ABC

22 February 2000

Ms Susan Halliday
Acting Disability Discrimination Commissioner
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
by email: disabdis@hreoc.gov.au

Dear Ms Halliday,

Thank you for inviting the ABC to contribute to the Commission's Inquiry under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) into Captioning of Television Broadcasts.

I note that you will be taking into account information provided to HREOC during its 1998 inquiry into captioning and submissions to the review undertaken by the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA) pursuant to Part 4, Schedule 4 of the Broadcasting Services Act. The ABC made two submissions to the HREOC inquiry: one in response to the initial notice of inquiry; and a second commenting upon the Issues Paper. The ABC also made two submissions to DCITA's Review: again, an initial one and one in response to the Issues Paper.

In those submissions, the ABC:

described its longstanding commitment to providing closed captioned programs for people who are deaf or hearing impaired;
raised concerns about the effect of restrictive captioning requirements on ABC programming if additional funding is not forthcoming;
argued that a further extension to the legislative requirement for television broadcasters to provide captioned services should not occur in the absence of independent research concerning levels of use for captioning services;
restated its argument that non-provision of closed captioning does not constitute disability discrimination under the DDA;
argued that the Television Broadcasting Services (Digital Conversion) Act has displaced any operation of the DDA in respect of captioning of the ABC's television services;
welcomed the options advanced by the Acting Disability Commissioner to provide a greater measure of certainty in relation to captioning obligations and supported the option of specification by Parliament that the DDA no longer applies to captioning matters subject to the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA); and
set out its suggestions to DCITA about the details of the regulations.

The ABC continues to hold the above positions. Of particular relevance for the present inquiry, the ABC maintains its position that the Television Broadcasting Services (Digital Conversion) Act has displaced any operation of the DDA in respect of captioning of the ABC's television programs, from the date of proclamation of the legislation. The ABC submitted that the DDA does not apply to the captioning of ABC television programs in the lead-in time before the standards under the BSA apply. As a consequence of the legal displacement, the ABC believes that these standards, when available, should be accepted as providing a more appropriate remedy for dealing with the subject matter of the complaints. These arguments are developed in Part 1 of the ABC's second submission to the Commission.

Should you require any further information on the ABC's position, please let me know.

Gary Linnane
GM Corporate Relations