Katter Breaks Silence On Childhood Autism Being Carved Out Of The NDIS Saying That Back In My Day We Didn’t Have This Spectrum Business Because Every Single Bloke On The Railways Was Of That Way And That Was The Whole Bloody Point Of The Railways In The F

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

Member for Kennedy Bob Katter has broken his silence on proposals to carve childhood autism out of the NDIS, warning that “cuts to the scheme” and “buck passing” will fail to recognise the role Australians with “different ways of seeing the world” have already played in building the nation, through their “strong interests in rail” and “talents” in many fields of “Australian accomplishment”.

“Back in my day we didn’t have this spectrum business because every single bloke on the railways was of that way and that was the whole bloody point of the railways in the first place because the nation knew that if you had a kid who was a bit quiet or a bit funny about routine or who liked counting the rivets on a bridge instead of playing footy you didn’t send him to a therapist you sent him to the railway camp and he was bloody thankful for it because the entire backbone of Queensland and indeed this nation was built by blokes that eat pizza with a knife and fork who were put to work swinging picks and lining up bolts with mathematical precision and that was their therapy and their purpose and their identity and I’ll tell you something else the only reason we even built railways on that scale was to entertain and employ those men who saw the world differently and enjoyed it in their own time and to give them a place where their talents were respected and where their repetition wasn’t a disorder but a bloody asset because if you needed someone to hit a spike two hundred thousand times without complaining you went to the different boys and they delivered the North Coast Line the Great Northern Line and the rest of it on time and on budget without an acronym or a consultant in sight and that was the NDIS before we even knew what an NDIS was and the politicians down south can laugh but every station, every rail bridge, every bit of track you’ve ever ridden on exists because autism built it and the least we could do today is show the same respect to these poor kids instead of cutting them loose and leaving them to be lost in the inescapable darkness that is real life,” Katter said.

The remarks come as disability advocates continue to warn that changes to the scheme risk leaving thousands of families isolated and without support.

More to come.