From:	Lesley & Houw Tan 
To:	disabdis
Subject:	Captioning in Cinemas

Importance:	High

I understand that the Cinema Industry has applied for an exemption from 
the Disability Discrimination Act in relation to captioning for the next 
two and a half years.

I believe this is most unfair and discriminatory for the many hard of 
hearing and deaf people in our community who need access to films just 
like other people.  It is probably more important for them as they are 
limited in other ways.

This involves 125 cinemas owned by Village, Hoyts, Reading and Greater 
Union Cinemas who will offer ALMOST NO captioning for the next 2.5 
years.  If accepted, captioning will be offered at 35 cinemas just 3 
times a week (which translates to one movie a week, mostly off peak - 
just 0.3% of the estimated 40,000 films screened by these four major 
cinemas each week).  So these people will not enjoy movies with their 
friends at popular times, working people have almost no chance of seeing 
movies.

DO NOT ALLOW THIS TO GO ON, PLEASE

Lesley Tan