House debates

Wednesday, 18 October 2006

Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006

Debate resumed from 12 October, on motion by Mr Hunt:

That this bill be now read a second time.

10:10 am

Photo of Warren SnowdonWarren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | | Hansard source

Before I embark on an analysis of what is in the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 and its impact upon parts of Australia that I work in, let me first make the observation that it is absolutely scandalous that we are not able to have an extensive debate on the broadcasting legislation more generally because of a gag now being implemented which will prevent people like me participating in that debate in the main chamber. That demonstrates to me, and I think to the people of Australia, how arrogant this government is, how it seeks to deny those who are democratically elected by the people of Australia to have their voice heard and be properly represented in the chambers in this House. To impose a gag in the way in which it is being done by the government on such an important piece of legislation, which has implications for every Australian regardless of where they might live, is a shameful exercise. I will come back to that issue more broadly later on.

The piece of legislation that we are discussing this morning provides a framework for metropolitan and regional television licences to begin transmitting digital services. The accelerated take-up of digital television has important public policy benefits. Ultimately, the successful transition to digital broadcasting will allow the return of the spectrum used for the current analog broadcasts. The spectrum can then be used for the delivery of new services such as digital radio, community broadcasting or telecommunications. Digital television transmissions began in metropolitan areas in 2001 and in most parts of regional Australia in 2004. The Broadcasting Services Act, the BSA, was silent on the transition to digital broadcasting in remote licence areas such as communities outside of Perth in Western Australia.

This bill will make changes to the regulatory framework to encourage the commencement of digital services in remote licence areas where there are only two commercial stations. This legislation will allow WIN and Prime to jointly provide a third digital commercial television service under section 36 of the BSA, free from the obligation to broadcast high-definition programs. In metropolitan and regional markets, licensees are required to broadcast 1,040 hours per year in high-definition digital format. This is known as the high-definition quota. This bill will allow the joint venture company to elect to broadcast only in standard-definition format, thereby greatly reducing the costs of making the transition to digital broadcasting.

As I said, the practical impact of the legislation is that the Golden West Network owned by Prime TV and WIN have told the government they will form a joint venture company to broadcast digital services into remote Western Australia. The new service will consist primarily of content from the Ten Network and it is expected to commence by 2007.

Labor supports this legislation. It does something to reverse the absence of policy on digital television in remote communities—for remote parts of Australia. The fact that it is only now that this bill is getting through speaks volumes about the government’s lack of commitment to remote communities. I have to say, as someone who represents some of the most remote communities in Australia, that it appals me that it has taken until this time to have this legislation passed. Shortly, I will come to what I regard as a more appalling situation—the failure to address the needs of other service delivery organisations which provide television services in other parts of remote Australia.

We all know the benefits of digital broadcasting technology. It offers better quality sound and image, the opportunity for more content and more economic use of the spectrum. In Britain, the government estimates that re-employing the spectrum currently used for analog broadcasting will save £2.2 million. Digital broadcasting has tremendous potential to provide improved services to greatly underprivileged and underserviced sectors of the community: those people living in remote communities.

The government legislated in 1998 to give the Australian Broadcasting Authority—now the Australian Communications and Media Authority, or ACMA—the power to draw up a scheme for the changeover from analog broadcasting to digital. This is contained in the BSA at schedule 4. Part A deals with the non-remote areas and contains numerous provisions relating to the rollout. The planned switch-off for those areas was originally set for 2008 but, in the middle of this year, it was extended to a more realistic 2010-12.

Part B of the schedule deals with remote areas. This does not contain specific measures for the phasing in of digital in remote areas. This matter is left to policy, yet to be developed, which is set by ACMA as per sections 7 and 7A of schedule 4 of the BSA. Supposedly, this was done to allow remote area broadcasters time to work out a digital model amongst themselves, reach a consensus and then come to the government. This is what has happened, as we understand it, with the Western Australian broadcasters.

In my electorate we have a broadcaster that covers much of South Australia, parts of Western Australia, western New South Wales and even parts of Victoria and Tasmania. The government has left the broadcasters in the dark, and they are uncertain of what form their future obligations will take. This is a concern being expressed by Imparja Television, an Alice Springs based Indigenous broadcaster that began its operations in 1988. Its first broadcast, the World Series Cricket test match between Australia and Sri Lanka, went out to the people of Alice Springs, who at that point were very glad to receive it. Imparja’s vision is the promotion of Aboriginal cultural and values. The station is wholly owned by Indigenous groups, including the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association, or CAAMA, the Central Land Council, the Tiwi Land Council, the Northern Land Council, Warlpiri Media Association, the Pitjantjatjara Council, Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association, Maralinga Tjarutja trust and, previously, the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission

In addition to its main broadcasts, Imparja also carries an Indigenous television service, ICTV, a digital service available to satellite viewers and also broadcast as a local community service in up to 120 remote Indigenous communities. The channel delivers 10 hours a day of programming, over half of which is in Indigenous language. This does much to further Indigenous culture and values and, in my view, it works to empower Aboriginal people through the medium of television. Imparja’s area of operation, the central and eastern remote area licences, is the largest of any commercial network in Australia. It covers most of the Northern Territory and South Australia and, as I said earlier, significant parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. It has a total viewing area of approximately 4.5 million square kilometres and an audience of just 430,000.

To cover such a vast audience and distance, Imparja’s signal is pre-broadcast via repeater transmitter stations into over 250 small communities. In more remote locations, which are out of the range of conventional TV coverage, viewers need to have their own satellite dish and receive Imparja direct from satellite. This ensures that people in isolated homesteads, stations, mining camps, ranger stations, motels and other smaller communities have access to the service. There are significant cost pressures in catering to such a wide and sparsely populated geographical area.

Let me now stress the importance of the service that Imparja provides. In addition to a number of popular programs which are purchased from channels 9 and 10, Imparja provides a substantial amount of local content. As well as a daily children’s program and news service, it has provided and delivered weekly community and sports magazine programs and full-length features on the Finke Desert Race, the Mount Isa Rodeo and the Camel Cup, to name just a few.

In addition to these examples, Imparja also supports a further 85 local events within its footprint. That question of local content is very important, given the now truncated debate in the lower house. The frustration I feel as a member of this House, not being able to participate in the broader debate and make those points soundly on the new legislation which is going through the House this morning, is a shame and an indictment of this government. What we will see as a result of this legislation passing through the lower house is a concentration of media ownership, a great lack of diversity and no compulsion really for local content of the type I have just described, which is being produced by Imparja—to its credit—in Alice Springs in Central Australia.

The problem facing Imparja is the future requirement of digital broadcasting. As I mentioned previously, there is no legislation setting out how and when digital broadcasting is to be implemented in this licensing area. It is a matter of policy and involves the government coming to a working agreement with the licence holders for those remote areas. Imparja and Southern Cross Television, the other broadcaster in the remote central and eastern Australia licence area, have been submitting options to the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts since late 2002, detailing digital road maps and their respective views on different models. To this end, Imparja has employed the services of a consultancy firm, Deloittes, and its Sydney media unit. For all the work on a submission on its part, there has been, as yet, no response from government.

Understandably, this creates a very uncertain environment within which to operate a business. The CEO of Imparja, Alistair Feehan, has written to me on precisely this matter. Imparja have known since the late nineties that they would be required to transfer from an analog to a digital technology. As such, they have had to reduce capital expenditure on analog equipment and are faced with the future capital costs of digital conversion. Of course, spending money now on what will soon be obsolete technology is not an appealing option and does not make too much economic sense. At the same time, should the current analog transmission base fail, there are no short-term solutions other than an investment of further capital. This is already happening with a number of repeater television transmitters which rebroadcast Imparja in remote towns and communities. We should not underestimate the cost to the provider of addressing these particular issues.

In May of this year, Mr Feehan wrote to Senator Coonan, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, imploring her department to work with Imparja. I quote from this correspondence:

The integrity of our current service has been jeopardised due to the lengthy delays in finding a digital solution for the licence area.

