Presentation toRound Table on Information Access For People with Print Disabilities
Annual Conference
April 27, 2003
Bruce Maguire
Policy/Project Officer,
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Good morning everyone. I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners
of the land on which we are meeting today.
I've always had a yearning to be in the Guinness Book of Records, and so I decided, in preparation for today, to give the shortest presentation ever made by a staff member of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. My presentation thus consists of just seven letters: a question of 4 letters, and an answer of 3 letters. The question is SSDD, and the answer is DDA.
I won't ask whether you would like me to expand on this presentation, just in case you say no. During the past week I have been reading Stephen King's novel Dreamcatcher. It's as scary and gruesome as you would expect from the author of The Shining and Pet Cemetery. There are five main characters in Dreamcatcher, discounting those cute little alien creatures with tails who bite people's faces off. These five have been friends since childhood, and they have developed a vocabulary of colourful expressions. One of these is SSDD: same shit, different day. They use it as a statement, but today I'm using it as a question. SSDD? Or, to put it another way: has access to information for people with a print disability improved during the past 10 years, or has nothing changed? SSDD? The answer, I believe, can be summed up in the 3-letter abbreviation DDA, which, as I'm sure you all know, is an abbreviation for the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act 1992, and a code word for progress in the inclusion of people with a disability into the social, Cultural and economic life of Australian society.
I might must admit that I also feel nostalgic when I asked to give presentations at a Round Table conference. I have had an involvement with the Round Table since 1990. I think that these annual conferences provide a unique opportunity for the print disability sector to come together to network, support each other and exchange information and ideas. I remember visiting the UK in 1996 and hearing envious comments that they would love to have an organisation like the Round Table. We should never make the mistake of taking the Round Table for granted, lest we lose it and the aliens come and capture our dreams for a more accessible information society. The Commission certainly values and appreciates the opportunity to present updates at these conferences.
By "Commission", I mean the organisation that is at present the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (abbreviated to HREOC). I am a Policy and Project Officer within the Commission's Disability Rights Unit, and the main function of our unit is to promote the objectives of the Disability Discrimination Act. The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) is the key piece of Commonwealth legislation that relates to discrimination against the more than 1 million Australians who have a print disability. The DDA is one of a number of legal instruments relating to human rights that is administered by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
The DDA makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person on the grounds of a disability. The objects of the DDA include eliminating, as far as possible, discrimination against people with disabilities, and promoting recognition and acceptance within the community that people with a disability have the same fundamental rights as the rest of the community.
The DDA uses a broad definition of "disability" that includes:
" Physical
" Intellectual
" Psychiatric
" Sensory
" Neurological, and
" Learning disabilities, as well as
" Physical disfigurement, and
" The presence in the body of disease-causing organisms.
The DDA sets out specific areas in which it is unlawful to discriminate. These areas include access to premises; accommodation; education; employment; the provision of goods, services and facilities; and the administration of Commonwealth laws and programmes. The definitions of "goods" and "services" in the DDA include financial and information services provided, for example, by banks and other financial institutions, retail shops, churches, cinemas, television stations, as well as services and equipment provided by telecommunications companies. An organisation such as a government department that provides services is also liable for complaint under the DDA if those services are not accessible to people with a disability.
The DDA defines two kinds of discrimination: direct discrimination is when a person with a disability is treated less favourably because of that disability. An example would be if a university refused to allow a blind student to enrol, or if a shop assistant refused to serve a person because they were accompanied by a dog guide. Indirect discrimination refers to treatment that, on the face of it, is not discriminatory, but which actually has a disproportionate impact on people with a particular disability. For example, an employer might require that applicants for a particular job have a driver's license, even though the job does not involve driving. Such a requirement would indirectly discriminate against people who are blind or who have another disability that prevents them from driving a car. Providing emergency service information only in audio form may also involve indirect discrimination, as it would not be accessible to many people who are deaf or hearing-impaired.
The DDA recognises that, in certain circumstances, providing equitable access for people with a disability may cause "unjustifiable hardship" for an individual or organisation. I'll return to this in a moment.
