Having access to television content might seem like a first world problem – and when you look at the hierarchy of issues that exist for people with disability around the world, I guess it probably is. Human rights are human rights though. They belong to everyone, and they are there to be claimed and upheld.

Audio description, also known as AD, is a service that makes arts and media accessible to people who are blind or vision impaired. During gaps in dialogue, a narrated voice conveys information about on-screen elements such as:

• Actions
• Facial expressions
• Scenery and settings
• Clothing and costumes
• On-screen text

Still not quite getting the concept? Check out a sample clip from Disney’s The Lion King – here.

Audio description is already available in cinemas, in theatres, on DVD and on subscription services such as Netflix in Australia. When it comes to content that is broadcast on free to air television though, it is still a pipedream.

Let me try to put this into perspective a little. Did you know that Audio description has already been available on free-to-air television in most other English-speaking countries for many years? Or how about the fact that iconic Aussie shows like Neighbours are already audio described for overseas audiences? What’s more, the government’s failure to introduce audio description on Australian television seems all the more discriminatory when considering that they have already taken proactive steps to increase access to television for Australians who are Deaf. That’s right – the Broadcasting Services Act already requires 100% of television content that is broadcast between 6:00AM and midnight to be captioned for the benefit of people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. People who are blind, on the other hand, simply miss out.

Now let’s look at the Governments obligations around this issue. The Australian Government has signed and ratified an international treaty called the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In doing so, it has made a legal commitment to uphold the rights set out in the convention – including:

• The right to access systems and services that are available to the public (Article 9)
• The right to access information on an equal basis with others (Article 21)
• The right to enjoy cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport on an equal basis with others (Article 30)

Importantly, the general obligations of the Convention require governments to:

“adopt all appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the present Convention”

People often argue that the Convention is a toothless tiger because it isn’t enshrined in Australian Law. While this may be technically correct, there are several avenues available to Australians with disability who wish to advocate for their rights, as set out under the Convention, to be upheld. They aren’t avenues that are widely known about though, nor are they ones that are commonly used. This being the case, I wanted to put them to the test for myself!

Back in 2015, I lodged a complaint about audio description on television with the Australian Human Rights Commission. My complaint wasn’t lodged under the Disability Discrimination Act like you might expect though. It was lodged under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act; Section 11 (f) of which gives the Commission the power to investigate complaints about breaches of human rights by the Australian Government. The Human Rights Commission has functions under the Act in relation to a number of international instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. My complaint argued that the Australian Government had fallen short of its obligations under the Convention by failing to take all reasonable legislative measures to implement the rights set out in the Convention. The premise of the argument was that by failing to amend the Broadcasting Services Act to include minimum targets for audio description on television, the Australian Government had breached its obligations to people who are blind or vision impaired.

Although I had received legal assistance from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre to progress my complaint, the measures outlined under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act did not allow us to achieve the result we wanted and thus, the complaint was terminated. This led me to explore the next option, which involved going international!

While most people will know about the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities itself, it would seem that not everyone has heard of the optional protocol to the Convention. The optional protocol is a more limited document that allows a person with disability to lodge a complaint with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in instances where they feel that their rights have been breached by a state party to the convention. In order for a complaint to be accepted at this level though, the complainant must be able to demonstrate that they have already exhausted all domestic remedies that are reasonably available to them. This can be a difficult task in itself and I’m not going to get into the many barriers to justice that exist within Australia’s anti-discrimination framework. Nevertheless, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre assisted me to draft a complaint that provided an extensive background of my own advocacy efforts on this issue, as well as the actions that have been taken by a number of Australian blindness organisations. Importantly, it mapped out the steps that have been taken by the Australian Government to investigate the feasibility of implementing audio description on television to-date and systematically demonstrated how these measures fell short of Australia’s obligations under the Convention.

My complaint was lodged with the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities late last year and has now been accepted. I have been notified that the Committee has requested further information from the Australian Government, which they are required to provide within 6 months of receiving this request. For now, it’s very much a waiting game. I’ll provide further updates when more information becomes available. In the meantime though, you might be interested in reading about an Australian case that was previously investigated by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities involving the participation of Deaf people in jury service. You can check it out here: