About the NZSL Bill
In 2004, some video clips in New Zealand Sign Language were produced to help deaf people understand what was happening with the New Zealand Sign Language Bill. These video clips also described the role of the Minister for Disability Issues and the Office for Disability Issues.
Background to these video clips
There are seven video clips of New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) on this page. These were produced in 2004 with information about disability issues and the NZSL Bill.
The Government wanted to make NZSL an official language in New Zealand. This acknowledges NZSL as belonging to Deaf people. These video clips provided information on how the NZSL Bill will promote Deaf people having equal access to the same information as hearing people, government processes, and telling Deaf people about one way to influence making new laws.
These are large files that may take a long time to load and therefore should not be viewed directly in your browser.
Downloading and viewing the videos
To view the videos, 'right-click' (Mac users 'option-click') on the links below and choose "Save target as" or "Save link target as", then save the file to your computer's hard drive.
Once the file has downloaded completely, open the file in your video viewer.
If you are not sure how to view the clips or are having a problem, see the help section below. Note: the numbers following each link are file size in megabytes, and the video length (not the download time).
Help - having problems?
The video files above are encoded in mpeg-4 format. This format uses compression to reduce the file size of the video, making it as fast as possible to download over dial-up modem connections. There are many free video players that can view mpeg-4 files, and it is likely that if your computer is fairly modern it will be able to read these files with software that came pre-installed with your system. If you are not able to view these files however, you can download and install a free player from the internet. These files have been tested using the free Quicktime player, which can be downloaded here:
- Quicktime Player for Windows and Macintosh and some handheld devices
If you have any questions about viewing these files, please email the web team for help.