Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In recent weeks my office has been inundated with emails and letters from constituents concerned about the government’s proposed change to antisiphoning laws. Labor introduced the antisiphoning regime in 1992 to prevent events that had traditionally been shown on free-to-air television from migrating exclusively to pay TV. The current list covers events in 11 sports, as well as the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, and iconic events such as the Melbourne Cup, the Australian Open tennis, the AFL and NRL grand finals and Ashes Test cricket matches.

Not everyone in my community can afford pay TV, and my constituents believe that all Australians should have access to these major events. Antisiphoning laws ensure that sport is accessible to all. Pay TV is quite understandably arguing its case to access sporting events that free-to-air television does not show. It calls it ‘use it or lose it’. I do have some sympathy for this view, and I understand the point it is making. But this minister’s early target is a sport which has been available and which has been well covered by SBS, and that sport is soccer.

Every soccer fan will appreciate the support that SBS has given to the sport over many years, and we all remember the enthusiasm of the Australian public for the Socceroos’ tilt at the World Cup this year. But, thanks to this government, the Australian public and Australian soccer fans will not see the Socceroos’ qualifying games on free-to-air television again. Games in qualifying rounds used to be protected on an ad hoc basis, despite the ongoing calls of the Australian Broadcasting Authority that they be properly protected through the antisiphoning list. The ABA recommended to the government that each international soccer match involving the senior Australian representative team and the senior representative team of another country be protected. But the government saw it another way and we now see the result.

Soccer is a sport for everyone. Around my electorate there are 35,000 registered soccer players, compared, for example, to 7,000 registered AFL players. This is a huge sport in my community, and both audiences and players come from some of the poorest groups in our community. You can watch the kids as they arrive from Somalia and the refugee camps in the Sudan with exceptional soccer skills. They may not have had a soccer field but they had a soccer ball, and they play with great skill. Go and see our local soccer clubs and you will see people from every group in our community, regardless of income level and regardless of background. It is a genuine community sport loved by people right across my electorate.

The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Coonan, has ignored advice from the ABA to protect Socceroos’ matches by the use of antisiphoning legislation and allowed all World Cup qualifying rounds to be bought up by subscription television—and in doing so has put them out of reach of thousands of soccer fans in my electorate. Senator Coonan has stated that the antisiphoning laws are there to protect events of national importance or cultural significance. Her decision shows that she thinks soccer is not such an event. (Time expired)