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The Disability Discrimination Act turns 20
Transcript
31 March 2013
Roberta: With the Disability Discrimination Act, or the DDA, reaching its 20th birthday this year, I’m talking to Alex Varley, CEO of Media Access Australia about how the DDA has helped access to media and information. Welcome, Alex.
Alex: Hi there, Roberta.
Roberta: The most famous DDA action that led to more blind access was SOCOG versus Maguire in the lead up to the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. Why was that important and what did that lead to?
Alex: Well, of course that was an absolute landmark case because that was the first time that really the whole issue of web accessibility for blind people and people with disabilities had been properly tested and tried in a court. And Bruce Maguire who himself is blind, took on the Sydney Olympic Games Organising Committee and said their website wasn’t accessible and we wanted to go to the games and buy tickets like everyone else.
Now because he won that case, that actually led to a whole series of things; it’s about web access which means we now have things like the National Transition Strategy where the federal government and state and territory governments are moving towards a high level of web accessibility. And we’ve also seen general accessibility hit things like social media and even other websites that are out there. So the case really was the starting point to say it’s not okay to make your websites inaccessible.
Roberta: Alex, the DDA actually rarely involves court cases, it’s more often used well, for complaints that are then negotiated. But one area for complaints has been DVD access. What’s happened there?
Alex: Yes, you’re quite right in saying that there aren’t many court cases because of course the companies and the individuals don’t want to go and fight these things out for years and in court. So what the Human Rights Commission actually does, who actually implement the DDA, is they tend to take complaints and then turn those into discussions or round tables or enquiries.
And with DVD access, in 2007 there were a number of complaints about both captioning and audio description. And Graeme Innes the Disability Discrimination Commissioner held an enquiry and he pulled all the DVD companies in at a very high level so their managing directors and everybody started to talk about access through audio description and captioning.
And as a result of that, we actually learned more about the way that they ordered their DVDs, the way that they made them and through that we were able to secure audio description from other places like Europe and get that onto Australian DVDs. So what actually ended up happening, just through that simple action of talking about it and making them aware of the issue, was that Australia now actually has the highest level of audio description on DVDs. Although it’s still only a third of them so there’s a long way to go.
Roberta: And Australia enjoys one of the highest levels of cinema access in the world. This process started back in 1999 and we’re now in the middle of a major rollout of accessible screens. What was the DDA’s role in this?
Alex: Well very, very similar to DVDs in that it started with captions because that’s where these things always seem to start. And that led to an awareness generally of access to cinema and very slowly because as you pointed out it started back in ’99, there was a build up of cinemas that had access through captions. Then Media Access Australia actually got a grant to do some independent cinemas and put some audio description into them and that helped to build it all up.
And eventually we ended up with the federal government realising through Bill Shorten that this whole issue needs to be sorted out. So he got the major cinemas together and said you need to start delivering on access, both audio description and captioning. And so we now actually have a whole rollout plan. So the role again was very much about building up awareness, getting the people together and getting them to talk about it and sort through issues.
Roberta: Alex, in a recent opinion piece, you pointed five ways that the DDA has led to more access. We’ve talked about three and the final two relate to captions on TV. But how has this led to better access for blind people?
Alex: Well the last two about captions are actually around television and as a lot of your listeners would be aware, there was a trial of audio description on the ABC last year and there’s a campaign right now to actually make that a permanent service. And that’s because what’s happened is the Broadcasting Services Act, which looks after TV, has got built into it now proper access regulations and it’s very easy to slot audio description into this.
So what the DDA does is it brings everybody to the table, it gets any regulations that need to be sorted out, sorted out and stops it just being an individual complaint process and becoming an Australia-wide, industry-wide solution. So that’s why even things like captioning changes actually can ultimately help blind people because captioning and audio description always go together and now they’re usually pushed together as well.
Roberta: Well, great work on that my friend. For more information, visit the Media Access Australia website or you can send an email info@mediaaccess.org.au. Thank you, Alex for all of that.
Alex: Thank you Roberta.
Roberta: I’ve been speaking with Alex Varley, CEO of Media Access Australia and Media Access Australia are supporters of this program.