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

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has announced it will end its television coverage of the Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) at the end of the 2014/15 season;

(b) this decision will end a 35 year partnership between the ABC and WNBL;

(c) the ABC has been a leader in the broadcast of women's sport, which has provided a significant boost to the development of women's sport in Australia;

(d) any decision to cancel the television broadcast of women's sport will have a detrimental effect on the participation in the sport, which will reduce the pool of talent available within Australia and therefore the strength and viability of women's sports such as the WNBL; and

(e) the basketball statement on the ABC/WNBL partnership on 24 November 2014 as a result of the Australian Government cuts to ABC funding, means that the 2014/15 Wattle Valley WNBL season will be the last shown on ABC TV live around Australia;

(2) recognises the strong role models elite women sports athletes are to young women and the positive value this has on young women, and that without such television broadcast coverage such positive role models will disappear; and

(3) calls on:

(a) the Australian Government to restore the $254 million in budget cuts to the ABC budget; and

(b) the ABC Board to continue the television broadcasting of women's sport including the WNBL.

A few weekends ago—and I note the member for Herbert is here in the chamber with us today—the Bendigo Spirit went head to head with the Townsville Fire in their third grand final in a row to compete for the title of the WNBL premiers for the 2014-15 season. Unfortunately it was not the Bendigo Spirit's year. We had won the two previous grand finals but, in this grand final, the Bendigo Spirit, after a spirited game, went down to the Townsville Fire. I congratulate and commend the Townsville Fire for their very strong performance. The game itself was a showcase of women's elite sport. It demonstrated once again to this nation why in women's elite basketball Australia does really well. The Opals coach has said on repeated occasions that what underpins a strong Opals team is a very strong domestic competition, the WNBL.

I will also note to the House—and this is why I have moved this motion today—that many fans in Bendigo who could not make the trip to Townsville were able to watch the grand final live on the ABC. That is because for 35 years the ABC has been broadcasting the WNBL. Unfortunately it was the last match of the WNBL that will be broadcast not just by the ABC but by any network. It is disappointing to note that not only did the Bendigo Spirit go down in that game but it was actually the last WNBL game that Australian fans of the sport will see being broadcast.

This decision, as I have said, will end a 35-year partnership between the ABC and the WNBL. The ABC have been a leading broadcaster of women's sport, and it is has provided a significant boost in the development of women's sport in Australia. I believe that the cancelling of the broadcasting of the WNBL will have an impact on sponsorship. The Bendigo Spirit's coach, Bernie Harrower, has said repeatedly that this decision to axe the broadcasting will drive out key sponsors and could strip teams of the ability to employ and pay half of their players. A local councillor has said that they believe that removing the national broadcasting of the WNBL will have an impact on showcasing regional sporting centres such as my own as elite sporting centres. This councillor said that we cannot underestimate the impact of simply mentioning Bendigo in a live broadcasting of a Bendigo Spirit game. I know from talking to members of the Bendigo Spirit board that the ABC broadcasting has brought in four major sponsors, with home games that are broadcast allowing them to attach an extra premium to broadcasting sponsorship dollars. This has allowed the team to build the strength that they have had that has allowed local women to compete in their home town. Kristi Harrower has said on many occasions that having a strong WNBL is one of the reasons she was able to come home and play the sport she loves.

What is disappointing—and this is why I have moved this motion—is that the ABC has said that its reason for making its decision is that the Australian government has cut $254 million from its budget. That is what it has said. This is also what Basketball Australia have said. They have said in local media as recently as November that the decision is a direct result of the funding cuts made by this government. This is what Basketball Australia are saying. This is what the local teams are saying. This is what the local community is saying. That is why I have moved this motion, calling on the government to restore the $254 million in budget cuts to the ABC budget and also calling on the ABC board to continue their television broadcasting of women's sport, including the WNBL.