He said to her very clearly: ‘The integrity of the current service has been jeopardised due to the lengthy delays in finding a digital solution for the licence area.’ What do we hear from the government minister? Nothing in response. This is just another way that this government deals with the people of remote Australia. Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, I know of your interest in the bush, and I, like you, am appalled at this treatment. On an earlier occasion, in February this year, Mr Feehan wrote to the minister:

Our major concern is that the longer the issue goes on the more business is compromised in being able to remain a local broadcaster.

I urge—in fact, I demand it—Senator Coonan to take note of Imparja’s predicament and do something about it: instruct her department to work with Imparja to come up with an acceptable solution for the rollout of digital television within that remote area that their licence requires them to service. If we do not, we are placing a heavy and undue burden on this particular broadcaster to provide an ongoing analog service when they know, you know, and everyone else in Australia knows that there is to be a rollout of digital services but there is no plan for that rollout because the government is too lazy to come to—or incapable of coming to—an agreement and to find an appropriate solution for the rollout of that service to those many communities across Australia.

Let us think about it. We are talking here about 4.5 million square kilometres of Australia’s landmass. Granted, we are not talking about Sydney, Melbourne or Perth. We know what sort of activity is happening in those places. We know where the cream is. We can see that, after the broadcasting legislation passes through this parliament today, potential investors may be lining up to purchase parts of the major metropolitan markets in media. They are not lining up to do anything in the bush because they know that the costs involved in providing the sorts of services that are provided by Imparja mean that the profit margins are very slim indeed. Of course, a business case which Imparja have to develop and have to convince their directors and their shareholders of is very difficult in an environment where the government fails to respond appropriately to their entreaties in terms of a plan for the rollout of digital.

It is worth noting in the Western Australian model contained in this bill that, while it is a way forward for digital broadcasting in Western Australia, it cannot feasibly be applied in the central and eastern remote licence areas. They are quite distinct and different areas and it needs to be understood why they are different. In Western Australia there are a number of medium sized population bases—for example, Broome, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Port Hedland, Albany, Bunbury and other places—which are covered by this licence for Western Australia. The region, as I have just demonstrated, that Imparja services is wider and far more sparsely populated. The economics of the servicing of the central and eastern remote licence areas are very different indeed from the economics of the servicing of the Western Australian licence area.

A plan to implement digital in this region—that is, the central and eastern remote licence areas—must involve the government engaging with the broadcasters and working out a plan that all parties will agree to. This cannot be so difficult. I know that the licence holders are keen to resolve this situation, but the apparent reluctance on behalf of the government to actually sit down and get a resolution is a major cause of concern. Ultimately, what we face here is the distinct possibility that there will be people in this remote service area of 4.5 million square kilometres who will miss out on getting a digital service and who will ultimately fall off the analog list as well, because at some point Imparja will be required to move over to digital. If they do not have a plan in place which is agreed and properly implemented then it is very clear that the people who are going to be disadvantaged by it are the viewers in their licence area.

Of course, these people are voters. They may vote for the Liberal Party; they may vote for the National Party; they may vote for the Labor Party. But what is happening here is that they are being disadvantaged and ignored by the government. They will know they are being disadvantaged and ignored by the government, and it is very important that the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Coonan, does something reasonable—not tomorrow, not next week, not in a month’s time, six months time or 12 months time but now. I know she has much to do at the moment to explain to the Australian community why the government should proceed in the way they have proposed in terms of the broadcasting legislation. I can tell you this, Mr Deputy Speaker: the issues of local content, diversity in broadcasting and diversity in the multimedia areas of media in Australia are extremely important to all Australians.

Despite the commitment to roll out digital television, we note that the government has done what I think is a significantly poor job indeed in promoting digital television. That is a shame because it is a technology which has a lot to offer. By stretching out the transition to digital, the government is costing the Australian taxpayers. According to the government’s own figures, it currently costs about $75 million to meet the analog broadcasting costs of the ABC and SBS and to assist regional broadcasters. This figure was taken from a Senate committee report on a host of broadcasting and media amendments, released on 6 October. A survey conducted last year by the Australian Communications and Media Authority shows the poor take-up rate of digital television, which in itself is an illustration of the very poor performance of the government in this area. Seventeen per cent of the respondents did not know about digital television at all, 45 per cent did not know if they could access it, 42 per cent were not interested and 38 per cent did not know that digital could replace analog at some stage.

The government has a responsibility to ensure that people who live in remote communities, wherever they might be in Australia, have access to digital television. What they have an obligation to do is to sit down with, in this case, the broadcasters who are responsible for the remote central and eastern broadcast areas of television and work out an appropriate plan for the implementation of digital technology in their broadcast areas. To not do so is unreasonable and unfair and, in my mind, shows the discrimination which these people are being dealt by this government. (Time expired)

10:30 am

Photo of Steven CioboSteven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

It is with a certain amount of irony that I heard the contribution from the member for Lingiari, who referred to the fact that he thought the government was ignoring the people of remote Australia with respect to the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 that is before the House and calling upon the minister to make changes to communications policy to ensure that some of our remote broadcasters are in a position to have some certainty going forward before the switch-off of analog television. That took my mind back to the Australian Labor Party’s decision, when they were in government, to switch off the analog mobile phone network. One must really be, I suspect, a little sceptical and cynical of the Australian Labor Party when they stand up and preach for 20 minutes about the need for the government to do something, while in some way attempting to demonstrate that it has a touch of arrogance, when they in fact switched off the analog mobile phone network and converted it to digital, having taken the decision to disenfranchise through the use of mobile telephony many tens of thousands of remote Australians. Having that at the forefront of my mind leads me to be a little cynical about the true motivation of the member for Lingiari and to wonder whether or not he is engaged in a scare campaign, rather than being open and frank with the people of regional and remote areas such as those in the Northern Territory, Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland.

I just wanted to put that on the record in the lead-up to this debate. I note some comments that have been made by the member for Lingiari—comments that I assume will be made by the member for Lowe—who takes a particular interest in the government’s position on broadcasting policy. I would also make some comments at this juncture to highlight my strong support for the government’s changes to broadcasting policy. Whilst there are certain aspects of them that I could take or leave—in particular the 4½ hours of local content requirement, for example—nonetheless, this new policy, which is being debated for a number of hours in the House and will move on for further debate in other places, will in fact see recognition at long last that the media landscape in this country has changed significantly since the original inception of media policy introduced by Paul Keating some 20-odd years ago.

I turn now to the legislation that is currently before the Main Committee, the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006. The question may well be asked: why is a member from the Gold Coast speaking about a piece of legislation that predominantly deals with remote Western Australia? My response would be that that is a very good question. Nonetheless, I take an interest in this bill because I am concerned to ensure that the policy framework that is put in place by this bill will have application to and will be rolled out across the Northern Territory, parts of remote Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. In that respect, I am certainly pleased that the framework that we are putting in place is one that I believe achieves an appropriate balance between some of the commercial considerations of providing additional broadcasting services to remote parts of Australia and the desire that people have to be able to access the kinds of facilities and broadcasting services that people in metropolitan Australia have. With that thought in mind, I am pleased to be able to make a contribution to this debate.

This particular bill allows for the implementation of the agreed model for the introduction of commercial digital television services in remote Western Australia, which is defined now as being all areas outside of Perth. It includes the joint provision by WIN and Prime of a third digital-only commercial television service under section 38B of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. It also, as I mentioned, is applicable to remote central and eastern licence areas.

Since the introduction of this bill, I am informed that both WIN and Prime have continued developing plans for the introduction of their digital television services in remote Western Australia—as I mentioned, that is all areas outside of Perth. I am informed that both broadcasters indicate that this planning is well advanced and, subject to the passage of this legislation this year, it is planned that the digital transmission of current television services in remote Western Australia in 2007 will commence at the beginning of that year, with the new third service starting shortly thereafter.

This particular bill ensures that we will delete item 3 of schedule 1 to the act. This in effect will enable ACMA to use its existing discretion under subsection 38B(27) of the BSA to set a revised date to commence the allocation process for the third commercial digital service in remote Western Australia. ACMA has indicated that this will be done within six months of the passage of this bill and it receiving royal assent, but it will be done in consultation, most importantly, with both WIN and Prime.

At the moment the BSA does not specify detailed measures for introducing digital television in remote areas. In recognition of the need to give appropriate considerations to the very special circumstances of these areas, ACMA is required to make a legislative instrument, referred to as a commercial television conversion scheme, to set out the terms of that conversion process. Passage of the bill will provide the framework for ACMA to develop the conversion scheme for Western Australia, allowing digital broadcasting to commence and the third commercial service to be provided.

Under section 38B of the BSA and its associated provisions, commercial broadcasters are allowed in regional licence areas with only two commercial licences to jointly—or, alternatively, for one broadcaster individually to—elect to provide a third digital-only service. Where they elect to undertake this in a joint fashion, they must provide each of the digital versions of their new analog services and the new joint service on a separate TV channel and provide high-definition television programs. The amendments contained in this bill will extend these provisions in a modified form to remote areas such that they will allow remote area licensees who have elected to provide jointly the third digital service to multichannel the three digital services on a single radio frequency channel with exemptions from any HDTV quotas that might be applied. Similarly, if a third service is provided by only one of the two licensees, that licensee will be able to multichannel the digital version of their analog service and the new service on a single digital channel.

To simplify these digital conversion arrangements in WA, it was necessary to ensure that all areas outside of Perth were technically classified as being remote. This model that is being adopted by the government for regional and remote WA does represent, as I mentioned, a balance between the public interest considerations and the special circumstances of remote area commercial television broadcasters. The fact is that these broadcasters do face significant cost pressures due to the very wide geographic area that they serve and the sparse population. Requiring delivery of HDTV to all viewers in this market would be a very significant cost to broadcasters. Viewers will also benefit from the new third digital service delivering a substantially increased range of information and entertainment.

This model will have application to those who are looking at operating in remote parts of the Northern Territory and Queensland—where I have a particular interest, of course. I am certainly pleased that ACMA has indicated, together with DCITA, that they are currently working with the two remote central and eastern Australian broadcasters—those being Imparja Television and Southern Cross Broadcasting—to develop a digital conversion model for remote central and eastern Australia. I am certain that, with the passage of this bill and further developments with respect to Western Australia, those parties operating in the Northern Territory, and Southern Cross Broadcasting, will be able to progress this matter further this year, including the consideration of providing a third digital service. Of course it is not possible at this stage to provide a firm date for completion of digital conversion arrangements, but it puts paid to the allegations the member for Lingiari raised that in some way this government was not responding to the needs of people in remote Australia. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The mere existence and introduction of this bill highlights that this government is extremely responsive and is taking significant policy steps forward to ensure that people in remote parts of Western Australia and, subsequently, Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory will be able to have access to quality digital programming and a range of channels similar to those in metropolitan areas. Most importantly, this bill also recognises the very legitimate cost pressures that arise through the operation of a digital service in remote Australia. It recognises that the additional costs that flow from covering such a wide geographic area with such a small population should be appropriately taken into account when it comes to decision making as to the kinds of licences and the application of the licences for licensees operating in parts of remote Australia. I commend the bill to the House.

10:40 am

Photo of John MurphyJohn Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

The Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 deals with relatively minor though important changes to broadcasting services legislation for those living in remote service areas. In short, this bill amends the Broadcasting Services Act and Radiocommunications Act to allow commercial television licensees in remote areas to multichannel if they jointly or individually elect to provide a third commercial television service. The bill will also provide these licensees with an exemption from HDTV quotas that apply to commercial broadcasters in non-remote licence areas. I am pleased to see the government retreat, albeit only in remote areas, from the onerous and expensive requirement to mandate HDTV. The decision to compel commercial broadcasters to meet a 20 hours per week quota of high-definition television must surely be seen as a flawed decision.

As members before me have mentioned, Australia stands as the only country that has attempted to compel its consumers to make the transition to this expensive form of digital broadcasting. High-definition broadcasting is inordinately expensive for broadcasters and consumers. The cost of high-definition equipment to consumers is three times the cost of standard-definition equipment, making it a technology that is out of reach for the vast majority of consumers today and—most likely—in the future. Most other nations have had the good sense to allow consumers to decide which technology should ultimately hold sway, rather than mandating a particular preference. Given that this bill shows a minor retreat from the government’s usual approach of mandating HDTV, one might have thought Australia was taking baby steps forward, but steps forward nonetheless, to join most other nations on this issue.

However, in what is symbolic of this government’s incoherent approach to digital technology, the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006, which was debated in this House last week, proposes to allow commercial broadcasters to multichannel solely in high definition until 2009 for reasons known only to the minister. Standard-definition multichannelling restrictions continue to remain in place. The decision makes absolutely no sense, but then not many of the government’s decisions on media reform do. Rather, the Howard government’s approach to digital television policy and media policy broadly is incoherent and full of contradictions and fails ordinary Australian consumers because it puts the media proprietors first. The question is: why?

Debate on this bill is timely. It solicits remarks on the approach taken to media reform by the Howard government and it solicits comments on the changes we are likely to see in parts of the media sector. In the minister’s second reading speech on this bill, we were again witness to the minister’s protestations that the government is working hard to ensure the smooth transition to and the smooth introduction of digital television to Australia. The minister protests that the government is committed to ensuring all Australian consumers have access to the exciting new services that digital technology will bring to our homes and that the government’s message about the exciting new world of digital television is being heard. That only around 20 per cent of Australian households have purchased the necessary equipment to receive digital free-to-air broadcasts speaks volumes. While the minister believes the government’s message is being heard, clearly the message is not being accepted by ordinary Australians. Despite the government’s attempts to stimulate the sluggish demand for digital television, including the amendments in this bill, we are all entitled to doubt whether we will see acceleration in the conversion rate to digital technology. Our doubts are reasonable given the way the Howard government has approached digital broadcasting policy, ‘in it for the consumers’. What a load of humbug and cant! This minister mocks our intelligence. That is what she said; ‘in it for the consumers’!

If the minister is truly in it for the consumers, obviously she has not read the submissions made to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts inquiry into the uptake of digital television. Why hasn’t the minister referred to a submission from John White that Australians are not taking up digital television because people do not perceive additional benefits such as multichannelling? Why hasn’t the minister referred to the submissions from Steve Ulrich and Paul Macknamara that digital television does not offer enough additional programming or content to provide incentives for consumers to upgrade? ‘In it for the consumers’ is one of the most absurd and disingenuous statements ever to come out of the minister’s mouth.

In light of the announcement that the government’s cross-media ownership laws were being watered down, we have seen media shares rise in value. I can assure members that it is no coincidence that shares in publicly traded media have risen in value.

Photo of Peter LindsayPeter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Would the member for Lowe return to the content of the bill, please.

Photo of John MurphyJohn Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

We have heard Mr Packer say that Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd believes that the government has done the right thing and it is positive about the cross-media mergers. They are all related, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Photo of Ian CausleyIan Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

It has nothing to do with the bill, Member for Lowe.

Photo of John MurphyJohn Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

In the next breath we heard the Southern Cross Broadcasting Managing Director, Tony Bell, say that he believes media consolidation will take place reasonably quickly. Is it any wonder that at the moment Mr Packer is licking his lips? We see from today’s papers that the Packer family is having a field day with media reform. These are Senator Coonan’s ‘in it for the consumers’ media reforms. The bills have not even passed the House, Kerry Packer is not even stiff and James Packer is about to double the family fortune.

