Page 190 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 12 February 2020

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(1) notes that:

(a) Auslan (Australian Sign Language) is the language of the Deaf community in Australia;

(b) over the summer period smoke, bushfires, hail, dust and coronavirus impacted the lives of many Australians;

(d) ACT Emergency Services provided an outstanding response, along with volunteer organisations, government agencies and directorates in protecting life and property, in providing recovery centres, evacuation centres, assistance of all sorts to residents and evacuees, and communication and information resources;

(e) initially, up to around 2 January 2020, no Auslan interpreter was provided in briefings, media conferences and the like;

(f) this meant that the Canberra Deaf community was left at times without important and potentially life-saving information and communication access; and

(g) the Deaf community mobilised and complained, and called on the Government to provide an interpreter, which they then did whenever possible;

(2) further notes that:

(a) in some cases an Auslan interpreter may be present, but is not visible to the viewer because of decisions made by media personnel;

(b) obviously, members of the Deaf community cannot use the radio for information updates; and

(c) live news sometimes does not have captions because of the fast moving and immediate nature of situational updates; and

(3) calls on the ACT Government to:

(a) develop, or if already available, table communication policies and procedures for emergency situations such as a State of Alert or Emergency, and explain why this communication access was not provided from the outset;

(b) if not already included, ensure these policies and procedures include briefing media representatives (such as cameramen) or including the Auslan interpreter in picture;

(c) report back to the Assembly by end of June 2020 as to what policies, procedures, or other changes have or will be made to ensure communication access is not withheld in future emergencies; and

(d) investigate other ways to provide our Deaf community in the ACT with better communication access.

It appears that once again the deaf community have been neglected in the provision of information. This time it started with the heavy smoke haze over Canberra in December. There was a failure to provide Auslan interpreters during broadcasts earlier this summer for what many were seeing as an emergency situation. I mean that

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