Auslan Training

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (14:55): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills a question regarding the training and employment of Auslan sign language interpreters and captioners.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: As I mentioned a couple of days ago in this place, following the Adelaide Hills bushfire events, Dignity for Disability has been doing some work to discuss how emergency services and emergency broadcasts could be made more accessible to people with disabilities and the deaf community. In particular, we have been looking at the need for live, open captioning during television broadcasts, the need for accredited, specially trained Australian sign language (Auslan) interpreters to provide live interpretation during broadcasts, and also the need for emergency preparedness resources to include Auslan interpretation.

It is worth noting that, with the ageing of the South Australian population and the increasing culturally diverse population that we have, the need for both closed and open captioning in our television broadcasts is only going to increase, and there are a variety of communities that would benefit from the use of both Auslan interpretation and captioning in broadcasting. My questions to the minister are:

1. What broad policy initiatives does the minister have in place for the ongoing training of caption providers and Auslan interpreters? If there is no broad policy initiative in this area, why not?

2. What training is currently in place in South Australia to develop and accredit Auslan interpreters and caption providers in the workforce?

3. How many current professional accredited Auslan interpreters do we have in South Australia and how many of those gained their accreditation here?

4. How many current accredited captioners do we have in South Australia who also completed their training here?

5. Does the minister have any plans to list training for Auslan interpreters and caption providers in her priority list for the Skills for All program in the future?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:57): I thank the honourable member for her most important questions. Indeed, the availability of captioners, signers and interpreters is a valuable part of our ability to be able to communicate with all members of our society. Most of the questions that the honourable member has asked pertain to federal policy matters in terms of broadcasting policy and the like, so they are outside of the purview of my responsibilities. Nevertheless, they are areas that I think are important.

As state members it is important that we continue to lobby and ensure that our federal colleagues are made aware of the importance of continuing to develop good policy in these areas, and I am certainly willing to do that. In relation to the courses available for interpreters, course contents are put together by course curriculum development involving wide sectors of the community. I would be surprised if issues around broad communication options had not been considered, but I will certainly make sure that they are brought to the attention of those policymakers.