I wonder what the ‘Packer Family First Party’ conscience is thinking this morning with all the poverty in Australia and with the great wealth of the Packer family set to double out of Mr Packer’s monopoly gambling interests and his keeping the monopoly in place through his media company. All thanks go to the ‘Packer Family First’ senator, Senator Fielding, and the Howard government. ‘Packer Family First’ Senator Steve Fielding has behaved in my view in a most venal way and has become the Judas of the parliament.

Before the ink has barely dried on the Senate’s approach to cross-media changes and before receiving the rubber stamp from this chamber, we now have the good news that a conga line of media proprietors are seeking to expand their personal media interests. According to media reports this morning, Mr Packer will be selling some of his media interests, though still remaining in control of them, and using his new-found cash bonanza to target media acquisitions, including the Fairfax newspaper group and online and radio interests. We have news that Channel 7 has launched a $200 million raid on West Australian Newspapers, the main newspaper company in Perth. We have woken up to headlines this morning that are disastrous for our democracy, including ‘The big media carve-up’, ‘Packer’s sale of the century’, ‘Introducing PBL Media, $6b predator’, ‘Packer hits $4.5b jackpot’, and ‘Stokes joins media frenzy’.

CCZ Equities analyst Roger Colman had the good sense to tell the public, back in August this year, that if the bills were passed there would be a flurry of media activity. However, earlier this year the venal communications minister, Senator Coonan, said that she could see no big media changes, that ‘it is difficult to see that there would be a real flurry of activity’ on the media landscape. Senator Coonan is either incompetent or just hopelessly out of touch. Either way, she ought to be sacked for showing such contempt and reckless disregard for our democracy. What a disgrace. The parliament has not even passed the bills yet, and we have this flurry of activity that will result in less choice for consumers. What an appalling insult to this House, to the Senate and to the democratic process. What an appalling mockery of Australia’s precious democracy. What a black day for the parliamentary process. What a black day for our democracy. I ask again: who is really running the country?

Four-and-a-half billion dollar deals are not struck overnight. How long has this clayton’s communications minister been doing the bidding of big media proprietors? Was the public consultation process legitimate, or was the minister just going through the motions? Why was the minister so keen to push these changes through a farcical two-day shotgun Senate inquiry? And the government is going to gag debate on the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 in the House in half an hour’s time. What a disgrace.

Through the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill, the minister is gagging political debate in the media. As I speak, she and her party are going to gag debate in the parliament at 11 o’clock today. What a black day for our democracy. These are questions that must be answered immediately to restore some respectability and legitimacy to the government’s entire media reform. Yet this is a clayton’s communications minister who will not answer them. She has not answered them in the past, she will not answer them now and she will not answer them in the future.

PBL and News Ltd now have free reign to own virtually all of Australia’s major newspapers, a free-to-air television network, monopoly pay TV Foxtel and 70 per cent of the internet’s news and information sites, while no-one else is allowed to buy a free-to-air television licence. So much for the minister being ‘in it for the consumers’! While the big end of town jumps for joy at the minister’s half-measures and half-baked media initiatives, including the weak initiatives in this bill, consumers are increasingly becoming fed up. I draw the minister’s attention to Greg Graham’s letter to the Sydney Morning Herald on 12 October, which said:

The only beneficiary of the new laws is big business, and John Howard needs to explain to me at least why its interests override mine.

The government needs to explain this to Mr Graham, it needs to explain this to me and it needs to explain this to all other ordinary Australians, who are concerned that the government has fallen prey to the fangs of Australia’s media proprietors.

Australia’s democracy is certainly entering a dark era. Despite Australia already having one of the most concentrated media ownership landscapes in the Western world, we are seeing plans that will see it become a lot more concentrated. A functioning democracy requires a sufficiently diverse source of news and political commentary to ensure members of the public are well enough informed to make their own judgements. We need a free and sceptical media that can promote a plurality of opinions. What sort of a pillar of democracy will our fourth estate be if it is owned by a couple of media proprietors? Will journalists freely dissect and report the serious issues of the day if they run the risk of impeding their employment prospects?

As I mentioned, this bill uses half-measures to address current problems that are only compounded by other bills that are currently before the parliament. It is sad that people should be sceptical about the internet value of digital television technology, but it is sadder that such scepticism exists because of the actions and policies of the Howard government. We know the government can do something about this. The government can provide more compelling digital content, not token digital content, to viewers in remote areas through this bill. The government’s approach to this bill reflects the approach of the failed and discredited policies of former communications minister Senator Richard Alston. It reflects an approach that is stuck in the shadows of the government’s 1998 legislation in which it was somehow thought to be in the public interest to freeze further commercial television networks. Perhaps it was thought that we needed to protect the incumbent commercial broadcasters during the period when they had to invest in digital transmission all those years ago.

That might have been fair enough then, but why, in the name of the public interest, are we transforming this freeze into an ice age? There is no public interest reason. It makes no sense to the ordinary Australian consumer. This bill aims to encourage existing broadcasting players to provide more broadcasting services in underserved areas without the need for inviting more licensees into those areas. Those who sit opposite might wonder why. The reason is simple. There cannot be more licensees because the number of commercial TV broadcasting licences has been frozen. What about providing to consumers more competition, greater choice and innovation from new entrants? Why give existing players an opportunity to rehash old footage on a digital channel?

Remember the submissions from Steve Ulrich and Paul Macknamara that digital television does not offer enough digital programming or content to provide incentives for consumers to upgrade? Why hand over the new service to existing media players when there is a risk that the content will be similar to or the same as the content that consumers in that area are already getting? Is the minister really serious about driving the take-up of digital television in these areas? Is the minister really in it for the consumers? Of course not. What is wrong with giving another broadcaster a free-to-air television licence if that broadcaster is willing to put forward the large sums involved in such an investment?

If the minister truly were the consumers’ champion, there would be no freeze on the number of free-to-air television networks. As I have said before, John Singleton wants to put a 100 per cent Australian content television network throughout Australia, and that would take only five per cent away from the existing market. What is wrong with that? If the minister truly were the consumers’ champion, the conversion to digital television would be gathering momentum Australia-wide because free-to-air broadcasters would be unshackled from restrictions on multichannelling. The restriction on standard-definition multichannelling while opening up high-definition multichannelling is ludicrous. Given that the only network that has shown an interest in multichannelling, the Channel 7 network, has stated that it has no plans to commence a high-definition multichannelling service, it makes absolutely no sense.

This is a cunning attempt by the minister to appear as though she is giving something to consumers when in reality she is giving them nothing. The reality is that a prohibition on free-to-air networks and a ban on standard-definition multichannelling in non-remote areas are clearly designed to address the interests of media players. It is a compromise with the numerous media businesses that are naturally seeking to protect their turf. That is why I have been screaming in the House for the last six years, since the government proposed all these changes to the media reform landscape in Australia.

What about protecting the public interest? What about being in it for the consumer? This bill and other elements of the government’s so-called media reform package can only lead me to conclude that this government is motivated not by the public interest but only by the interests of the two biggest media companies in Australia. Most, if not all, of the government’s media reforms appease the powerful commercial media interests, not the interests of consumers.

It is amazing that the minister scratches her head and wonders why Australians are not taking up digital technology, when she is simultaneously selling them out in favour of the two biggest players. The government has refused to tell the Australian people the real agenda behind its policies, but the Australian people are not blind. Most will see right through the minister’s venal behaviour. What is most problematic about the Howard government’s approach to digital television is its track record of deviating from a commitment to providing a diverse range of services offering entertainment, education, news and information.

At every juncture of digital TV policy, the government has navigated a dangerous path which appeases entrenched segments of the television and pay TV industry and most obviously PBL and News Ltd. Everything the Howard government has tried to do in terms of digital television has been nothing short of a win for stupidity and a triumph for incompetence. Sadly, the fumbling and bumbling approach to digital technology is only contributing to the untenable situation whereby Australia remains in a world of analog while other countries make a permanent switch to digital. This is the case in remote and non-remote areas.

