INTERPRETER ASSOCIATIONS EMERGE

by John W. Flynn (2001)

It is difficult to pinpoint just when interpreters felt they needed their own support group.  A clue perhaps lies in a circular sent out by Peter Bonser in March of 1983.  In that circular he said that at the Deaf Games in Melbourne, welfare personnel from around Australia held an informal meeting to discuss "interpreting". 

From those discussions it was decided there should be an informal meeting held during the April 1983 National Conferences to discuss "interpreting" and "interpreters" with the aim of formulating some recommendations.  The notice said that there was a meeting to be held on 14th April 1983 at the Deaf Centre, 123 Cambridge Street, Stanmore.  It was announced as a meeting for all persons interested in manual interpreting for the deaf.  It was clearly stated that the meeting had nothing to do with WELFARE, the meeting was addressing the area of INTERPRETING. 

Some of the suggested agenda items were definitions of interpreting, training of interpreters, levels of efficiency, rights and obligations of interpreters as against the rights of the client, eventual separation of interpreting and welfare, setting up of an AAWWD sub-committee on interpreting separate from welfare, the fact that welfare staff are overworked as interpreters and therefore are neglecting case loads.

Members of the Australian Association of Workers with the Deaf, many of whom were both Welfare Officers and Interpreters grappled with some of those issues through the Association until 1991, when on Friday 26th April, the Association of Australian Sign Language Interpreters was established at a meeting in Adelaide. 

Its aims were to be the Central Co-ordinating body for State Interpreting Groups, to act as a clearing house to distribute information amongst State interpreter groups, to standardise interpreter remuneration and working conditions and to promote future ventures in relation to the field of interpreting. Its Constitution was formally adopted in Perth on 26th April, 1992.

State Interpreter Associations pre-date the National Body. The National Organisation is now called the Australian Sign Language Interpreters Association and in its short life has thrown itself into the maintenance of high standards of sign language interpreting in Australia.