At this stage there is no public schedule that will tell us when each location will be made accessible. Although there are rumours around the current 12 locations being upgraded first of all, this has not been confirmed.
Disability Discrimination Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes spoke to Media Access Australia CEO Alex Varley about accessibility in the cinema and what these changes will mean.
A recording of that interview can be found on the Human Rights Commission website.
For additional information about the changes that will be made by the cinema chains, see the Your Local Cinema Website.
This expansion includes audio description and a new captioning technology called CaptiView.
For those fighting for accessible cinema, this is an exciting result. Australia is considerably behind countries such as the UK and USA and this move is a substantial one in catching up.
For John Byrne, a West Australian deaf man, this is a welcome change. Byrne remembers sitting in the back of a cinema with his daughter and a notepad as she ‘captioned’ for him.
The Hon Bill Shorten MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, said today, “At the moment people with impaired hearing are being forced to travel across town to catch a Wednesday matinee, because there are so few cinemas offering captions. I am excited that major cinemas have recognised that this form of discrimination is not acceptable, and that they will improve their business by attracting a new group of customers.”
