I beg to differ.

These new standards cannot ensure government departments meet the new requirements.
Standards are ignorable. It seems even Laws are ignorable – the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 for example…

The Australian government didn’t manage to reach WCAG 1.0 Priority 1 compliance as a whole. It was impossible, as the resources and time were never given to developers – Accessibility was seen as the bit you fit in at the end if there was time and money left over…

Leaving it up to departments to meet the new requirements without giving them time and funds, will just lead to the current sorry state of affairs being repeated again…

Unless, that is, the government can recognise this issue early and provide funding, and staff, to help drive the transition – I really hope that this is part of the Transition Strategy.

I’ll be hoping for details regarding the provision of cross-agency expert advice, creation a whole-of-government pattern library, a whole-of-government application development environment, and strengthened powers for AGIMO.

A whole of government approach to this issue might just get us over the line…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by russmaxdesign: Finally, WCAG 2.0 for Australia! http://www.maxdesign.com.au/2010/02/24/wcag2/...