Our young women should have the same opportunity to see their role models playing sport on TV as do young men. I call on the government to reverse this decision on funding cuts and restore the broadcasting of the WNBL. (Time expired)

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The ABC's decision to terminate the broadcast of the Women's National Basketball League, along with other women's sporting competition such as women's soccer is very disappointing. However, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the government's efficiency dividend. I regret the fairly poor contribution by the member for Bendigo, who has not made any attribution of the quote that she put into the parliament. She should table the quote, because the ABC has in fact made it quite clear that the programming decisions it has made have nothing to do with the efficiency dividend and everything to do with the ABC's independent editorial program making. That is not to say that we agree with the decision; I certainly do not agree with it. But it is very clear that the ABC's decisions, whether it be in relation to the axing of Bush Telegraph, which is a terrible decision; the axing of the state editions of 7.30, very disappointing; the closure of foreign bureaus; and even the threatened axing of Lateline are all editorial decisions of the ABC. Had the member for Bendigo done some basic research she would know that this has been put forward in evidence before Senate estimates.

The ABC, in respect of women's sport, has made clear on many occasions, including to a Labor senator in estimates on 1 December 2014, that it was moving to a new strategy unrelated to the government's efficiency study with regard to sports programming, and women's sports programming in particular. To the member for Bendigo I say that it is very regrettable that she has, essentially, put forward a very dishonest contribution today. Senator Singh asked the Managing Director of the ABC, Mr Scott, about the conclusion and termination of broadcasting of the WNBL. In reply, Mr Scott said:

What we are trying to do is to focus our sport investment … We will be looking to cover women's sport, but particularly national women's sport rather than local competitions.

It is called the green and gold strategy, Mr Finlayson, the ABC's Director Television, said.

Ms Ryan interjecting—

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lalor will have her opportunity to speak.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Singh then said:

Therefore, Women's National Basketball League will be broadcast. That is a national women's sport.

Mr Scott said:

It is the week-in, week-out competitions that we find hard … One of the things is that—

I am quoting directly—

if you cover the national team, you are more likely to get a national audience around that, whereas, if you cover other competitions, the audiences often are markedly smaller.

I worked at the ABC for some nine years. When I worked there, in the eighties and nineties, I understood very well, as did everyone at the ABC, that there was a fairly aggressive chase for ratings. That is what this decision is all about. It is about an aggressive chase for ratings. I have to say that it is disappointing, because the ABC's charter does not require this. That is why we have seen a drop off in very important programming like arts, Indigenous programming, specialist regional programs and now women's sport. What a shame that the ABC has pursued the broadcast of sports such as the Asian cup and left women's sport behind. I have no issue at all in agreeing with the member for Bendigo that this is an unfortunate and regrettable decision, but it is very dishonest and misleading for her to suggest that this is a result of the efficiency dividend, as we have heard in evidence before Senate estimates.

I also want to make very clear that the ABC is receiving in excess of $1 billion a year in funding from the Australian government. The efficiency dividend of $254 million over five years, a 4.6 per cent reduction, represents a reduction from $5.47 billion to $5.22 billion. Let us not kid ourselves: the ABC is still extremely well funded, courtesy of the taxpayer.

It is disappointing that the ABC has run the round of redundancies. I believe that there is some smoke and mirrors involved—an attempt by the ABC to tie its redundancies with the decision on the efficiency dividend and the Lewis efficiency review. But nevertheless the ABC has made it very clear that these decisions are a matter for the ABC. I would urge the ABC to reconsider its decision. We do need womens basketball back on television, and it is regrettable that this motion has been put forward in the way it has today.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise as the member for Lalor, and I am very proud to do so. I remind the House that the electorate was named after Peter Lalor, who is famous for his role in the Eureka Stockade and who became a parliamentarian. It is not to be confused with the suburb of Lalor on the opposite side of Melbourne. I rise today to speak on this motion, because I think it is an incredibly important one, as is accuracy. I take some umbrage with the words from the member for Corangamite, because there seems to be a disconnect happening. This government cuts funds and then blames those on the end of those funding cuts for the decisions that they are forced to make, and the rationalisation they have to make to make ends meet. This government, and the member opposite, were careful to point out exactly what the size of those cuts were, and I thank her for giving us those details. Also, there is this tendency to continually talk about the taxpayer dollar, as if the ABC has been funded in some other way. I remind the member for Corangamite that that is why we call it 'our ABC', our national broadcaster.

I will go on to say that the ABC has done an incredible amount of work across the 35 years mentioned by the member for Bendigo. My first year of teaching was at Darwin High School some 28 years ago. The 28 years is important, because 28 years ago I asked my English class students to monitor the local media in the Northern Territory and collect data on what sports were being covered by local radio, television and newspapers. Surprise, surprise, what did they find? They found 28 years ago that womens sport was getting very poor coverage locally. It was getting some coverage, but it was marginal compared with men's sport. This was in 1985. My students would be shocked to find that those statistics have echoed across the years.

