The Commonwealth Government operates its accessibility policy under the DDA.
The compulsory captioning of television commercials is administered by the Government Communications Unit, which provides advice to the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications. The only area which is exempt from captioning is Defence Force Recruitment. All videos and DVDs are captioned by individual agencies fulfilling their obligations under the DDA.
Under the Government Online Strategy, all Commonwealth Government department and agency websites must conform to the W3C WCAG 1.0 standard, in line with recommendations from the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). Following the release of the W3C WCAG 2.0 standard in 2008, the Federal Government announced in February 2010 that all its websites would be compliant with WCAG 2.0 by 2015.
The accessible development of websites is supported by a number of government resources including the AHRC Guide to World Wide Web Accessibility, the Australian Government Information Management Office Better Practice Checklist, the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Better Information and Communication Practices, and the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Good Practice Guide for Culturally Responsive Government Services.
Top of page