Where a person with a disability believes they have been discriminated against, they can make a formal complaint to the Commission, which will investigate the complaint and, where appropriate, attempt to conciliate a solution between the two parties. Where conciliation is not possible, the complainant may take their complaint to the Federal Court or Federal Magistrates Service, which have the authority to determine whether unlawful discrimination has occurred, and what constitutes "unjustifiable hardship". If the court concludes that removing discrimination would cause unjustifiable hardship, then the complaint is not upheld, that is, although there may be a finding of discrimination, there is no finding of unlawful discrimination.
There are two points to keep in mind about this notion of unjustifiable hardship: firstly, it implies that removing discrimination may involve some justifiable hardship - it is not enough for an organisation defending a complaint of disability discrimination to say that removing discrimination will be hard. Rather, the question is when that hardship becomes unjustifiable, and the answer will depend on a number of factors that can be considered by the court. Secondly, the concept of unjustifiable hardship recognises that not all discrimination can be removed, and that the rights of people with a disability are part of a social matrix whose diverse and sometimes incompatible elements must be balanced.
Having said that, It is important to note that the defence of "unjustifiable hardship" is not available where a complaint relates to the administration of Commonwealth laws and programmes. This reflects the government's view that it has a particular responsibility to promote the objectives of the DDA, and to eliminate discrimination against people with a disability. In the context of information access, this means that if a person who has a print disability lodges a complaint that alleges discrimination in the way a particular Commonwealth law or programme is administered, then the Commonwealth cannot claim unjustifiable hardship, and so if the complaint is upheld, it is obliged to take steps to eliminate the discrimination. One example of such a complaint would be in relation to an inaccessible Commonwealth government website, or the use of basically inaccessible file formats such as PDF without accessible alternatives in publishing web content.
The DDA works mainly through the complaints mechanism that I have just outlined, but there are other important aspects of the legislation. For example, the DDA allows for the development of what are known as DDA standards, in certain specific areas, these areas being accommodation, education, employment, the administration of Commonwealth laws and programmes, transport, and, most recently, access to premises. DDA standards provide much more specific information about what needs to be done to comply with the DDA in a particular area. Once a DDA standard comes into force, then contravening the standard amounts to a breach of the DDA itself; but, on the other hand, if an organisation is complying with a DDA standard, then they are deemed to be complying with the DDA in the area in question, and so a complaint cannot be successful. It is therefore important that DDA standards be developed with full consultation and consideration, and so far the process has been rather slow. Last October, the first DDA standard came into force, the Accessible Public Transport standard. It is hard to overestimate the long-term significance of this standard: over the next 20 years, people with a disability will find that public transport will become more and more accessible as a result of the biggest change to society in which the Commission has been involved. And the development of the transport standards was sparked by a DDA complaint made by an individual with a disability.
The Transport Standard contains a number of provisions that will have direct benefits to people who have a print disability. For example, signage must comply with the Australian standard AS1428.2. Tactile ground surface indicators (TGSIs) must be installed on access paths to indicate stairs, ramps, overhead obstructions below a height of 2 metres, and on the edges of railway platforms and wharves, and at bus stops. Information about public transport services must also be available to all passengers.
The Standard contains many detailed specifications, but there is also provision for transport providers to develop equivalent access solutions. This is an acknowledgement that making public transport fully accessible is an increasingly complex task, and that it may not always be possible to specify how it should be done in particular cases. If a transport provider needs to develop an equivalent access solution, then Section 33.4 of the Standard requires that they consult with people with a disability or their representative organisations about any proposals for providing equivalent access. It is therefore important for self-help and advocacy organisations to become familiar with the Standard, and to discuss it so that they can provide input into further development. Information access is not just about access to books and reading material.
At the moment, a lot of work is going into the development of a DDA standard dealing with access to premises. This will have important benefits for people who are blind, vision-impaired or who have another print disability; as a first step in the development of this standard, the Building Code of Australia's access provisions have been extended, and they include, for example, requirements for accessible signage and paths of travel. We also now have voluntary standards dealing with electronic banking services, including automatic taller machines (ATMs), EFTPOS, Internet banking, and telephone banking. I don't have time this morning to go into detail about these; the key point is that it is in your interest as people with a disability or members of the Round Table to become familiar with them and use them as a tool for lobbying to make our society more accessible. One comment that I have heard a few times from industry is how few people request braille copies of documents such as the banking standards. I urge you not to become complacent. More public and request-for-comment documents are available in braille now than there were ten years ago, but don't take it for granted, lest the aliens come and hijack our dreams of a more braille-friendly world.
