Australian policy and legislation

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Disability: the untold story of the NBN

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We sat down with Graeme Innes, Disability Discrimination Commissioner and National Broadband Network Champion, to talk about how high-speed internet can benefit people with disability. Interview by Eliza Cussen.

GI: I’m one of a group of champions in a whole range of areas as to how the NBN is relevant to Australian society. I wasn’t in the original group and I kept going back to the minister, Stephen Conroy, and saying “Look, disability is the untold story of the NBN. I think you should have someone telling these stories.” He came back to me and said, “That’s great, will you do it?”


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Deaf advocate takes discrimination claim to the United Nations

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Michael Lockrey, a prominent figure in Australian disability advocacy, has petitioned the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities after he and the New South Wales Government failed to reach conciliation over a discrimination complaint.

In February 2012, Lockrey was summoned for jury service in Lismore Court in northern NSW. He wrote to the court and requested live captioning be provided for him during the trial. After much correspondence, Lockrey was informed that captions would not be provided and that he had been excused from jury service because he is Deaf.


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Call for an ongoing audio description service trial

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The future of audio description (AD) on Australian television is currently being decided, and blindness and consumer organisations are calling for public support to get an AD service trial on the ABC.

An ongoing service trial would provide viewers who are blind and vision impaired with a similar service to the 2012 technical trial, while allowing the ABC to resolve any issues involved in delivering AD nationally.

The ‘It’s as easy as ABC’ campaign is calling on supporters to write to Senator Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Communications, and Mark Scott, the ABC’s Managing Director, asking them to proceed with the service trial this year.


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Captioning on digital multichannels

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The Federal Government is due to introduce new regulations regarding captioning on digital multichannels like GO!, 7Two, Eleven and ABC2 which will take effect in 2014. With this in mind, Media Access Australia has conducted a survey of the content and current levels of captioning on these channels.

Under current provisions in the Broadcasting Services Act, the only programs which need to be captioned on multichannels are repeats which were originally shown with captions on a network’s primary channel. The survey shows that captioning on the commercial networks’ multichannels remains largely confined to repeats, with some exceptions such as Neighbours, which screens on Eleven, and AFL matches on 7Mate. Overall, the Seven Network’s multichannels, 7Two and 7Mate, had the highest levels of captioning, with over 40% of programs between 6am and midnight being captioned.


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