that generic services simply cannot deliver. Nine full-time staff lost their jobs immediately. Approximately 60 NDIS participants were left scrambling for alternatives.

The closure happened because federal funding wasn't extended. The Tasmanian government had previously pledged to fund the organisation—$300,000 per year for three years—but failed to deliver. The Liberal government broke its promise, and Autism Tasmania paid the price.

The Tasmanian Greens described it as leaving "an enormous hole for many Tasmanians who relied on their services and support."

And now, with the new NDIS cuts to social and community participation, that hole is about to get catastrophically larger.

The organisation that used to fill the gaps—that used to provide the specialised, autism-specific support that generic disability services cannot replicate—is gone.

And the funding that would help autistic Tasmanians build skills, access community, and find employment is being slashed.

Tasmania is a test case for what happens when you strip away every layer of support simultaneously.

The results will not be pretty. They will be predictable. And they will be devastating.

The Double Empathy Problem Meets the Policy Problem

There's a concept that explains why this keeps happening. It's called the Double Empathy Problem.

Pioneered by autistic researcher Damian Milton, it proposes that the communication breakdown between autistic and non-autistic people is **mutual**. It's not that we lack social skills—it's that we're speaking a different neurocognitive language, and the neurotypical majority has never bothered to learn it.

Research supports this. Autistic people communicate, establish rapport, and share information more effectively with other autistic people than in mixed interactions.  The gap isn't a deficit on our side. It's a mismatch.

Now apply this to policy.

The people designing these cuts don't understand what social participation actually is. They see it as recreation. They see it as "lifestyle." They see it as the thing you cut when you need to find savings.

They don't see that for an autistic adult, the support worker who helps you navigate a social event is the difference between isolation and community. They don't see that the funding that gets you to a hobby group is the same funding that builds the confidence to apply for a job.

They don't see it because they've never had to explain their social needs to a stranger. They've never had to justify their existence in a system designed for someone else's brain.

The Double Empathy Problem isn't just about interpersonal communication. It's about policy. It's about governance. It's about who gets to decide what "essential" means.

And right now, the people deciding don't understand us. They never have.

A.S. Social Has Had Enough

So here is where we stand.

We are not an NDIS business.

We are not a support coordination service. We are not a plan manager. We are not a provider chasing billable hours. We are not here to help you navigate a system that was designed to exhaust you into giving up.

We are an autism service. Full stop.

We exist because the systems that are supposed to support autistic Australians are failing. We exist because the peak body in Tasmania was allowed to close. We exist because the funding that builds skills and connection is being cut. We exist because the unemployment rate for autistic adults is eight times the national average.

We exist because you deserve it.

We are not here to fill out forms. We are not here to write reports for your next plan review. We are not here to perform "capacity building" in a way that satisfies a bureaucrat.

We are here to meet you.

We are here to ask what your dreams are. Not your goals. Not your "outcomes." Not the measurable objectives that fit neatly into a funding category.

Your dreams.

The things that make you want to get out of bed in the morning. The things you've been told are unrealistic. The things you've stopped saying out loud because the system has trained you to shrink your aspirations until they fit inside a plan.

We want to hear them.

And then we want to help you get there.

Because we believe in you. Because we know what the research says about autistic-autistic connection. Because we've seen what happens when autistic people are given the space, the community, and the belief they need to thrive.

And because we refuse to accept that this is the best we can do.

The Closing Word

They are defunding the very supports that build the skills, the confidence, and the connections that lead to employment—and then they will point to our unemployment rate as proof that we were never capable.

We are capable. We have always been capable.

What we haven't had is a system that believed in us. A system that invested in us. A system that understood that support isn't a luxury—it's the foundation upon which everything else is built.

That system doesn't exist yet. It might never exist in the form we want it to.

So we're building our own.

We're building a community where autistic adults can find each other. Where skills can be built without the pressure of a plan review. Where employment isn't the only measure of worth. Where you get to define what a good life looks like, and we help you get there.

We are not an NDIS business. We are an autism service.

We are here for the ones who have been forgotten. The ones who have been told they're not disabled enough, not capable enough, not worth the investment. The ones who have been ghosted by employers, abandoned by peak bodies, and left behind by policy.

We see you. We believe in you. And we're not going anywhere.

A.S. Social: Actually Solving Shit. Since 2019.✨

P.S. If you're in Tasmania, and you've lost the support you relied on—we're here. If you're anywhere in Australia, and you're tired of being a line item in someone else's budget—we're here. Reach out. Tell us what you dream of. We'll figure out the rest together.*

‍