Senator Andrew Bartlett
Sunday, April 17, 2005
 
Funding for Autism and Brisbane's Road Tunnels

After spending most of last week on the road, I was keen to have a bit of time at home, especially as I am travelling again on Monday, heading to Adelaide for a range of meetings before going to the Baxter detention centre again on Tuesday.

On Friday night I went with some friends to a trivia night raising funds for an early intervention education unit for autistic children in Brisbane called AEIOU (Autism Early Intervention Outcomes Unit). As with many syndromes, disorders and disabilities that relate to the mind, autism suffers from misunderstanding and different views about how it should be best treated. Governments take advantage of this lack of certainty and societal reticence about brain-related disorders to grossly underfund the whole area. Whilst I acknowledge there are some different opinions, I believe there is clear evidence that early intervention with behavioural therapy for children is the best approach for most autistic kids.

Unfortunately the Qld government cut funding for the only early intervention centre, leaving the parents of autistic kids with very limited options, especially if they were not well off. The situation is not much better in other states (I think WA may be an exception). AEIOU seeks to fill that gap, as well as increase understanding about this misunderstood and somewhat mysterious condition. More information is on their website. We didn’t win the trivia night, but there were about 40 tables with 10 people on each, and plenty of raffles so I’m sure lots of funds were raised. If you are interested in helping raising funds for autism, details of another fundraising activity are at www.biggestbirthday.com.au.

On Saturday I could only endure brief snippets on TV of the Lions’ comprehensive and very unexpected loss to Hawthorn. I also went along to another community rally against the series of tunnels being planned for Brisbane. The rally was at Kangaroo Point on the southside of the river where the first tunnel will be put in. One exhaust stack will be virtually right next door to the Gabba. It will be about as tall as the light towers at the Gabba and will spew out unfiltered exhaust fumes from all the cars in the southern half of the nearly 5 km long tunnel. If the Lions are playing badly now, imagine how they’ll go playing half their games in concentrated car exhaust fumes!

Seriously though, there's growing evidence about the impact of air pollutants on human health, with children once again amongst those at greatest risk. We already do plenty of polluting with our cars, but spending billions of dollars to encouraging more and concentrating these exhaust fumes out of a small number of spots doesn't seem very wise to me.

Sunday consisted of a visit to my mum and a meeting of a Queensland Democrat administrative committee. I did my monthly attempt at exercise by walking home from my office, which takes about 30 minutes of fairly leisurely paced strolling.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, April 17, 2005 Permalink
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