From: john tziolas Sent: Monday, 7 December 2009 5:17 PM To: disabdis Subject: Objection to the exemption Hello, I am a profoundly deaf person, and I have to say that I object to the proposed exemption for the movies to have captions. We as a deaf body deserve to have the right, the same as any other body, to be able to voice our rights regarding the captioning of movies across Australia. I am currently not happy with the captioning situation. I work full time, and it is difficult to be able to access captioned movies. There are only 3 sessions a week available. Wednesday mornings, I am at work. Friday evenings, I finish work at 6, sometimes 6.30, and it is difficult to drive across the city to be in time for the 7pm screening. Sunday afternoons, it is also difficult, because I have church on that day, and often times I spend the day with my family. There is only one movie per week with captions being showed. Often it is a couple of weeks after it was first shown to the public. Deaf people have to wait until their movie of choice is captioned unlike hearing people who can watch it immediately. Hearing people can enjoy movies any time of the week with 1,000's of different choices of what movie to watch, and what time they want. We Deaf people don't have that luxury. I would like to be able to voice my right. If the exemption goes ahead, it would be an embarrassment to the industry. It is basically saying that they don't want to go to the effort of providing captions for a group of people. I'd bet that if any of the people who are proposing the exemption had a deaf child, they wouldn't of came up with the idea in the first place... Think about that... They would want their child to have the right and the opportunities that the rest of the public has. Why should we be put in the "too hard basket"? Nothing is too hard, in the age of technology it should be the easiest thing. We are not living in primitive times. Do we want to look back in a hundred years time, and comment on how cruel the Deaf people were treated? Let's make it a challenge to have ALL movies captioned at ALL sessions in ALL cinemas across Australia by the end of the year. Beat the USA and the UK and all the European countries to have this advantage for the Deaf community. Won't we look really good, and soon the whole world will be following our example. I beg of you not to let this exemption go ahead. For all the reasons I have stated, and many more. For the sake of the Deaf community, and future generations. Not to be an embarrassment to the public. To be proud and hold your heads high to be able to say that you did do justice to the Deaf community. Regards, John Tziolas. Check out Domain Radar NOW! A world FIRST in property search has arrived!