[LINK] Government Announcement Fails Accessibility Test

[Tom Worthington]

The Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner, announced 
that the Australian Government would adopt version 2.0 of the Web 
Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0): 
<http://www.financeminister.gov.au/media/2010/mr_052010_joint.html>.

Unfortunately, the web page with the announcement failed tests with both 
version 1 and version 2 of the guidelines, as shown with a TAW Automated 
Test: <http://www.tawdis.net/ingles.html?lang=en>.

On a version 1 of the TAW test, the page had zero Level 1, eleven level 
2 and one level three problems. On the TAW version 2 tests the page had 
12 "Perceivable" problems: 
<http://www.tawdis.net/system/modules/org.fundacionctic.taw4_wcag_informes_ocms/elements/wcag20/detalle.jsp?url=http://www.financeminister.gov.au/media/2010/mr_052010_joint.html&crc=1>.

The minister needs to have his own web site checked to ensure he is 
following the policy issued by his own department and complying with 
Australian law. It should be noted that the Minister does not have the 
authority to decide what is, or is not, legal. Under the Disability 
Discrimination Act 1992, the Australian Human Rights Commission issues 
guidance and courts decide: 
<http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/standards/www_3/www_3.html>.

ps: The announcement page also scored only 34/100 on the W3C mobileOK 
Checker. While this is not required by law, it would be desirable if 
government information was provided in an efficient and easy to read 
format: 
<http://validator.w3.org/mobile/check?task=2010022422382913927&view=cat&docAddr=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.financeminister.gov.au%2Fmedia%2F2010%2Fmr_052010_joint.html>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/user/3890