So there has been considerable progress over the past ten years in making public transport, the built environment and services such as banking more accessible to people who have a print disability. So let me ask the question: SSDD? Same shit, different day? No way, thanks to the DDA.
There are probably many things for which US then Vice-President Al Gore won't be remembered, but he will certainly earn a place in history as the originator of the phrase "information superhighway". Some of us like it, some of us don't, but we all now live within sight, sound or touch of it, and that highway is bringing more information into our lives than ever before. But, like most highways, the information superhighway has come at a price: we have information, but we also have information overload; we have more spam than Monty Python could ever have imagined; and some sections of our society continue to experience information traffic snarls.
The would-be information prophets told us that we'd son have the paperless office, and that print books would soon be housed only in museums (where, presumably, you'd pay a dollar and a half just to see 'em, to paraphrase a Joanie Mitchell song). Like most prophets, they were wrong, of course: the information highway has given us more print than ever before in human history, along with all the other newer technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones. Having a print disability today is far more challenging than it was in the days of papyrus and hieroglyphics. With each new revolution in the development of our civilisation, people with a disability have had to develop new strategies for turning challenges into opportunities. In many respects, the forum on accessible tertiary materials that the Commission organised in May last year is part of this ongoing process of adapting to change.
The higher education sector is changing rapidly; the number of students with a print disability is increasing, but so are the costs of producing materials in braille, large print, e-text, and other alternative formats; the range and complexity of course materials is increasing, and students are expected to be computer-literate enough to send email, participate in online conferences, search electronic databases, and download lecture notes from the Web. The result is that many university students with a print disability have experienced frustrating traffic congestion and dead ends on the information superhighway.
Early last year, the Commission was asked by Blind Citizens Australia
(BCA) and students themselves to investigate ways of improving the situation.
We felt that the most effective way forward was to convene a forum that
all Australian universities would be invited to attend, to initiate the
development of strategies for providing curricular materials in accessible
formats in a cost-effective, efficient, and needs-appropriate way.
The forum was held on May 29; approximately 90 people participated, representing
35 of Australia's 39 universities, university librarians, government departments,
publishers, and students. Prior to the forum, on May 28, a session was
held to clarify and discuss copyright legislation and regimes as they
impact on students with a print disability. Most participants in the forum
also attended this session on copyright. In organising the forum, the
Commission received strong support from the Australian Vice-Chancellors'
Committee, and I want to acknowledge their contribution to the forum itself
and also to the work that has taken place as a result.
The forum included the presentation of a number of "perspective papers" that examined relevant issues from a variety of standpoints, including student, academic, disability support staff, and government. These papers are on the HREOC website, along with other background material, including the discussion paper that the Commission wrote to provide an overview of the issues to be discussed. Anyone unfamiliar with the issues would probably find it useful to begin by reading this discussion paper, and then move on to the perspective papers and other materials.
After the various presentations, the forum divided into 5 discussion
groups, each group dealing with a specific topic area:
1. Approaches to Production;
2. Copyright and Publishing;
3. Digital Libraries and the Sharing of Information in Accessible Formats;
4. Sector and Cross-sector Standards and Guidelines
5. University Policies, Practices and Procedures.
Each group was asked to develop recommendations aimed at improving access to curricular materials by students with a print disability. The complete list of recommendations is also available on our website, but I would like to highlight some of the recommendations that we feel are the most significant in terms of the benefits that will flow from their implementation.
A key aspect of providing accessible curricular materials is ensuring that they are produced in a cost-effective and efficient way. Achieving this goal has implications for all sections of what we can think of as the "commodity chain" for accessible-format materials, from a lecturer who writes a set of lecture notes, disability support staff who liaise with lecturers, specialist producers of accessible-format material, and, of course, students themselves. To ensure that there is a unified and consistent approach to the production chain as a whole, it was recommended by the forum that a working group be established to examine production-related issues, including the current and projected demand for accessible-format materials, the extent of production that is occurring both within the sector itself and via outsourcing to specialist producers, and ways of facilitating the sharing of existing material and preventing unnecessary duplication.
