ACMA given more discretion to investigate complaints

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Friday, 21 March 2014 09:49am

The Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA) is to be given greater discretion about whether to investigate complaints under the Broadcasting Services Act, including complaints related to television captioning. 

The change is one of the Federal Government’s ‘Repeal Day’ package of reforms to cut red tape which were announced yesterday. A spokesperson for the ACMA said, “This amendment will allow the ACMA to take no action on complaints that are, for example, misconceived, trivial, stale or inappropriately divert the ACMA’s resources and the resources of broadcasters.”

In November 2013, the Department of Communications requested submissions from organisations in the communications sector. In its submission, Media Access Australia made recommendations regarding the ACMA’s investigation and caption exemption processes, and incorporating audio description requirements in the Broadcasting Services Act. All the submissions can be downloaded from Department of Communications’ Deregulation page.

The Government has said that the reforms, which are contained in the Omnibus Repeal Day (Autumn 2014) Bill, will save the media and communications industry $35 million a year.


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