I did some research on this. In 2006 the New South Wales Department of Sport and Recreation did a similar survey of media coverage of women in sport and found that the gender breakdown of sports media coverage in 1996 was two per cent for television. Two per cent of television coverage of sport went to womens sport, 56.2 per cent went to men's sport and 41.8 per cent to mixed sports. It was better in the newspapers in 1996—it was 10.7 per cent of newspaper coverage. But this is what the New South Wales Department of Sport and Recreation said of the period between then and 2006:

Women have made a consistent and significant contribution to Australian sport at all levels, yet their achievements on the whole receive limited coverage by the mass media. The quality and quantity of the coverage of women's sport by the media is not an accurate reflection of the amount of sport played or watched by women. Media coverage is generally inadequate and selective. A high media profile is essential for attracting sponsorship, spectators and other sources of financial support.

That is a quote from 2006, some years after the survey my students did.

In 2012 I found a submission the ABC put to a Senate inquiry into women in sport and recreation in Australia. This report tracks some of the history of the ABC and the good work it did in covering womens sport and in increasing the coverage of it.

Since 1975, ABC Television has been broadcasting the national netball competition …

We now know that that has gone to pay TV. When I say to my small netball team that I coach on a Saturday morning, 'Did you watch those intercepts Laura Geitz made last week?', 'Did you watch the Firebirds game yesterday?' or 'Did you watch the Phoenix game?', they say, 'We haven't got Foxtel, Miss, we can't watch it.' In recent history, of course, the ABC covered the women's national basketball and it covered the trans-Tasman netball. In 1982, the Australian women's hockey championships were covered by ABC television for the first time. (Time expired)

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on this motion moved by the member for Bendigo, and I note the long rivalry on the Women's National Basketball League court between the Bendigo Spirit and the Townsville Fire. The member was undoubtedly a passionate supporter of the Bendigo Spirit as, sadly, they defeated Townsville Fire to take out titles in 2013 and 2014. However, those defeats just made this year's victory all the sweeter for the Fire, for Townsville, for myself and also for the member for Herbert—another passionate supporter of anyone representing Townsville and North Queensland in a sporting arena. The 75-65 grand final win for the Townsville Fire, eight days ago, represents the first national sporting title secured by a North Queensland team.

The ABC's broadcast of women's basketball is a demonstration of the value of a national broadcaster providing services to regional areas and covering sporting events ignored by the commercial networks. As a representative of a regional electorate, I can understand the member for Bendigo's despair with the national broadcaster's decision to cut such a service to regions across the country. I agree with a bit of this motion, but to peddle the ABC's propaganda that axing women's basketball comes as a result of long-overdue savings is supporting the blackmail of our constituents and protecting and supporting the institutionalised waste of taxpayers' funds.

Let me put the government's savings measures into perspective. The ABC is spending more than $1 billion of taxpayers' money every year. As a result of Labor's debt and deficit disaster, the budget asks for small savings that will mean the ABC will receive $5.2 billion over the next five years instead of $5.5 billion. That is a saving of $254 million over five years, or 4.6 per cent. In the real world, where media organisations are not gifted billions of dollars of taxpayer money, such a small saving would be laughable. Commercial networks are able to produce more services and better services at a fraction of the cost. But the ABC's response was to hold Peppa Pig hostage and start blackmailing regional areas and women's sport.

The ABC's own finance executives were involved in last year's Lewis efficiency study, which demonstrated savings were achievable if the ABC was willing to tackle inefficiencies in its back-office functions. The efficiency study canvassed a range of savings measures that would not affect content, such as women's sports, or service delivery to the regions, such as    rationalising technology by removing duplication, standardising solutions and retiring old assets; centralising procurement; reducing managers and administrative support staff; outsourcing the payroll function; or working in conjunction with their fellow taxpayer-funded broadcaster, SBS, for procurement. Last year, we saw the ludicrous situation where the ABC outbid its fellow national broadcaster, SBS, for the Asian Cup football tournament. While SBS, the long-time home of soccer broadcasting in Australia, planned to cover the cost of their smaller bid with commercial advertising, the ABC simply threw $1.5 million of taxpayer money at the bid. What is the ABC doing, competing against its fellow national broadcaster—indeed, what is the ABC doing competing on any of the services provided by the private sector?

