Australia's government-funded National Relay Service added a dedicated Auslan Video Relay Service in 2013, letting Deaf people sign to a live interpreter who voices calls to hearing parties. Funding is independently verified by Canada's CRTC; usage figures are self-reported.
6,000+
Registered NRS users
1.6M+
Relay minutes in a single quarter
~AUD 22M/year
Annual NRS funding under the 2019 Concentrix contract
Details
Maturity
Established
Promoter
Australian Government (Dept. of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts); delivered by Concentrix
Period
2013–present
Keywords
telecommunications, disability accessibility, sign language interpretation, government service delivery
Context
Australia's National Relay Service (NRS), government-funded since 1995, added a dedicated Auslan Video Relay Service in July 2013, letting Deaf callers sign to a live Relay Officer over video who voices the message to the hearing party. It has been delivered by Concentrix since October 2019, after the Australian Communication Exchange ran it from 1995-2019.
Results
More than 6,000 users are registered and government reports have cited over 1.6 million relay minutes in a single quarter, though these operational figures are self-reported. Canada's CRTC independently verified NRS funding levels (around AUD 22M/year under the current contract) in a cross-country comparison, and advocacy groups have documented service-quality concerns since the 2019 operator handover.
Implementation
Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.
Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.