Media release: Captioning inquiry

Media release: Captioning
inquiry

The
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission today announced an inquiry
under the Disability Discrimination Act into closed captioning of television.

Commissioner
Chris Sidoti said that captioning to provide access to information and
entertainment on television was a major issue for deaf and hearing impaired
people.

"This
inquiry is about cultural and political participation for millions of
Australians", the Commissioner said.

The Disability
Discrimination Act, in force since 1993, requires services to be equally
accessible to people with a disability, including people who are deaf
or have a hearing impairment, except to the extent that this would impose
unjustifiable hardship.

The current
proportion of Australian broadcasts captioned, however, appears to be
a low 13%, compared to 45% in the U.K. and 90% in the United States.

The Commission
sees the provision for captioning standards in the digital conversion
legislation just passed by the Parliament as an important step. But it
only appears to refer to news, current affairs and prime time TV, and
not to other important areas like children's programming. Access to digital
TV also seems some years away, particularly for lower income people.

Commissioner
Sidoti said the inquiry would provide a public forum for industry, community
and government to discuss the meaning and implementation of the rights
and obligations which already exist under the Disability Discrimination
Act. He hoped it would contribute to debate about standards which should
apply in future to digital television services, as well as informing the
Commission in applying the Disability Discrimination Act to existing services.

"We
are also interested in submissions on whether we should inquire more broadly
into related issues like captioning of videos" Commissioner Sidoti
said.

The Commission
intends to make submissions available on its Internet site and, after
considering initial submissions, to produce an issues paper for public
comment in a second stage of the inquiry. Submissions are requested by
4 September 1998.

Details of
the inquiry are available from the disability rights section of the Commission's
Internet site, at http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/index.html,
or by contacting the Commission by fax (02 9284 9849), email (disability@humanrights.gov.au)
or mail (GPO Box 5218 Sydney 1042).