Phil Thompson got a bit of media over this stance over the weekend. He said that while his politician’s head said the NDIS changes, which will move children on the spectrum off the NDIS into a new system managed by the states, make sense, his father’s heart disagrees.

Why? Because his young child has autism and has benefited from the NDIS supports.

So once again, we are celebrating politicians who are standing for something because they have empathy born of personal experience of what the policy would mean.

It’s the whole ‘father of daughters’ issue again – where men don’t see any issues with women safety until they have daughters. It’s also what we saw in the marriage equality debate – where MPs supported the bill because it would have impacted their loved ones.

You should not have to rely on having personal experience in order to identify good or bad policy. The counter factual is that Thompson would have been in support of the bill if not for his child – but what about everyone else’s child then? Would the testimonies from them not have counted?