Telstra engages with consumer organisations representing people with a disability to enhance the accessibility of our products, services and information, and to support disability community initiatives.
Consultation
There are great benefits to including disability consumer representatives in the development and review of our Disability Action Plans, and in making our products, services and information more accessible.
In 1999, Telstra established the Telstra Disability Forum, where key consumer groups and Telstra senior managers discuss telecommunications issues affecting people with a disability.
The forum meets twice a year with representatives from:
- Australian Federation of Disability Organisations
- Better Hearing Australia
- Blind Citizens Australia
- Brain Injury Australia
- Council on the Ageing (COTA)
- Deaf Australia
- Deafness Forum
- First Peoples Disability Network (Australia)
- National Council on Intellectual Disability
- National Ethnic Disability Alliance
- Physical Disability Australia
- Women with Disabilities (Australia)
- Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN)
Community initiatives
Telstra is involved in a range of broader community initiatives to help promote accessibility for people with a disability, in communication, technology or education.
Initiatives we currently support include:
Telstra-TJA Christopher Newell Prize for Telecommunications and Disability
Revd Canon Dr Christopher Newell AM (1964-2008)
The Telstra-TJA Christopher Newell Prize for Telecommunications and Disability recognises and commemorates the ground-breaking work that Christopher undertook within the telecommunications industry from 1990 to 2008 in representing the needs of people with disability. The $15,000 prize pool is awarded to the best paper offered for publication to the Telecommunications Journal of Australia (TJA) each year that demonstrates the tangible benefits that the innovative use of broadband or other telecommunications technology can deliver to assist individuals with disabilities. The best entries are published by the TJA, generally in May at www.tja.org.au.
The Prize competition is administered by the Managing Editor of TJA, Dr Peter Gerrand, on behalf of the ACS-TSA (Telecommunications Society of Australia; a Special Interest Group of the Australian Computer Society) using a Judging Panel of independent experts to evaluate and rank the competition entries.
More information about the Prize
Link magazine - Telstra continues to be the principal sponsor of Link magazine, which examines issues from a disability perspective.
