From:	Meredith Bartlett 
Sent:	Wednesday, 25 November 2009 12:23 PM
To:	disabdis
Subject:	Application by cinemas to be exempt from the DDA for two and 
half years

To whom it may concern:

I wish to express my horror at the application by Village Roadshow, Greater Union, Hoyts and 
Reading Cinemas requesting exemption from the Disability Discrimination Act for a period of 
two and a half years. This will mean that Australians who are Deaf, hard of hearing, legally blind 
and vision impaired, including older Australians, stand to lose their right to complain to the 
Human Rights Commission about the lack of provision of captioning and audio description 
services at ANY of the 125 cinemas (1182 screens) owned by these four exhibitors.

I believe that ALL Australians have the right to access and that organizations such as these have 
an obligation to use some profits to allow those Australians who cannot access in the usual way 
to attend the sessions for movies and enjoy the entertainment in the only way they can.

I trust this will not be approved by any government.

Meredith Bartlett
Staff Interpreter, Teacher of deaf children, Teacher of Interpreters.