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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 4322 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Recently, large numbers of annual reports have been released. However, these are not all available on the web. When we search the government website for annual reports 2002-03 the search returns only a few annual reports-the Department of Education, Youth and Family Services; Treasury; Flora and Fauna Committee; and the Chief Minister's Department.

Not only that, these annual reports are only available as PDFs. There are no alternatives for Word, text or RTF; nor is there an easy reference to how to get paper copies. Particularly of concern is that screen readers which turn text into audio for people who cannot see the screen usually cannot read PDF because it is a picture, not individual words.

My question is: why is there no easily accessible list and links to all ACT government annual reports and why are they not available in non-PDF format for people who are vision impaired or blind?

MR STANHOPE: I thank Ms Tucker for the question. I regret, Ms Tucker, I don't have a ready answer for you.

I think you raised some very serious questions and issues around annual reports and annual report availability. I will certainly pursue each of the issues you raised. I regret I don't know the answer to any of the questions you asked, other than to acknowledge that the issues around accessibility, access and readability of annual reports are fundamentally important issues, certainly to accountability and information available to the community. I will chase up each of those issues individually and specifically.

MR SPEAKER: Supplementary question?

MS TUCKER: Thank you. Also, could you get back to the Assembly with the results of the periodic audits that are to be conducted by ACTIM and of the annual reviews of policies and guidelines since November 2001?

MR STANHOPE: I am more than happy to take that on notice and supply the information, Mr Speaker.

Hall Primary School

MR PRATT: My question is to the minister for education, Ms Gallagher. My office has recently received correspondence about the inadequate school hall facilities at Hall Primary School. The school currently uses a transportable classroom to hold the enrolled 160 children and numerous teachers as a makeshift school hall. The children are unable to do gross motor skill exercises or indoor gymnastics in the hall they have.

The school has put forward requests for new facilities in the past but has not had a positive outcome. What is your department doing about the obviously inadequate facilities that children attending Hall Primary School have to endure?

MS GALLAGHER: I thank Mr Pratt for the question. It is great. I have been sitting here week in, week out since the beginning of August waiting for a question from the

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