A second key group of recommendations that was developed by the forum relates to publishing and copyright. One of the most exciting opportunities that the information superhighway makes possible is the use of source files from publishers as the basis for producing accessible-format versions of books. This would substantially reduce the time and cost of production, since there would be no need to scan the print book or type it into the computer. The forum's recommendations in this area envisage the creation of a national clearing-house of publishers' files to which producers would have access. This is clearly a medium- to long-term project, but it is one that will have significant benefits for students.
An associated recommendation calls for greater discussion of the ways in which copyright laws and regulations can be used to enhance, rather than restrict, access to materials by students with a print disability. Continuing my earlier metaphor, the copyright stretch of the information superhighway is full of deep potholes, and our task is to re-tar the surface so that people with a print disability don't become stranded.
The forum provided a unique opportunity for the higher education sector and the disability community to share their expertise at the beginning of a process of achieving systemic change through consensus. The recommendations were directed towards achieving greater access by improving current processes, and by opening up mainstream channels. For the forum to be effective, however, requires ongoing work by the sector. Shortly after the forum, the Commission held discussions with AVCC to decide how best to go about the task of implementing the forum's recommendations. We decided to establish a Steering Committee on Accessible Curricular Materials for Universities. The main role of this committee is to develop strategies for implementing the forum recommendations. The committee is chaired by Prof. Sue Johnston, who is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) and the University of Tasmania; Kerri Allen, who is Chair of the University of South Australia's Disability Advisory Group, was the other university representative until her sad and untimely death some weeks ago; other members of the committee are AVCC, Blind Citizens Australia, Department of Education, Science and Training, the Tertiary Education Disability Council of Australia (TEDCA), and the Commission.
The first meeting of the Steering Committee was held in Sydney on November
1, and the second meeting was held recently. Notes from these and future
meetings can be found on the Commission's website Commission's website,
but I will summarise some of the key outcomes that have been achieved
so far:
first, a working group has been established to consider the forum recommendations
relating to production It had its first meeting earlier this month, and
the Round Table is represented by Jane Evans. The group will, in the coming
months, be surveying the higher education sector to gain a more in-depth
understanding of how much material is being produced in accessible formats
for use by students with a print disability; the results of this survey
will form the basis for subsequent work to develop national approaches
to production.
A second outcome from the meetings of the Steering Committee is the compilation by the Tertiary Education Disability Council of Australia (TEDCA) of a list of producers of accessible-format tertiary material. This is the first such list to be compiled in Australia, and it will be an invaluable resource to disability support staff in universities and other tertiary institutions.
The work of the Forum and the Steering Committee is, to be sure, only a beginning, but it is an important beginning, and represents encouraging progress. So, if I ask my original question, this time with reference to accessible curricular materials: SSDD? Hardly! Thanks to the DDA, and the way in which its objectives are being promoted.
Allow me to read a short extract from the minutes of the Round Table's
Production Subcommittee meeting that was held on April 5, 1993. The scene
is a discussion of copyright:
"(a) Further correspondence from C.A.L. [Copyright Agency Limited]
added to the confusion regarding distinctions in the Copyright Act between
physically handicapped and intellectually handicapped readers. The definitions
of print handicap issue needs to be resolved by Round Table - forming
its own definitions and then urging conformity from Attorney General,
C.A.L. and N.L.A. Bill Byrne will follow up with C.A.L.
