Ever tried lipreading 'Happy Feet'?

These are some of the most recent examples of what has plagued deaf and hearing-impaired Australians watching television and film. The inquiry however will be able to scrutinise all of these issues.

When it looks overseas, it will find examples like the UK Film Council. This government-backed agency has just allocated ₤500,000 to allow independent local cinemas to improve access, such as buying and installing equipment to provide captions and audio-description. Included in Senator Stott Despoja’s original proposal was a call for captioning everything on television by 2011. The inquiry will find out this would merely give deaf and hearing-impaired Australians what their American counterparts are already enjoying now.

While FTA broadcasters are moving towards their captioning targets, it needs to be remembered that captions, to the extent we already have them, did not arise from the goodness of the corporations’ hearts. Captions on television and film happened because deaf individuals stood up and lodged complaints under the Disability Discrimination Act. These complaints started a chain of enquiries and negotiations between the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, film and television companies, film distributors, and advocacy agencies for deaf and hearing-impaired people.

With a fresh round of negotiations imminent for both film and television, the inquiry will show film and FTA broadcasters where they stand in relation to Senator Coonan’s call.

Let there be no doubt of the importance of captions. Pressing the mute button does not equal the experience of hearing impairment while watching the television or at the cinema. It is much worse than that. A hearing aid, a cochlear implant, a listening device, a volume set close to maximum, some lipreading, or a combination of these may allow comprehension of words and phrases here and there. But no one will understand the entire dialogue. And no one has ever managed to lipread the penguins in Happy Feet.

It is most interesting that Senator Coonan’s press release referred to a “personal link to deafness”, something she shares with Senator Stott Despoja. This factor must surely have played some part in uniting these two from different political parties. The inquiry is good news for millions of Australians who ask for nothing more than the chance to enjoy film and television, whenever they wish, in whatever medium, just as do hearing people. In the end, Senator Coonan deserves credit. And Senator Stott Despoja, who has fought on this issue for years, will be remembered as a visionary.