Australia's Procurement Standard Guidance Page Has Broken Links

[mgifford]

Not sure that either link is good actually.

https://www.w3.org/WAI/policies/australia/

[maryjom]

Apparently the link changed, and here is where the letter from Senator Matthias Cormann can be found.

[mgifford]

I asked their finance department and was told that the responsibility had transferred to https://www.dta.gov.au/

[maryjom]

I was unaware of that, so thanks for the pointer @mgifford. I was able to find a clear reference to standards in their procurement guidance: Principle 5: Align with whole-of-government requirements in section 5.1 Accessibility. By taking a look at the AS EN 301 549:2016 standard, I can see it is identical to the EN 301 549 V1.1.2 (2015-04) which incorporates WCAG 2.0.

[maryjom]

Another good reference is the Australian digital service standard - accessibility section, that all government services are required to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA but strongly encouraged to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

[iadawn]

Sorry for the slow response. It seems that there isn't anything that I can find regarding Procurement Standard Guidance. I am proposing to remove this reference.

Not sure on the inclusion of the Australian Digital Service Standard. It doesn't quite fit the types of policy that are included within the resource. Happy for any thoughts on this.

[maryjom]

@iadawn I found this 2016 media release/statement from Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann, Minister for Finance, Perth from Australia's Minister of Finance regarding accessibility in procurement and the adoption of the EN 301 549 (referred to by its old title).

An important thing to note is the Australian standard, AS EN 301 549: 2020 was updated to be equivalent to the EN 301 549 V 3.1.1 (2019). This means it incorporates WCAG 2.1.

The Australian digital service standard is the standard to meet Australian policies concerning their digital services, which includes websites. Chapter 9 of the standard covers accessibility, and requires government websites to meet WCAG 2.1 to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act of 1992. So this reference sets the Australian government policy for the accessibility of websites.

[iadawn]

@AndrewArch Can you help me with this one?