Why did the ABC waste taxpayer money to establish their FactCheck, effectively killing off the private development of a local version of Politifact? More pointedly, why is the ABC spending taxpayer dollars telling people how to vote? The vast expense committed to the ABC's Vote Compass cannot be seen as anything other than an instruction manual on how to cast your vote, according to the ABC's interpretation. The taxpayer-funded website, Vote Compass, says:

Vote Compass is an educational tool developed by political scientists. Answer a short series of questions to discover how you fit in the New South Wales political landscape.

The site is advertised across the ABC's vast array of networks and it takes you through a number of questions related to policy, framed by the ABC of course. The issues and policies are interpreted by the ABC and reduced to simple questions by the ABC, and answers are weighted to parties by the ABC. The result is how closely your answers align to political parties. There are questions like:

How much should be done to accommodate religious minorities in New South Wales?

What is this sort of question? The ability to align such questions and answers with party policies is highly questionable. Why is the ABC doing this? Why don't they focus on their charter and promote women's sport? (Time expired)

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to rise today in support of the motion moved by the member for Bendigo. I thank the member for Bendigo for her continued efforts to bring the issue of media coverage of women's sports, in particular the recent decision to end the ABC television coverage of the Women's National Basketball League, to the attention of this parliament.

Make no mistake: the broken promise from the Abbott-Liberal government that saw hundreds of millions of dollars cut from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has already had far-reaching negative effects that are by no means limited to the core issue of today's debate. The cuts to the ABC hit hard in my electorate of Newcastle with ABC 1233—our local ABC radio station—losing one-third of their total workforce with more than 12 hours of local content completely disappearing from our region. Our afternoon show with local identity and people's favourite Carol Duncan was cut, and a two-hour show on Sundays dedicated to the Newcastle and Hunter region has gone as well.

Now, rather than receiving local stories and news on a weekday afternoon, we receive syndicated Sydney broadcasts that include traffic news about the Sydney Harbour Bridge—a world away from the Newcastle and Hunter region. Having lost so much local content it is little wonder that Novocastrians get offended when Sydney broadcasters call out for the Newcastle correspondent to check-in during their 702 ABC Sydney shows for input. More than 70 per cent of Carol Duncan's 100-plus stories each month were local stories with a particular focus on local arts, music and culture. This fitted well with the timing of the show, which sat outside the morning and evening news cycles, and presented an opportunity for local artists, upcoming authors and young musicians to get a breakthrough with the local engaged audience. The opportunity and community connection has now been lost. The Abbott-Liberal government cuts also leave the community's first line of contact at the ABC—the reception and front desk—without staff, so the 1233 radio station is not always able to respond in a timely fashion. Breaking news stories may be delayed and important community announcements may be missed all together because of this government's broken promises and cuts to the ABC.

Today's motion makes clear the significance of these cuts to the media coverage of women's sport in Australia. As noted in the motion, the ABC has been a leader in the broadcasting of women's sport, which in turn has provided a significant boost to the development of women's sport in Australia. Elite women athletes provide strong role models to women of all ages and from all walks of life. A reduction in media coverage, which is already grossly unequal to the coverage of men's sport in Australia, will further remove such positive role models from the public eye. The television broadcasting of women's sports is an integral part of the ongoing development of women's sport in Australia, and the contribution of the ABC in this regard cannot be underestimated. There is no level playing field when it comes to women's sport in Australia. On the contrary, it is a place of entrenched inequality with grossly unequal pay between men and women athletes, ongoing objectification of our female athletes, underrepresentation of women in positions in power and shocking instances of public sexist abuse. While I am not suggesting that maintaining or improving media coverage of women's sports will be a panacea for all of these inequities, reducing it is certainly not the answer.

The current disparity in media coverage of women's sport, when compared to that of men's, is astounding. A one-week sample last week of just two of Sydney's major print newspapers—The Daily Telegraph and TheSydney Morning Herald, including their Sunday papers—shows just how imbalanced this disparity in media coverage has become. Last week, between the two Sydney papers mentioned, there were more than 300 articles dedicated to men's sporting events, as against 12 articles covering women's sport. One of those articles covering women's sports was in fact about the sexist abuse that the Australian women's football team had reportedly received from a group of male spectators when competing in a tournament in Cyprus.

