4000 back Mathers’ caption plea

A petition pushing for Parliament to support deaf Green list MP Mojo Mathers and pay for live captioning in the House has gained almost 4000 signatures.

The Change.org petition asks for signatures from those who believe the ‘‘costs of a live captioner should be borne by Parliamentary Services in the interests of public accessibility’’.

The Christchurch-based list MP is New Zealand’s first profoundly deaf member of Parliament and already has some equipment to allow her to carry out her parliamen- tary obligations. Earlier this month, Speaker Lockwood Smith suggested that the Green Party could use members’ allowances to help her with additional captioning technology.

Mathers told The Press that, like many hearingimpaired Kiwis, she was keen to see live captioning of Parliament TV.

‘‘This would provide us access to the political debate on the same basis as hearing people. It would help Parliament become more accessible to the public and that has to be a good thing.

‘‘If Parliament TV was captioned live, it is more than likely that I would no longer need electronic note takers in the chamber, though that depends to some degree on the quality of the captioning.’’

She has a small television by her seat in the chamber showing Parliament TV.

She would continue using electronic note takers for select committee work and said it was unrealistic to expect sign language interpreters to cover every session in the House, given the shortage of interpreters.

‘‘They need to be free to cover the other needs of the deaf community.

‘‘What would be great, though, is if Parliament would provide sign-language interpreter coverage for the formal state occasions such as the opening and closing of Parliament, the speech from the governor-general, etcetera.’’