Electricity bills unreadable for thousands of Australians
Jul 28, 2023 6:26:55 GMT 7
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Post by bear on Jul 28, 2023 6:26:55 GMT 7
Electricity bills unreadable for thousands of Australians amid a cost-of-living crisis
Ria Andriani switched electricity providers to get bills she could actually read.
Like many Australians, Ria Andriani is curbing spending to cope with rising living costs.
Key points:
Many Australian utility companies do not provide bills in accessible formats
There are digital accessibility guidelines, but consumers say they are rarely enforced
Advocates say the Disability Discrimination Act needs to be updated
The Blue Mountains resident, a writer at ABC Classic, wants the best power prices.
"What am I getting charged for, when am I getting charged?" Ms Andriani, who has been blind since childhood, said.
"What is the best time to use electricity for household tasks?"
But her power company was sending her bills she could not read, in the form of PDFs incompatible with screen reader software.
The 33-year-old asked for a better format and while the company told her they would look into it, nothing further came of her request.
"Without knowing the details in the bill itself, it is really hard to lower the bills," she said.
"I just feel I should be able to sign up like any other Australian, and get my bill in a format I can read."
She is not alone in experiencing problems with digital bills.
Utility companies often email bills to customers as PDFs, but many cannot be accessed with the technology used by people who are blind or have low vision.
Perth man Ryan Honschooten said he felt like a "burden" and "helpless" when he had to wait for a sighted person to read him his credit card statement.
"It really does impact your independence … [and privacy]," he said.
"I don't really want the world to know how much I owe on my credit card."
For years the 49-year-old had been receiving his bills in hard copy via post then scanning them using a variety of devices, hoping his speech technology could decipher them.
"When I started getting my bills electronically it was like being in a new lolly shop," he said.
"But then, when you soon realised they weren't accessible and were poorly designed, it was like being shut out of the shop."
Internet guidelines that are 15 years old
An estimated 453,000 Australians are blind or have low vision, and disability organisation Vision Australia projects this will grow to 564,000 by 2030.
International standards for how to make digital information such as PDFs accessible, called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, do exist.
The guidelines are voluntary and give advice on how organisations can make their digital information available in various formats.
But Australia is following an out-of-date version, according to Scott Hollier, the chief executive at the Centre for Accessibility Australia.
"The international standard we follow is from 2008, but the current standard is 2018," he said.
A new set of guidelines is expected to be released later this year which will include the most current guidance around PDF accessibility. It is unclear whether Australia will adopt them.
Why are PDFs a problem?
PDFs are frequently used to make documents available on the internet
Accessibility varies wildly depending on how the PDF is created
The Australian Human Rights Commission published an advisory note in 2014 with advice on PDFs
It says "organisations that publish documents only in PDF risk complaint under the [Disability Discrimination Act]"
Guidance on how to make PDFs more accessible is contained in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
There is also an international standard for PDFs but it is rarely implemented
The guidelines Australia follows are not the only thing that needs to be updated, according to Dr Hollier. Australia's Disability Discrimination Act requires information to be accessible, but it dates back to 1992.
"The fact that the Disability Discrimination Act doesn't specifically reference ICT (information communication and technology) is an issue in terms of trying to ensure accessibility is enforced," he said.
Dr Hollier said utility companies often were not aware they must make information accessible for people who were vision-impaired.
He added that when companies failed to comply, they were rarely held to account.
The Australian Energy Regulator this year published the Better Bills Guidelines requiring energy retailers to make both paper and electronic bills more accessible, but the new guidance contains no specific mention of customers who are blind or vision-impaired.
Consumers like Ms Andriani and Mr Honschooten don't know why issuing accessible documents has to be so difficult.
Ms Andriani knows it's possible because she used to work as an alternative format producer, ensuring blind and vision-impaired people were provided with information they could read.
"My job was to make sure people could get good quality documents," she said.
"To not be able to get that for myself in my personal life was just so disappointing."
Disability Discrimination Act a 'toothless tiger'
When people experience problems around accessibility online they can make complaints to the Human Rights Commission.
But the process isn't easy for everyone with disability to navigate, the director of inclusion at the Australian Communications Consumer Action Networ, Wayne Hawkins, said.
Dr Hawkins, who lost his vision later in life, said the Disability Discrimination Act needed to be strengthened.
He believes the Human Rights Commission has a role to play in speaking out about the "inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the Act".
"[The Disability Discrimination Act] is somewhat of a toothless tiger," he said.
"You can make a complaint but potentially nothing can happen.
"If the company you are complaining against doesn't want to reconcile, then you go to court which can have significant financial consequences."
The Human Rights Commission said it believed the Disability Discrimination Act was due for reform.
"The Act pre-dates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Australia in 2008," Human Rights Commission president and acting Disability Discrimination Commissioner Rosalind Croucher said.
"There have been substantial technological advances since the Act came into force, which means certain provisions are not well adapted to our modern digital world and are no longer fit for purpose."
A 'serious disadvantage' in a cost-of-living crisis
Ultimately, Dr Hawkins said making bills accessible was a matter of equal access to information.
"Given the cost-of-living crisis we are going through, this is just adding more pressure to families to try and make the right choices about the goods and services they are accessing," he said.
"If they don't have that information they are at a serious disadvantage."
Ria Andriani has now signed up with a new electricity company and has been assured her bills will be accessible.
"If you are not able to provide me with what I need then I will spend my money elsewhere," she said.
Ryan Honschooten agreed.
"As vision-impaired people in the community we do talk with each other, we do compare your websites and your electronic media," he said.
"If it's not accessible we let each other know and we will go use the ones that are accessible."