Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Broadcasting and Other Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014. In the few minutes that I have before this debate gets interrupted, I want to reflect on a few of the comments made by the previous speaker. I too am from a regional area, central Victoria, and we too have had our challenges when it comes to broadcasting and picking up channels, particularly on hot days. The reception does drop out. I do get the occasional phone call from people saying they are concerned because they have lost their television coverage whether it be for a sporting event or on bushfire days when they are making sure that they are able to keep in touch.

But what I get more calls about in my electorate when it comes to telecommunications is the lack of access to fast-speed broadband. So I would challenge the previous speaker on that because, for most other regional MPs, when it comes to telecommunications, the issue that we are most inundated about is having access to fast-speed broadband and reliable internet, and that is why the rollout of the NBN is so important.

As previous speakers have said, the Broadcasting and Other Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014 is fairly non-controversial, now that we have resolved the issue of captions. This bill was part of the government's so-called regulation repeal day. For most of the previous governments that we have had in this place, what is in this bill would be seen to be routine of government yet this government has taken a different approach and has basically put all this cleaning up, so to speak, into one particular big day and made a big noise about it.

This particular bill will only save the industry about $350,000 according to estimates by the Department of Communications. Having said that, this bill is fairly straightforward. It does talk about broadcasting. In my particular area, as I mentioned, broadcasting is quite topical. What we broadcast is also quite topical. At the moment, we are in the middle of the WNBL basketball finals. Being a basketball fan and a bit of a tragic when it comes to basketball, I was very upset to learn that this will be the last season that the WNBL will be broadcast on the ABC, ending a 35-year relationship between the ABC and the WNBL. So while this bill speaks specifically about some tidy-ups within the department—

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