Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Broadcasting and Other Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014. As I am the shadow minister for disability reform, this bill is of particular interest to me as it seeks to amend certain requirements for the captioning of television. Of course, this is a critical service for people with hearing impairment right across Australia. Captioning, the text version of the audio component of a television show, enables deaf and hard of hearing Australians to engage with news, current affairs, sport and entertainment. Captioning enables deaf and hard of hearing Australians to enjoy television in the same way as the rest of us. Without it, people with hearing impairment face significant barriers to accessing information that so many of us take for granted.

Submissions to the Senate inquiry into this bill make clear the importance of captioning to the deaf community in Australia. Kyle Myers, the CEO of Deaf Australia, stated in Deaf Australia's submission to the inquiry:

There are various mediums to access information, but many of those are not accessible to deaf people because they are not captioned ... we ... the deaf and hearing impaired community ... rely heavily on accessible captioned information via the television.

Another respondent in Deaf Australia's submission stated:

We miss out on a lot of information every day wherever we go. We cannot hear radio because it is hard for deaf people to understand ... We rely on information from news and programs on TV when adequately captioned and where available. It provides us with daily information of what is happening every day. Hearing (non-deaf) people listen to radio, public announcements and ALL TV programs every day at any time ...We are the ones who are missing out a lot.

And another respondent said:

Captioning is vital to accessibility. All programs should be captioned. The deaf and hard of hearing should not be confined to set hours or types of programs. It is a simple means of increasing accessibility.

So the message from deaf and hard of hearing people across Australia is that we should not be limiting access to captioning. Certainly Labor would oppose any measure which sought to water down the requirements on broadcasters to provide captioning or which sought to reduce the availability of captioning. Following the introduction of this bill, we received correspondence from the deaf community raising their concerns about the original form of this legislation. Over the last month, Labor has done what the minister should have done. We have sat down with deaf advocacy groups and the broadcasting industry and worked through their concerns with the changes that are reflected in this bill. As a result of this work, Labor has developed a compromise that I am pleased to say both sides have agreed to. This will restore the requirement for free-to-air broadcasters to report annually on their compliance with captioning obligations and it will restore the statutory review of captioning, which will occur in 2016. This will allow a comprehensive review of all the issues that concern the deaf community and broadcasters.

I am very pleased that the shadow minister, who is here in the chamber, has moved amendments to this effect in this debate today, and I understand that the government has agreed to support these amendments in full. I thank the shadow minister, the member for Blaxland, for his work on these amendments. In particular, I thank the peak deaf bodies who have provided feedback to me and the member for Blaxland. I note that the shadow minister, the member for Blaxland, has also successfully secured the support of broadcasters for these amendments. Frankly, this is work the government should have done themselves. They should have sat down with the deaf community and consulted them on these changes, and I am very disappointed that the Minister for Communications did not do that. It seems the government was more interested in trumpeting 'Regulation Repeal Day' than doing proper consultation and getting the policy settings right. Nevertheless, it is good that the amendments moved today by Labor will be supported by the government and we will see captioning protected so that deaf Australians will not be disadvantaged.

Of course, this piece of legislation is not the only issue facing deaf Australians. Let's not forget that, just two days before Christmas, the Abbott government savagely cut funding to disability organisations. They slashed funding for Deaf Australia. They also slashed funding for the Deafness Forum of Australia. These two peak organisations together represent the approximately four million deaf or hard of hearing Australians. These cuts will affect hundreds of thousands of Australians living with a disability, including deaf and hard of hearing Australians. And I am sorry to say that this is only one of the many changes that the government has made which will impact on the deaf community. The government has also walked away from its promise to fully implement Gonski measures that would have better assisted students with a disability. Clearly, this government has no understanding of what these cuts will mean to children in our schools who need these services. It was in fact only a few weeks ago that the extraordinary Drisana Levitzke-Gray was awarded Young Australian of the Year for her work advocating for the rights of deaf children. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate her on her award and thank her for all the work she has done for the deaf community. Drisana is deaf herself and an inspiration to many people in Australia, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing. She is an extraordinary young woman whose work will become of greater and greater importance as this government unfortunately seeks to cut funding, particularly to those advocacy groups that represent the deaf community.

One of the other very serious changes the government is examining is whether or not it will privatise Australian Hearing. If the government were to privatise Australian Hearing, it would put thousands of Australians at risk of losing access to vital services. It would cut research funding for improved rehabilitation for Australians with hearing impairments. The loss of hearing affects a child's speech and language ability and organisations like Australian Hearing are vital for providing support to hearing-impaired children.

All of these measures have been implemented without any consultation with the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Sadly, as I said before, it appears that this was the case with this bill too. The submissions received as part of the Senate inquiry make clear just how poorly the minister has engaged with the deaf community on this issue.

When introducing the bill last year, the minister gave assurances that he had consulted with industry and key accessibility groups; but following the introduction of the bill the CEO of Deaf Australia, Kyle Miers, wrote to members of parliament advising that Deaf Australia had not, in fact, been consulted. In his formal submission to the Senate committee he went further and stated:

… we (Deaf Australia) did not have an opportunity to provide any detailed feedback. They (the Department) just told us what the proposed changes were going to be. I do not believe that there has been any adequate or appropriate consultations with consumers or broadcasters.

This reflects very poorly both on the Minister for Communications and the department, and I would emphasise that it is his responsibility to make sure that all affected stakeholders are engaged. Now, unfortunately, Deaf Australia have had their funding cut so it is going to make it even more difficult for them to advocate on behalf of people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

We know how critical it is to make sure these organisations are able to put forward the views of those many Australians who depend on services like captioning. Once again, I am very pleased that the shadow minister at the table, the member for Blaxland, was able to step in and find a solution so that the captioning system that so many deaf and hard-of-hearing Australians rely on will continue.

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