Where autistic employment advocates should push, from local councillors to large corporates

Asked where the energy of autistic employment advocacy should go, the panel at the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium did not settle on a single target. Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, put the options plainly, asking whether advocates should go direct to businesses or lobby local, state or federal government. The answers from Tammie Sinclair and others on the panel each located the lever somewhere different.

Sinclair answered first, and from inside government. She said change needs to come from the top, with leadership by example from the federal and state governments. From a local council perspective, she said, what can be done is fairly limited. Her advice to the room was nonetheless to start with councillors. Speaking as one, she urged people to find out who their local councillor is and to “pester them. We listen.” The more people talk to councillors, she said, the more councillors act, and she described the reach a councillor has: “We can take things to the chamber to implement throughout an entire council.” That, she said, is leading by example, and it will not happen unless people make noise with their councillors by text, email or call, whatever gets their attention.