In Australia, only two of our top 50 sports earners are women, namely surfer Stephanie Gilmore and golfer Karrie Webb. Mostly women's sports remain amateur and unpaid. Regional areas like my electorate of Newcastle are best served by the ABC, a national broadcaster, to ensure that we get the funding of women's sports that is so deserved. Funding must be restored for regional areas specifically, and I join with the member for Bendigo in calling for the Abbott Liberal government to restore the $250 million in budget cuts to the ABC.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Townsville Fire are the reigning WBL champions, having defeated the valiant Bendigo Spirit on 8 March. This was the birthday present for which assistant coach Claudia Brassard had yearned since she so proudly wore the Fire uniform herself. I will come to the motion at hand, but first I want to speak about my Townsville Fire. This was a journey of incredible faith over common sense. The Townsville Fire had officially folded, handing back their licence to the WNBL in the 2010-11 season. It was then that a local businesswoman, Jayne Arlett, asked, 'Now what do our daughters do?' and a rescue mission was launched.

My mate David Kippin established a steering committee to keep the Fire in Townsville. He contacted every business in Townsville and got the basics in place to have another go. The two on-court cornerstones of the recovery were our captain, Rachel Flanagan, now Rachel McCully, and our coach, Chris Lucas. Rachel wanted to keep playing for the Fire and would do anything to bring a team together. For Chris, it was a leap of faith. He came to Townsville to head up a franchise which basically had no money and no roster. He said the obvious: 'Well, it's all up from here.'

There were some bumps along the road, but we were always competitive from day one, and now we are champions. The Townsville Fire are the first team from north of the Tropic of Capricorn to win a national championship. That is not just women's basketball; it is the first national championship of any sport and any gender for north of the Tropic of Capricorn. Our Townsville Fire playing group includes three-time National MVP and two-time Franchise MVP Suzy Batkovic, Micaela Cocks, Steph Cumming, Rosie Fadljevic, Cayla Francis, Kate Gaze, Jillian Harmon, Grand Final MVP Mia Newley, Alex Wilson, Jacqui Zelenka, and Captain Rachel McCully, who retires after 324 WNBL games. They are all national champions.

Our coaching staff of head coach Chris Lucas, assistant coaches Claudia Brassard and Mark Wrobel, and our manager, Donna Turner and Big John McCully, the equipment manager and volunteer since day dot, are all national champions. The administration of Richard Goodbody, who built on the great work of Judy Higgins and Eleni Milios, and the board, including Jayne Arlett, Glenys Schuntner, George Milford, Michelle Morton, Claudia Brassard, Cath Rule and Sue Willis, are all national champions.

This is a community club. The North Queensland Cowboys assist with the marketing and back office work. The players from the Cowboys and the Crocs are the biggest fans of these girls. It is not just because they play a fantastic brand of basketball or because they are a great team; it is because there is so little money in it for the girls that they have to love what they do. They are professional in every way, except the income. They do it because they love the sport and they want to test themselves against the best. But they have to be more than just elite sportspeople; they have to study, to work, to build a career, and they have to commit to the game they love. These girls show that they can have it all. You can be a gifted athlete, a scholar, a worker, a role model and a normal person. That is what the Townsville Fire says to every girl in Townsville: 'You can be whatever you want and you don't have to limit yourself.'

The Townsville Fire created history for Australian sport last weekend. They are the WNBL champions, and they will be that for the rest of their lives. My city and my region are just so proud of them.

That brings me to this motion. Sometimes, politics should be played in this place, but we should not limit ourselves to being politicians; we should strive to be parliamentarians instead. Politics should not be played around women's sport in a manner as facetious as this motion. That is what the member for Bendigo has done here. She knows very well that the reason the ABC is not continuing the broadcasting of the WNBL is not because of any budget cuts. She has the Hansard of her own Senator Singh where the ABC said they would not be doing week-to-week telecasts. She has spoken to the ABC herself. Rather, they would be concentrating on events.

In Townsville, we could not get the ABC to broadcast a game from Townsville until we hosted the grand final. So this motion is moot for anyone in the north. To use the WNBL as a political plaything and score cheap points is a callous shame, and the mover should know better. Let's celebrate this fantastic competition and the impact regional teams can have, and work together to get it on the TV for every Australian. Go the Fire!

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:30 to 16:00