Accessibility

Commonwealth agencies are required by the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 to ensure that information and services are accessible by people with disabilities.

Accessing the website

This website has been designed to provide easy navigation and we endeavour to maintain it in accordance with the Australian Government website accessibility standards. If there is data that you require and it is in a format that you cannot access, or if you experience any other accessibility difficulties, please contact us.

Portable Document Format (PDF)

To view content in the Portable Document Format (PDF), you will need PDF reader software.

• If you are using a desktop computer you can download and install the Adobe PDF reader for free.
• If you are using a handheld device (e.g. tablet or phone) you may need to download PDF reader software from your device's application store.

Having problems viewing or saving PDFs on your handheld device?

If you are having problems accessing PDFs on your handheld device, you may need to download PDF reader software from your device's application store.

Some handheld devices cannot store files, please refer to your device's user manual for further information.

Accessible versions of publications

Some information on this website, particularly third-party supplied documents, are only available in PDF. Please contact us if you cannot access this format.

Some publications on this website, particularly during an election, are provided as large print, rtf, csv or e-text formats. Select publications will be available in other accessible formats (such as Braille and audio) by request.

National Relay Service

Callers who are deaf or have a hearing or speech impairment can call through the National Relay Service.

How to use the ReadSpeaker Listen function

ReadSpeaker allows the text on the website to be read out loud to you. It provides you assistance if you have trouble reading text online. By having the text read out loud to you, you can understand the information on the website more easily. This makes the content more accessible and the website more pleasant to visit. As a user you don’t have to download anything.

How does it work?

Listen to the main content

You simply click the Listen button to listen to the webpage's content:

An audio player appears (see image below) and ReadSpeaker starts reading the text of the webpage out loud.

In the player you can:

• Pause/restart the reading
• Stop the reading
• Use the progress bar to navigate in the audio
• Adjust the volume
• Click the settings icon to adjust the behavior of the service
• Click the download icon to download the audio file
• Close the player

You can use tab/shift+tab to navigate inside the player and press enter to activate a certain button or link.

Listen to selected text

You can select a part of the text that you want to listen to and then press the pop-up Listen button that appears next to the mouse pointer. When you click the pop-up Listen button, an audio player appears (see the image below) and ReadSpeaker starts reading the text you have selected.

Settings

In the settings menu, you can:

• Choose whether you want to have the text highlighted while read
• Choose whether you want the text highlighted on a word and sentence basis, sentence only, or word only
• Choose style and colors for the highlighting
• Choose whether to display the current sentence at the bottom of the page, with a larger font size and simultaneous text highlighting
• Choose whether you want the reading speed to be slow, medium, or fast
• Choose whether you want the page to scroll automatically to follow the highlighted text
• Choose whether you want the pop-up Listen button to be shown when text is selected
• Restore all settings to original defaults

You can also listen to the settings by clicking the Listen button at the top right ​​of the Settings menu.

Please visit ReadSpeaker's website for more information about online text to speech.