Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'll move it then. I move:

That at the end to motion, add:

" but the Senate is of the opinion that all free-to-air television broadcasters should use the financial relief afforded by the reduction in licensing fees to offer audio description services for people who are blind or vision-impaired, and ensure provisioning of captioning services on all broadcast programs aligning thus with the National Disability Strategy 2010-2020, which calls for all broadcast programs to be fully captioned".

This second reading amendment is about using some of the money that the free-to-air stations will save as a result of the government's decision to invest in audio description and in captioning. As I'm sure this place is aware, there has been a trial of audio description through the ABC, and I know that people got a huge amount of value out of that process. Australia is a developed country. We should be meeting our commitments; we should be working with other nations to make sure that we are developing processes that deliver services such as audio description and captioning. As I have reminded this place before, Vision Australia has done research that indicates that up to two-thirds of their clients do not have access to the internet and just 17 per cent have access to a smartphone. So they can't rely on online streaming to deliver audio description, as they are often told. We shouldn't be condemning people to what they consider to be a second-class service, which, in any case, many of them can't access if they have to rely just on online services.

Blindness and advocacy organisations have been calling for free-to-air networks to commit to extra funding for these accessibility features on their TV channels so all consumers can have equal access to content in news and current affairs programs and the other programs that everybody else has access to. If we are genuine about broadcasting reform, we should be making sure that people who are blind, vision-impaired, deaf or hard of hearing have access as well. Australia made a commitment, through our National Disability Strategy, to ensure accessibility. Not only are we are standing in the way of that, but we are, in some instances, going backwards, because broadcasters are seeking exemptions to those accessibility rules. That needs to stop; there needs to be reform. I urge the government to take action, to ensure that those who are blind or vision-impaired or deaf or hard of hearing also have access to electronic media, to the media, to free-to-air TV and to subscription channels. We're committed to make it happen.