From:	Darren Roberts 
Sent:	Monday, 30 November 2009 10:38 AM
To:	disabdis
Subject:	Auslan Captioning in Cinemas

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

‘…An important issue has arisen recently, with four major cinema chains in Australia 
banding together to put in a submission for exemption from the Disability 
Discrimination Act for 2.5 years, while only providing minimal cinema captioning and 
audio description in this time, and beyond.  If granted, this exemption will effectively 
render any complaints about accessibility void in this period…’

My name is Darren, and as a deaf person and teacher of Auslan who owns The 
Auslan Company I find the above, that the big 4 cinema’s are planning to, in effect, not 
improve accessibility for deaf people to view captioned cinema, to be a backward step 
during a time when equal access is a right for every person in Australia.

It is in effect just like those same big 4 cinema’s deciding not to show movies with 
SOUND.  Now how would hearing people feel about that?

So do the right thing by deaf and deaf/blind people and DO NOT ALLOW the big 4 
cinema chains to be exempted in any way from their moral right to provide access 
for ALL Australians.

With kind regards,

Darren Roberts
Director
The Auslan Company

www.auslan.net.au