I challenge the minister to undertake a genuine reform agenda, starting with this bill, that does not build upon the foundation of appeasing established vested interests. Why start from the premise of pandering to media moguls? Why not build from the foundation of exploiting opportunities presented by digital television rather than exploiting and flogging the poor consumers? If we can have more new broadcasters in the free-to-air television space, why stop this progress? If we can enhance viewing choice by allowing standard-definition multichannelling options for those in non-remote areas, why stop this progress? Why should we continue to remain shackled by decisions that seem purposefully designed to inhibit the development of digital technology? Why not listen to consumer and competitor concerns when reforming any elements of Australia’s media?

Australia’s media need not remain a protected species. Since entering parliament, I have held the sincere belief that the government would stop singing from the same song sheet as the influential media moguls. The Howard government’s track record on media regulation has been appalling. Combined with the Howard government’s ruthless attempt this week to sell out our democracy to powerful media moguls, my belief has understandably waned.

Members of the government should show courage and leadership and stand up for their principles rather than political pragmatism. Australia’s democracy is far more important than any short-term political gain. The public interest and the future of our democracy are at stake, in my view. They demand more than a short-sighted view to obtaining favourable editorial coverage from the media. Sadly, it appears that the bulk of the government’s reforms will continue to make it more difficult for competitors to rise from the ashes. The people who have the most to benefit from the spate of recent media bills from this government are the existing players. I say that again and again.

The past week has shown that the Howard government is either utterly clueless when it comes to promoting digital technology or extremely cunning in protecting vested interests. Either way, media consumers and Australia’s democracy will be worse off for this bill and the media ownership bill, which is going to be rammed through the House of Representatives shortly. Nonetheless, I will not resile from my campaign, which has been going since 2001, and I will continue to live in hope that people in this House will come to their senses.

I have previously accused the minister of engaging in venal behaviour and I do not resile from that. However, I know the Prime Minister to be a great believer in our democracy and a man who believes in civic responsibilities and obligations. That he did not wish to spend much political capital on this issue suggests that his heart really is not in it. Why didn’t the Prime Minister come into the House and speak on this bill? I appeal to him to review this bill and to put a stop to the assembly line production of other media bills.

We need to do more to protect and promote diversity in entertainment, news and political commentary sources in this government. We all know that greater diversity of news and information is good for democracy and good for our country. As I have already mentioned, in his Australia Day address to the National Press Club, the Prime Minister made several exultant references to our democracy. He also said that a fiercely independent media strengthened by industry diversity has contributed to these democratic traditions. Actions speak louder than words and that is why I hope the government will embrace the opportunities presented by digital television and put a stop to cross-media amendments that will put more power and influence in the hands of unelected media proprietors.

It is a disgrace that the Prime Minister, ably assisted by Senator Coonan, is slamming a wrecking ball into the pillars of our democracy in Australia. We are going to suffer the ramifications of the media reform bills—this bill and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006, which we are about to vote on in the House of Representatives in a few minutes time. It is an absolute disgrace. The government stand condemned. They are not interested in the public interest; they are only interested in looking after the big, powerful media companies.

11:00 am

Photo of Michael HattonMichael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

It is interesting to come to the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 after having just been one of the lucky people on the Labor side to speak in relation to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill and the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill. When you look at the content of this bill and what it attempts to achieve and the contents of the other bills, they are worlds apart. We are led, at least in the media ownership bill, into an area so deep and dark we have never seen anything of its like before in Australian history. It is a dreadful thing, as the member for Lowe referred to in what was a very broad discussion on this particular bill.

I want to go to the core of the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006. What are the elements of this bill? What is it trying to do? For particular regional and remote areas in Australia—in one instance, virtually the whole of Western Australia and in other instances the Northern Territory, outback Queensland and outback New South Wales—we have a situation where currently there are one or two licensees taking an analog service through those remote areas. The difficulty those licensees will have is that, in being forced to make the transition to digital—and we know that that transition to digital was going to be in 2008 to start off with and was then pushed out to 2010, and I think the plan might be to push it out to 2012—it might be a bit like the Joint Strike Fighter in that we may be looking at 2015 by the time we finally get to put it into play.

When in opposition in the past and since it has been in power, the government has made a great deal of the changeover from analog to the digital service with GSM. We had advice when we were in government on that changeover. Certainly, this government has had a whole string of advice about how it should make the transition from analog to digital. This bill is very interesting because it is completely in line with what the government decided in the very first instance when it looked at the whole question of high-definition television. Remember the early period when the government was looking at what it would do in terms of the transition to digital? It was trying to work out whether or not to go with high-definition TV, as recommended by James Packer and the PBL organisation and, I think, also News Corporation at the time. They argued that Australia should make an immediate and straight jump to high-definition television.

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer, Mr Costello, were both given high-definition TVs to have a look at what that service would be like during the summer cricket season. They enjoyed that for a number of months until someone found out and said: ‘Hang on, this is a bit rich, isn’t it? Why should two people who are making a decision about what kind of transition we should have be given a special privilege, at no cost whatsoever, particularly during the summer cricket season?’ It would, of course, affect one more than the other, given that the Prime Minister is a bit more enamoured of cricket than the Treasurer is. Whether that had any effect or not, the government went down the high-definition TV road. I argued at the time that I did not think this was very smart.

What might have been a better proposition for Australia as a whole—and I am not sure whether I still hold to this, but we will see where the argument goes—would have been to take a standard-definition route. If you took a standard-definition route and did not take the immediate jump, you could do what a number of European countries have done in making the transition. You could have much greater diversity and much greater approachability in media provision. The part of the band taken up by analog is very large. You can put either one high-definition signal in its place, or you can put six standard-definition signals in its place. If you are interested in diversity and in providing a multichannelled experience, you would go with the SD model. The government went with high definition.

What is this bill saying? If you have a couple of licensees in remote and regional Australia—those licensees are WIN and Prime in large areas of Australia and there is another entity in Perth—because of the wide geographical spread of Australia and the sparse nature of the population, you are going to have to have very deep pockets if each of those licensees is going to have to reach into those pockets to pay for the full transition to HDTV. Accordingly, this bill provides something like $19.63 million to assist. It says that, in those areas where there are two analog licensees, it will create another entity. That entity will have one digital channel—a third digital channel—which, in the wonderful way in which these bills are drafted, will serve effectively as one of the existing two. It is a mechanism to say two can become one. There will still be two licences in an area but this one digital one can serve for both.

I think it is a sensible and necessary thing not to put the hammer onto companies and say, ‘You will have to provide it all yourself.’ We know that has been done from one end of the country to the other in the major metropolitan areas. There is enough depth in there. We also know that Channel 7, Channel 10 and Channel 9 have completely different definitions of what HDTV is. So you do not get the straight 620p or the interlaced version of that, 1080i, on all channels. It is not the same HD broadcast on all, because they have adopted their own different standards. That makes it difficult for people who are making content and providing it to a number of those stations, but it also would make it difficult for people in remote areas in terms of what they are getting. You have both WIN and Prime which, from memory, have different definitions of what they are providing in HDTV. If they have one single channel to provide it and if they are saving costs as a result of utilising this, they will actually have to make some changes in the way they put their shows together in order to be able to run through the one single system.

So what has been provided here could have been a great deal more if the government said: ‘We might make an exception here for remote and regional Australia, at least in the first instance, and go down the multichannelling SD route to provide more capacity, utilising the existing analog capacity. We could provide a great deal more diversity and give more choice to people instead of just the one HD signal. We can have up to six SD signals.’ They did not do that for Australia. The fundamental reason why? There were certain interested parties who came to speak to coalition members, ministers, the cabinet and indeed members of the opposition, pushing their barrow and arguing for what they wanted out of it.

What have we seen over the past 10 years in terms of the shape and nature of digital television delivery in Australia? We have seen that the take-up has not been really brilliant. It is about 17 per cent or so. It is still very slow. What has kicked on in that period and what has been most aggressive is people’s use of DVD. They have used some newer screens in that take-up. We know that in the next few years—and this will take quite a while to bed down—Toshiba will be putting their HD up against Blu-ray technology, which allows you to record roughly between 29 gigabytes and 50 gigabytes of information onto a disk. When you do that, you can actually tape one of these shows.