(b) The possibility of contradictions between Disability Discrimination
Act and the Copyright Act were discussed and it was resolved to ask the
Round Table Executive to investigate this matter. "
It is quite sobering to read the list of people who were present at that meeting and to reflect that almost all of them are no longer involved in the work of the Round Table. But copyright issues seem to go on and on. Surely, this is a case of SSDD. Maybe Stephen King's weasel-like aliens could chew up the Copyright Act. Last year I offered two words on Copyright: confusion, and hope. Today I offer a third: progress. The Commission has recently established a Copyright and Publishing Roundtable to work towards removing barriers to information access that have resulted from the operation of legislation and procedures in the area of copyright and publishing. The Roundtable had its first meeting on March 21 this year. The meeting was attended by representatives from the Australian Copyright Council, the Australian Publishers Association, the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC), Blind Citizens Australia, Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department, Copyright Agency Limited (CAL), National Information and Library Services (NILS), Pearson Education Australia (publishers), the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities Inc., and the Commission. The minutes of the meeting will soon be available on our website, but I will mention the most important outcome, which is that we are compiling a list of frequently-asked questions (FAQ) about copyright and print disability. Some questions have clear answers, but others will require further work, and will help us set the directions for the future activities of the group. Foe example, is it legal for an individual with a print disability to scan their own books? What about sharing those books with others via a website? Do organisations need to get permission from the copyright holder before they can tr4anscribe a musical score into braille? We are keen for individuals and organisations to submit questions, so how is your opportunity to contribute to the accumulation and development of knowledge in this area. If you have a question that you would like included in the FAQ, please send it to the Copyright Council at email address info@copyright.org.au. The message should have a subject line of "FAQ for Copyright and Publishing Roundtable". Our long-term goal is to establish a national clearing house of publishers' texts in electronic format that could be used by producers and individuals to streamline the conversion into accessible formats.
Stephen King's Dreamcatcher is a large book: 882 pages. In order to read it, I scanned it - page by page. I became increasingly frustrated to think that this, and over 12,000 other books, are already available in electronic format on a US website called bookshare.org. These books are only available to US citizens at present, but the Commission is hoping to change that through discussions with publishers and other bodies such as the US Library of Congress.
The work that the Commission is doing is founded on the aims and objectives
of the DDA, that is, to eliminate disability discrimination as far as
possible. There is much work yet to be done, but we are starting to make
progress. SSDD? Definitely not.
Well, you didn't believe me when I said I was only going to talk for seven
letter, did you? Truth to tell, the scope of information access is constantly
expanding: the built environment, public transport, banking, books - the
list is almost endless, and in order to cover all aspects of information
access I would find myself in the Guinness Book of Records for giving
the longest presentation by a staff member of the Commission. I do want
to mention one more project in which we are involved, because we believe
that it will have important implications for people with a print disability.
Late last year we commissioned the preparation of a discussion paper looking at the accessibility of telecommunications products and services to people with a disability. Those of us with a print disability will be familiar with not being able to read the SMS messages that people send us, or to change the settings on our mobile phones. Last week I was asked if I could meet with a blind man here from Sweden. I offered instead to talk with him on the phone. But although he had a mobile phone and was able to make calls with it, he couldn't read its number, and so no-one could make calls to him. Other groups of people with a disability are also experiencing difficulties accessing telecommunications services. Deaf people, for example, cannot use their TTYs with digital mobile phones or the growing number of wireless loop and Internet-based telephone networks. Bill Jolley, whom most of you will know, was appointed to produce the discussion paper, and I am pleased to report that we will be launching it next month. We will be using the paper and the recommendations it contains to determine how the Commission can most effectively contribute to making telecommunications more accessible.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the DDA, and as part of our celebration of this historic event, the Commission has produced a publication that showcases the progress that has been made through use of the DDA on an individual and systemic level. But there is much more that could be done. By and large, the DDA is only effective if people are prepared to use it by lodging complaints. Sometimes people are reluctant to use the DDA because they think complaining is the same as whingeing, and that people with a disability should just accept things the way they are. The print disability field in Australia has been enriched by the personal advocacy of people such as Joan Ledermann and Leah Francis, and those who seek to preserve their memory and build on their achievements should be inspired by their examples. Discrimination against people who are blind, vision-impaired, or who have another print disability can be eliminated; society can be changed. We don not have to fall prey to the alien dreamcatcher. We in the Commission's Disability Rights Unit are always available to discuss the DDA and how you and your organisations can use it effectively.
But remember: the DDA is not the government's Act; it is not the Commission's
Act; it is your Act. May I conclude by revisiting the question that showed
so much promise of ending my presentation before it began. Have we made
progress in improving information access for people with a print disability?
Yes. SSDD? Most emphatically not, thanks to the DDA. But there is an even
shorter answer - a one-letter answer if you will. So my presentation is
reduced from seven letters to five. Progress in removing disability discrimination
is made possible by the DDA, but if the momentum is to continue, if the
dream is to become a reality, then the ultimate answer to the question
SSDD, depends on U (you).
