Correspondents in Canberra | August 07, 2008
THE Rudd government's $13 million grocery price watch website is under legal threat a day after it began operation.
A complaint by a disabled man to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) and criticism by supermarket chains and the federal opposition has prompted the government to say the website will be refined "over time".
The introduction of GROCERYchoice - www.grocerychoice.gov.au - has fulfilled a Labor election promise to provide consumers with more information about grocery prices.
The service, updated monthly, lists prices of selected groceries from supermarkets in 61 regions across the country.
But Les Kerr, from Brisbane, has lodged a complaint with HREOC saying the website is difficult for disabled people to use and breaches disability discrimination laws.
Mr Kerr, 53, who has had vision and mobility problems for the past three years, said the website was difficult to read because of the green colour scheme and there was no option for on-screen text fonts to be made larger.
"That website should be a great benefit to people like me," he told AAP.
"As most disabled people are on pensions and money is always an issue, this website had the potential to be of great assistance to us if it had been designed correctly."
The federal government had no excuse for the site not being accessible, he said.
"It appears that the site was put together in a hurry with little thought of allowing disabled people access and most certainly was not tested by disabled people before it came online as any good website should be."
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the website will be refined as the government considers consumer responses to the service.
He conceded the service, updated monthly, would not provide consumers with product-specific information "which can be had today and accessed tomorrow".
"The intention ... is to provide consumers with that choice or information over time about one supermarket chain versus another ... against a basket of goods and we'll continue to refine this over time."
The ACCC, which administers the website, says GROCERYchoice "aims to be as inclusive as possible".
It followed the guide to minimum website standards/accessibility from the Australian government's information office and the world wide web consortium accessibility guidelines, a commission spokesman told AAP.
AAP