From:	John Eagle 
Sent:	Tuesday, 1 December 2009 2:54 PM
To:	disabdis
Subject:	Proposed Exemption by Cinema Companies from complaints for 2.5 
years.

In regards to the proposed exemption by the cinema companies et al..
 
I strongly assert simply that the cinema companies are trying to place themselves above the law, more 
disturbingly above the structures built over many years to protect and maintain the rights of disabled 
people.  This is extremely arrogant of such companies believing they can openly mock our hard won 
system, firms who have collectively made to my knowledge a profit of some 52 million dollars in the past 
financial year. Now wanting to preserve but a fraction of that profit? and thus blithely trample all over the 
Human Rights of Deaf Australians, which by the way is or should be "Equal Access to ALL Media".  
 
  I am severely deaf, I can hear people face to face but rarely make out the words from actors on screen 
especially against the ever prevalent background noise of special effects and soundtracks. Growing up I 
missed out on a lot of dialogue in movies causing a degree of social separation from my peers. As a 
young adult I used to run a youth group for the deaf, in Melbourne's eastern suburbs for many years, 
long before captioned cinema came about and during that time it was painfully obvious to me compared 
to 'hearing teenagers, the deaf were quite a lot more isolated socially. Such isolation potentially leads to 
mental health problems.  "Going to the Movies" has been then as is now a major social component in 
young peoples lives.  Hence the issue has far greater connotations and consequences than merely 
providing "entertainment" to the masses and "minorities".  
 
 Now in the last 10-15 years having immensely enjoyed many captioned captioned movies, gained a 
wider world view,  despite some very awkward timeslots and locations, many difficulties with quality of 
captions and even total lack of captions at advertised sessions. The lack of quality films being 
captioned is also a very sore point, force feeding us innumerable Hollywood mass market junk movies 
aimed squarely at teenagers.  
 
 I also have grave concerns over the summary of the proposal as there appears to be no firm 
guarrantees, checks and balances in place to ensure they actually carry out their proposals, increase 
numbers of screens, does that translate to more timeslots?, a greater variety of movies? The cinema 
companies have shown their hand being quite inept and unwilling to provide timely accessible advice on 
changes to captioned sessions. Clearly very uninterested in providing the captioned service. The 
technology is not new in fact quite ancient, being at least 15 years... The only thing stopping more 
captioning is ..MONEY.  of course they'll drag their feet They must be forced to provide our rights. If 
someone wants to operate cinemas in Australia and yes its a veritable gold mine but they must provide 
equal access for all Australians.   
 
Now they want an exemption?  The very fact they proposed an exemption must sound warning bells. I 
would not trust them as much as a used car salesman. They've only ever had one motive 'profit', and 
openly stated theres "no money" in deaf people. We should be moving forward in our fast changing, 
highly competitive world with many emerging media streams, which is difficult enough as it is for our 
deaf children who need to have equal access to the same media as their hearing counterparts or risk 
falling behind as per, way too many previous generations. 
 
The proposed exemption must be firmly dismissed quickly and decisively to send a strong message 
that such audacious attempts to reduce or remove our human rights to equal access will not ever be 
tolerated in our civilised Australia.   
 
John Eagle
Managing Director 
Rose Valet Pty Ltd