If you record about an hour of television and you use MPEG2—and what is interesting is that, once we get the legislation through this place, doing this will be entirely legal for the Australian population whereas at the moment it is completely illegal—you are looking at a couple of gigabytes of information. If you do the same with HD, it jumps dramatically in terms of the amount pushed out—something in the order of eight gigabytes for just one show of an hour’s length or so. You need to be able to store a lot. This makes a great deal of difference to people who want to time-shift and look at the information later, but it also gives you an indication of just how rich what is being provided through HDTV is. The signal is much better, the amount of pixelation is much greater and it is a hell of a lot sharper. But you are replacing analog with just that one service.

It may well be that, simply because of the quality of that signal, eventually people will pick it up and run with it. Part of the reason that they may do that is that they may see that DVD can in fact be surpassed. People who use DVD throughout regional and rural Australia now, those people who get just analog services—as we know, it is a bit hard to run down to the local shop in regional and rural Australia—are using the significant services available Australia-wide through Telstra and other entities where you can order a DVD service. That has supplanted a lot of the normal television watching we have seen, and it is part of the problem in the free-to-air area where advertisers realise they are not getting the same sort of bang for their buck they got previously, because people’s viewing habits have changed.

HDTV does allow for a significant jump in quality. If you have an appropriate system to use it and can access it, and if you have got over the hurdle of the cost of entry, you can take it up—and, as time goes on, a lot more people are coming in. The member for Gorton, who is here in the Main Committee, is a very crafty and sensible person. He just bought a new TV, but he did not buy it before the World Cup soccer because he knew the prices would have been up. He bought it after that, when there was a tremendous price drop. He got a television of the same quality for about half the price—and a lot of the punters out there are doing exactly the same thing. They are aware of the situation and they have waited.

The member for Gorton, like so many others in Australia, waited to see the price drop so that it could become affordable. That is a key point in terms of whether the transition to full HD will be really successful. You cannot undo this part of the changes in the media area. We cannot just go back and say, ‘Let’s just run with SD.’ But I think there are a number of things we can do. In the digital TV bill, which I just dealt with in the House but did not in fact speak on, there are some reasonable changes and we are supporting them. One of the things the bill allows is some multichannelling, as this bill does. You need to get a bit of a spread and allow people greater access to different programming. The fundamental problem since the kick-off of high-definition television in Australia, in terms of the government’s response and the manner in which they have just run down the line of the major media interest, is that we have not had diversity of access because datacasting was completely knocked out.

Who would datacasting have assisted? It might have assisted the Fairfax organisation. They have a fair amount of data to pump around the country. People may have had more access to a broader range of data. It would have been a situation as well where, if datacasting had been allowed—and people could have had a very difficult time trying to work out what that was and what it would mean—and if you multichannelled, could you actually have a bit of a TV show and all the rest of it? What would it mean? Would it be sort of like TV? We are still imprisoned in this dilemma. What we do not have in regional and rural Australia is enough choice in this regard. For a government that underlines how important that is, we do not have fast enough internet access that could actually change what they are doing.

In fact, Labor has a plan—as we have for a number of things—to give to 98 per cent of Australians by 2010 fast internet access in the order of a minimum of six megabits per second. That is enormous compared to where we are now. We have gone from dial-up at 28 kilobits through to a provision where most people have roughly 256 kilobits—if they have woken up to the fact that they can pay as much for 256 kilobit access as they pay for 28 kilobit. The telcos are not going to ring you up and say, ‘Hang on—you can get a faster service for the same money.’

We are also in a period of immense transition where people in regional areas who are not so remote that they cannot get access have looked at other ways of doing things, of accessing high-definition content or accessing media content and data content through the internet. The innovative action here has been in the regional areas. That is where iPrimus and iiNet have said: ‘Okay, we can make some changes here. The copper network may be pretty dodgy because Telstra has not put the money in that it should have in order to maintain it, but if we put a piece of equipment into the existing digital exchanges’—a piece of equipment called a DSLAM—‘and, using that, are able to give people access to ADSL2, that is 25 times faster than 256 broadband.’ In the regional areas, where there was always the greatest deficit, people could actually have another choice, because part of what is happening in this area is that delivery mechanisms are changing.

Where this bill deals with the transition from analog to digital, from a couple of analog services through to one dedicated channel which would provide those HD services and some associated multichannelling, in the future there will be some competition from elsewhere, because we do not have the full SD multichannelling involved here. If your internet access is fast enough, except for in the most remote areas of the country, you will be able to run to an eight- through to 12- to even 25-megabits access through the net, depending—as it does at the moment with the normal ADSL—upon how far you actually are from the exchange.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11.18 am to 11.31 am

The choice that people in regional and rural Australia have is marginally increased through this action to license a digital channel, which can allow for some multichannelling at certain times instead of full HD. But the impetus Australia-wide is changing. I am firmly of the view that, in going from analog to digital TV, the use of that spectrum will still allow the free-to-airs to have a dominant position in the Australian market. This is not a view that is generally held but, if you look at the provision now, if you want to push out signals—analog, digital or whatever—to the broader market, you will see that the fastest, cheapest way to do that is to use the existing spectrum. Some have the view that you can supplant that by using broadband that is fast enough.

As I indicated just before a division was called, Labor’s plan to provide fast broadband for Australia will certainly be revolutionary in terms of the 256 kilobits, at the very minimum, that we currently have. Even members of parliament have just been allowed to go to 512 kilobits. The bottom end of regional Australia’s utility at the moment—if they use ADSL2—is to have 1½ megabits, then from that point you run significantly right up to 12 megabits or so. That is fast, and it is fast enough to have TV delivery around Australia and to have a whole stack of services. It is fast enough to be able to subvert what the government has done in mandating HDTV with respect to only the existing players. It is also a question of whether you do it and whether you do it well enough, particularly in regional Australia. Part of the problem here is that those people who are most affected by this bill live in remote Australia, and you still have the problem that they are part of that two per cent that are the hardest to serve. But there are already faster satellite services available so that you get some breadth, some diversity, some slicing of the market to give people a chance to have a run.

This is an interesting bill and a useful one for people in those circumstances, but it only partly recognises the changing nature of delivery of digital services to Australians. In fact, it is indicative of the fact that the government really does not know what it is doing in this area. It has for so long forestalled the dramatic increase in broadband access that Australia needs not just in the cities but in regional, rural and remote Australia. And where this legislation goes some way to making it cheaper for people to provide digital services, you have to go— (Time expired)

11:34 am

Photo of Jackie KellyJackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

The member for Blaxland made a few interesting points in his speech on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006, but it sounds to me as though the Labor Party is trying to back the Beta technology when everyone is walking out the door with VHS. It is always very dangerous for government to mandate technologies, and that was very evident in the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts—which was a bipartisan report—entitled Digital Televison: who’s buying it? That committee looked into the uptake of digital television in Australia, which was very slow.

I was certainly in the parliament 10 years ago when we chose HD, hence the seven megahertz spectrum. We seem to be talking all the time about these channels being seven megahertz, whereas the member for Blaxland quite rightly pointed out that it is no longer a seven megahertz spectrum; it breaks down into megabits per second. So we really should be talking about channels and megabits per second, be it an SD channel or a HD channel or one that is using MPEG2 compression or, in future, MPEG4 or MPEG6 compression or Pentium—whatever type of compression technologies will be used in the future for broadcasting. Certainly the spectrum required gets smaller and smaller and hence the opportunities for diversity explode. Diversity in the media underpins the coalition’s policy in this area, but we do not want to mandate technologies that people can use. You want to make provision for wherever the market goes in the future so you can support consumer choice and give consumers what they want.

