Best job in the world? Not if you're vision-impaired

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This was published 15 years ago

Best job in the world? Not if you're vision-impaired

By Conal Hanna

A Tourism Queensland website advertising what's been dubbed the best job in the world has been accused of discriminating against vision-impaired people.

Les Kerr, of the Brisbane suburb of Wooloowin, is mounting a growing crusade against websites that don't consider the needs of people with vision impairments.

Mr Kerr, 53, who has been visually impaired since contracting an "aggressive glaucoma" about three years ago, is already taking Virgin Blue to the Federal Magistrates Court over its website later this month.

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Yesterday, he took aim at Tourism Queensland's high-profile campaign to recruit a "caretaker" to blog about life on the Barrier Reef.

Applications for the job, which has attracted headlines around the world, are being sought via website http://www.islandreefjob.com.

"It appears that the Queensland Government and Tourism Queensland feel that the disabled are not good enough for the 'best job in the world' if the poor standard of accessibility of this website is an example," Mr Kerr said in a statement.

"While they both think that this website is a great promotion for tourism in Queensland it is another damning and pathetic example of the contempt with which the disabled are continually treated by all levels of government, and business for that matter, in this country."

Mr Kerr said the site used "terrible" colour contrast and sloppy coding that made it difficult for people using screen readers (which present websites as audio for blind people) to understand.

He said he had lodged a formal Disability Discrimination Complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission over the website.

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Mr Kerr admitted "99 per cent" of other websites also posed similar problems for visually-impaired people, which was why he was challenging high-profile companies and the government to do better.

He said he also had plans to pursue court action against the Seven Network, Yahoo and the ACCC, over its GroceryChoice website.

"Even the Prime Minister's website doesn't comply (with international accessibility guidelines)," he said.

"But I will be completely blind eventually and if people don't improve their practices, I won't be able to use the web."

Michael Simpson, general manager of policy for Vision Australia, said many sites could be improved in terms of accessibility.

He said improving a website for visually-impaired users was usually straightforward.

"It doesn't mean that a website needs to be boring visually ... it can be pleasing as well as accessible," he said.

The office of state Tourism Minister Desley Boyle did not return brisbanetimes.com.au phone calls.

Mr Kerr's case against Virgin Blue case will be heard in the Federal Magistrates Court in Brisbane on January 28.

brisbanetimes.com.au

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