22 August 2007
Parenting DVD leaves some parents out
While the new parenting DVD launched by the Prime Minister John Howard earlier this week is a welcome initiative to assist Australians in the early years of parenting, its lack of captions or audio-descriptions means parents with sensory disabilities won’t be able to access that assistance, Human Rights Commissioner Graeme Innes AM said today.
"As Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, I look at the rights in the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child and I am very supportive of this excellent assistance provided to new parents,” Commissioner Innes said.
“However, I am disappointed that parents who are deaf or have hearing impairments and parents who are blind and have low vision are unable to obtain the information available.
"As a parent who is blind, I'm sure I would have found the DVD of assistance if the information on it was accessible to me."
Captions - which are becoming more and more available on TV, movies and DVDs - provide the spoken words and other details of the soundscape on the screen and benefit at least one million Australians who are deaf or have a hearing impairment.
Mr Innes said audio description tells a person who is blind or has low vision what is happening on the screen and occurs during gaps in the soundtrack. Audio description benefits at least 300,000 Australians.
"I would encourage the federal government to make this important information available to all Australians by ensuring that future prints of the DVD are captioned and audio-described," Commissioner Innes said.
"I also encourage them to make a specific commitment to captioning and audio-description for all government material so that this issue does not occur again."
Media contact: Louise McDermott 02 9284 9851 or 0419 258 597