We have made a huge provision for HD over the last decade, in that that would be the standard that consumers would want. I disagreed with it at the time. I thought: ‘That’s a load of rubbish. No-one is going to buy digital television for a good picture, for goodness sake!’ Today I am of a slightly different point of view given the number of televisions that are being sold with large screens—I am talking massive. Just the other weekend, I was with Len Wallis, who had a three-metre screen operating on very good quality HD. People are now designing their houses—you see it in project homes and display homes—to accommodate these TVs. Instead of the old family room and lounge room and what not, they actually have cinemas.

Photo of Dick AdamsDick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

And popcorn!

Photo of Jackie KellyJackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

That is right. Consumers are arranging living rooms pretty much like this chamber, where you all line up in rows and watch massive screens. HD is critical. To get a good picture and good sound quality, HD is important. It is where technology is going. With the ageing population and people having eyesight issues over distance, good quality screens start to get important. So, although I disagreed with it 10 years ago, I do think HD technology is important and ought to be one of the choices that consumers have.

Given that, we need to ensure that when consumers purchase the conversion to digital they have a choice of checking out HD, checking out SD and saying, ‘Yes, I will pay the extra for that service because I like it,’ or: ‘Look, no, I am not really that much of an aficionado; SD will do me. I’m fine with 50 bucks for a set-top box. I will use all my own gear. I am not really interested in anything else the digital age has to offer.’ That choice is important; hence the government has proceeded with a multichannelling option in HD. At the moment that is a fairly limited right, because there are not too many consumers out there with HD, but it ought to be an option that consumers have in future.

I personally think that mandating an SD rollout and SD multichannelling is going to be a great driver of digital television uptake, as indicated by this bill, in allowing an extra SD channel in remote Western Australia. It is ring-fenced; it is only for remote areas. I notice that everything outside of Perth is remote: ‘regional’ has been redefined to ‘remote’ in this bill. It is a business model that has been worked out between government, Prime and WIN to provide some stimulus to the uptake of digital television in the regions and to give an option of an extra station. They cannot roll out HD across this area; it is much cheaper to roll out the SD transmitters. For consumers in the regions, it is a lot cheaper to buy the SD box.

One of the drivers of the cost of this technology is the quantity being sold. Our committee received evidence about what will happen when the cities—particularly Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane—convert. With the analog switch-off, people must make a decision. They must purchase this technology. The competition in this market is huge. Every weekend you will notice that your letterbox is full of brochures from competitors with loss leaders from JB Hi-Fi, Domayne, Retravision, the Good Guys, Harvey Norman—you name it. They are all really pushing these electronic goods.

A switch-off in the cities will drive the price of goods down, so the more remote and regional areas will benefit from the cheaper prices. If you have switch-off in the regions before the cities, I think the regions will be paying a lot more for the equipment. That was a lot of the evidence that was presented to the committee about keeping some parity in the cost of switch-over for consumers.

Let us have a look at what consumers are purchasing. What are they looking for in the new equipment that they are purchasing? They are certainly looking for extra services. It became apparent from all the international markets we examined that it was the extra stations that drove digital take-up. It was having something extra, which this bill provides. It provides an extra SD channel, which is different from anything you will get on the analog stations. I still have some concerns and reservations about where community broadcasting will go in the conversion, particularly in remote areas. Obviously Imparja, as the member for Lingiari correctly pointed out, is a great television station, moving ahead in leaps and bounds. It has the potential to be Australia wide and it is certainly servicing large Indigenous populations in Sydney and other parts of metropolitan Australia. We have invested in this national Indigenous television concept, and I think community television has the ability to deliver diversity in media as well, as shown by channel 31 in Melbourne.

Where can these stations move to? Are they going to be a ‘must carry’ on ABC? Do they have a simultaneous channel? They do not need seven megahertz—they really only need a quarter of that—to simultaneously broadcast, so they keep their consumer while they switch over. The cost of putting together content for community television is certainly substantially reduced. Technological advances like YouTube clearly demonstrate that there is content coming from all over the world that people are quite happy to make publicly available. So there are large opportunities.

One of the things that I have identified from looking at things is the SBS channel. SBS is sitting on a large swathe of spectrum. It costs government $100 million a year and it delivers probably one program a week for some of our non-English speakers. In Australia there are currently two pay TV platforms which deliver, in some instances, up to three or four channels in the language of the non-English speaker in Australia. They have a satellite footprint across Australia. It is about $60 a month. Anyone who wants to see a non-English program can actually flick between three or four channels all in the language of their choice on pay TV. You have to wonder, in today’s environment, at the value of spending $160 million on SBS. What can be done with that spectrum?

I suggest that spectrum has a lot of opportunities in the community TV area, and that provides a lot of diversity. But, again, a lot of this tends to depend on where people are purchasing this product, what the consumer is doing and what the consumer wants. I think there are better ways of delivering it and we must always be on the move, but you cannot dictate technologies. We need to be very cognisant of the diversity required in the media to maintain our independence as politicians and to maintain consumer choice so that consumers can see what they want, when they want and how they want to watch it. That will be driven, I think, largely by them.

Photo of Brendan O'ConnorBrendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Pollies on ice!

Photo of Jackie KellyJackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

We should organise to get our own back and put it up on YouTube! This bill provides a valuable service to consumers in remote Western Australia and obviously has a few lessons in it for other areas of Australia, but they have their own problems. I think it is always dicey to drive technology. I commend the bill to the House.

11:45 am

Photo of Dick AdamsDick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

This brief piece of legislation, the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006, is important for television viewers in remote areas of Australia where there are only two commercial services on the market. The bill will assist commercial free-to-air broadcasters to deliver digital TV to Australians living in these areas. But once again the national broadcaster is not included in this, in the sense of having opportunities to broaden its footprint, yet there really are huge deficiencies in the ABC’s range in Australia.

If commercial broadcasters take up the options made available in this bill, viewers in places like Kalgoorlie, Port Hedland and Geraldton will be able to experience the superior picture, sound quality and other benefits of digital TV—yet in Tasmania we are scratching to receive the public broadcaster in a good percentage of town areas. They will also have the benefit of an additional commercial television channel—and in Tasmania we will with Channel 10.

I do not begrudge these improved services for people living in remote Australia, and I will support the passage of this legislation through the parliament. While this legislation mainly applies to remote areas, I would like to know what is happening to help the government owned broadcasting service to be screened in every home in my state. In Tasmania many areas have not received ABC television reception since the change from VHF to UHF. Now we are being asked to deal with the next change without any assistance to receive that new signal.

The member who spoke before me, the member for Lindsay, mentioned pricing, and I know that the report she did was about the price of digital TVs and about bringing down digital pricing. The thrust of her argument was quite right: the more people that take it up, the cheaper TVs will get, as I have discussed with other people. But as you start changing the delivery signal in different areas some people that are on the edge miss out while some others pick it up, so there are winners and losers when you start changing signals. My electorate has 62 per cent of the landmass of Tasmania. It has a lot of dales, hills, mountains and trees, all of which can interfere with signals, so a lot of people have great difficulty in receiving signals.

Digital TV transmissions began in metropolitan areas in 2001 and in most parts of regional Australia in 2004. The rollout of the infrastructure for digital broadcasting has proceeded very well. Free-to-air digital TV is available to 85 per cent of Australian households. The state capitals and 31 regional centres have access to all of their existing free-to-air television channels in digital form, except certain parts of Tasmania that are not considered remote, yet do not have the luxury of having a free-to-air service.

The Broadcasting Services Act does not contain any provisions which set a date for the commencement of digital broadcasting in remote licence areas. This reflects the fact that population density is low in remote licence areas and, typically, to reach the audience, many retransmission sites are required. So, if they can have them for the commercials, what is wrong with providing a similar service for the national broadcaster?

