Interpreters at Prime Minister's
Press Conferences

We need access to Press Conferences too

Deaf, Deafblind and hard of hearing people deserve access

Deaf Australia advocates for the right of Deaf, Deafblind and hard of hearing people to participate fully in their communities and to achieve a full social, economic and civic life, as per the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ Articles 9: Accessibility and 21: Freedom of expression and opinion, and access to information. Auslan interpreters at press conferences on a daily basis should be the norm, not the exception.

Scott Morrison at a Press Conference

Media Release

We at Deaf Australia wish to highlight the lack of Auslan interpreters used at the Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s press conferences. Most state premiers have had Auslan interpreters at their COVID-19 press conferences daily, which is acknowledged and appreciated. The same standard should apply to the Prime Minister: we expect no less.

Auslan interpreting at press conferences is crucial to ensuring that Deaf, Deafblind and hard of hearing people can comply with urgent directions and help save lives. Auslan-users have had to rely on state premier’s updates, and have not been able to follow any of the vaccination roll-out plans.

To those who argue that live captioning is provided, there is current research from ACCAN to suggest the quality of live captioning is questionable. The quality of live captions depends on the provider, the technology used and the personnel and can vary greatly across both broadcaster and program genre. Nuance is lost when watching programs exclusively with live captions. Captions are not always verbatim, so the possibility of critical information lost is high. Any prior access to content does not necessarily improve the quality of captions and indeed tended to introduce new errors such as captions preceding content. Many Deaf, Deafblind and hard of hearing people are not fluent in English, which makes reaching them in emergencies difficult or impossible.

Deaf Australia urges for the presence of qualified, experienced, and appropriate Auslan interpreters, including Deaf interpreters, at all press conferences with the Prime Minister. Regardless of whether the topic is urgent such as COVID-19, vaccine roll-out plan, the fall of Afghanistan, or the Women’s Summit that was recently announced, qualified and appropriate Auslan interpreters should be present and seen. This expectation is the same for the Opposition party.

Deaf Australia advocates for the right of Deaf, Deafblind and hard of hearing people to participate fully in their communities and to achieve a full social, economic and civic life, as per the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ Articles 9: Accessibility and 21: Freedom of expression and opinion, and access to information. Auslan interpreters at press conferences on a daily basis should be the norm, not the exception.

Guidelines on best practice for Auslan interpreting

There are already guidelines on best practice for Auslan interpreting on media as seen here:

  • Deaf Australia’s Position Statement on Broadcasting of Auslan interpreter on broadcast and digital networks - see link here.
  • ASLIA National: Guidelines for Auslan interpreting in Media settings - see link here:
  • The Federal Government Attorney-General’s Department, National Emergency Management Project, also commissioned a study to explore how to include Auslan users in emergencies, which also includes recommendations on preparing Deaf interpreters and interpreters for appropriate interpreting, consistently on the screen. This report is not found online, but is titled: All Hands on Deck: Preparing Auslan signers for an emergency; and informs this website.
  • The World Federation of the Deaf has created a Position Paper on Accessibility: Sign Language Interpreting and translation and technological developments - see link here:

How to contact your Prime Minister


Click the below link to upload your letter

Write to the Prime Minister!


or

Click to download the letter here

⚠️The letter is in accessible WORD format. Make sure you change the yellow highlighted parts of the letter!