From:	Lisa Frankes 
Sent:	Friday, 27 November 2009 3:29 PM
To:	disabdis
Subject:	RE:  Arts Access Victoria MEDIA RELEASE

It is morally offensive that the Village Roadshow, Greater Union, Hoyts
and Reading Cinemas are requesting exemption from the Disability
Discrimination Act for a period of two and a half years.

This means 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.

If the exemption is granted, cinemas will provide captioning and audio
description for a minimum of three (3) screenings in 35 cinemas around
Australia.

Let's put that into perspective:

*	Jointly, these exhibitors have 1,182 screens across Australia. 
*	They show approximately 30 movies per screen every week. 
*	That's a total of 41,370 screenings per week (1182 screens x 5
sessions per day x 7 days) 
*	Of these, only 105 will be captioned and audio described. This
is equal to less than 0.3% of all movies screened per week. 
*	At this pace, it will take 1000 years to achieve universal
access, that is, access to all screenings in all cinemas. 

 A key element of the Rudd Government's National Arts and Disability
Strategy is to:

Explore opportunities to enhance accessibility and inclusive practices
in the film, television and broadcast industry. This may include
programs in Auslan and efforts to increase captioning and
audio-description services, particularly for government funded films,
and promoting international best practice models which support casting
artists with a disability. 

Australia should be able to take pride in increasing inclusive practices
that provide equal rights and access for all Australians.
Sincerely,
Lisa Frankes
Kew Victoria 3101