These factors make the transition to digital broadcasting very expensive for licensees in remote areas. So, while this legislation aims to help reduce those costs and to increase the incentive for incumbent commercial broadcasters to invest in digital transmission facilities, it does little to help the ABC. In remote areas where there are only two commercial television licensees servicing the market, broadcasters will be permitted, either individually or through the establishment of a joint venture company, to broadcast a new digital-only service. The new service will also broadcast the digital version of the existing analog services on the same channel. In other words, commercial broadcasters in remote licence areas will be able to multichannel.

Currently, this option is not open to commercial broadcasters in non-remote areas. In order to reduce the costs of establishing a new digital service, the bill offers broadcasters in remote areas relief from the high-definition quota. In metropolitan and regional markets, licensees are required to broadcast 1,040 hours per year in high-definition digital format. This bill allows remote licensees to elect to broadcast only in standard definition format. The ability to opt out of high-definition broadcasting will significantly reduce the costs of providing digital services in remote areas. As many people do not even get standard definition, it will be acceptable for a while until technology brings on new levels of reception. However, there is a significant policy gap because there are no details provided on what assistance will be available to ensure that the disadvantaged are not left staring at a blank screen when switch-over occurs.

My Senate colleagues have done their homework on what is available overseas. The US congress has allocated nearly $US1 billion to subsidise the purchase of set-top boxes. In Britain, up to £400,000 will be set aside from BBC licence fees to assist the disadvantaged to switch. The task of achieving digital switch-over is a huge policy challenge. In the UK, where 72.5 per cent of households have access to digital TV, it is estimated that only 40 per cent of televisions have been converted. If it can be done for the BBC, I do not see why the ABC cannot be assisted to provide service to semi-remote or difficult terrain regions.

My constituents in Glengarry, Flowery Gully, Royal George, the Tasman Peninsula, the west coast and many other places will have nothing. One of my elderly constituents, Ken Wagg, even felt tormented enough to climb a 60-foot tree on his property to improve TV reception. The reception was still no better, but he drew attention to people’s plight in that area. A member of the upper house of the Tasmanian Parliament and I persuaded Ken to come down. We persuaded him that there are safer ways of bringing this issue to the attention of the legislators. He went off with a petition and collected the signatures of nearly 4,000 people who have had difficulties with TV reception in their different areas of Tasmania.

So it is really not good enough to allow just the commercials to have access to rural and remote concessions. People in my electorate are not that rural or remote, yet they still cannot get a decent service, either from the ABC or the commercials. Some of them would laugh to hear that they are supposed to be getting at least three channels. I watched a football match in one area of my state on the only channel I could get and I could not track down where the football was—so I can forget about the cricket. The situation is that people can buy into pay TV, but they do not get local TV news bulletins from the ABC. They can pick up other news bulletins from other parts of the country, but it is not local news. This is an isolating factor as well. I believe we have to do a lot more mixing of communications technologies whereby people can share whatever is available to get television, radio and mobile phone coverage. Not everyone wants to run around with a computer under one arm and a satellite under the other to try and pick up a signal.

We also have this added complication of the change in media ownership laws, supposedly to broaden the ownership of commercial stations—purportedly giving us a greater range of programs. All it is really doing is allowing the current media moguls to cross-subsidise themselves. Those in regional areas will not only miss out more but also lose any sort of independence of view that they might have had. I am very disappointed in those changes too. They show that the minister is just not up to the task of being able to regulate media in this country. We saw members of the House gagged this morning by the Leader of the House, who probably got a phone call from Jamie early this morning saying that he wanted the bill through the House today, that he needed the money because he has to buy a part of Fairfax. So we had debate in the House of Representatives gagged, and many people who wanted to speak on that particular bill and about media ownership could not do so. It is something which is very important for the democratic processes of our country, but it was denied. So while I agree that this legislation will be helpful in areas that we all have to deal with—and some people will receive some benefits: digital TV has great advantages—it will be less than helpful for some people in my state.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11.58 am to 12.17

12:17 pm

Photo of Kelly HoareKelly Hoare (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Like so much else put before this House by the government, the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 contains a lot of small fiddly details, a few minor changes to existing policy and a glaring lack of useful change to target the things which most need fixing. Labor are not opposed to this bill, for we believe that people living in remote areas should have access to an amount and a variety of television content comparable to those who choose to live in our big cities. We cannot help but agree that any legislation to encourage faster take-up of digital television in this country is a step in the right direction. But this bill does not go anywhere near far enough in addressing the important issues surrounding digital TV, particularly as the government has refused to consider the amendment moved by Senator Conroy in the Senate which sought to address existing restrictions on the content which our two national broadcasters, ABC and SBS, are able to show on their digital channels.

Labor’s amendment would have done away with the current restrictions which prevent our national broadcasters from showing national news, current affairs, drama or comedy programming. In short, these channels are prevented from showing anything that people might actually want to watch and have to resort to screening international news, music content and other throwaway scraps to fill their airtime. Yet Australian taxpayers are paying over $300 million to enable these channels to broadcast digitally. Are they getting their money’s worth? Hardly.

It is to the government’s shame that it refused to accept Senator Conroy’s amendment. Had it been accepted and his proposals implemented, there is no doubt that this would have had a positive effect on the number of Australian households making the switch to digital TV, which is after all our goal here. At present digital TV is in a parlous state. Although the government has stated again and again its commitment to rolling out digital services across the country, we have seen no firm action to bring this about.

Obviously the current plan of action is not working, as evidenced by the fact that at present only about 10 per cent of Australian households have purchased the technology necessary to receive digital TV. That means the overwhelming majority of Australian homes are presently not even capable of receiving digital transmissions let alone worrying about what is being shown on these channels. No wonder Minister Coonan was forced to abandon the government’s original 2008 deadline for switching off analog transmission. If this had happened according to their stated schedule, nearly every home in the country would have been without a television.

What we need is an integrated plan involving incentives for people to convert and upgrade to the new digital technology, along with a relaxation of the current restrictions on digital content so that, when people do make the switch, there is actually something on television that they would want to watch. Otherwise, why would they bother spending the not insignificant amount of money necessary to upgrade?

In other countries, such as the US and the UK, governments have recognised that the take-up of digital television will have an important overall benefit for the country—not least the economic advantage to be gained from the freeing-up of bandwidth—so they have made a financial commitment to help people upgrade to the new digital technology. Similarly, in these countries digital TV offers more than analog, making it a much more appealing option. If the government were really committed to the rollout of digital TV in Australia, they would be wise to follow the example set by the US and UK. At present they are all talk and no action.

This government has already demonstrated its lack of vision and leadership on digital TV programming issues, specifically in relation to Fly TV and ABC Kids, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s youth oriented digital channels. For example, launched in 2001, Fly TV broadcast music, arts, skating and sports content between 6 pm and 6 am daily and was immensely popular with young people who were able to access it. Advertised through the main analog ABC channel, the existence of Fly TV was no doubt instrumental in some parents’ decisions to make the switch to digital, as the channel offered entertaining youth oriented and youth appropriate programming during the timeslots when young people most often watch TV, and without the inappropriate violent and sexual content which often pops up on commercial TV.

Watched by around 300,000 young people per month, Fly TV had the potential to bring young viewers to digital TV and to establish digital TV as a key element of the viewing habits of tomorrow’s adults. Yet in 2003 Fly TV was forced to cease transmission after the government rejected the ABC’s application for an extra $250 million in funding over three years to further develop the digital channel. In short, Fly TV was forced to close because this government, which is allegedly so committed to digital television, was unable to see the benefit of introducing hundreds of thousands of young people to this new technology, unable to look past its ideological mistrust of the ABC and see how they were leading the way in digital TV programming. Well done!

Of course, part of the reason for the government’s continuing support for restrictions on digital television content is that they do not wish to offend or upset the powerful media barons in this country who presently control the commercial market. They do not wish to make Mr Packer, Mr Stokes and, of course, our North American friends CanWest cranky by threatening the vast commercial television empires by allowing competitive broadcasting on digital channels. This desire to placate big business is understandable—after all, with an election coming up next year, the government can hardly afford to have these media gargantuans turned against them. But giving in to the wishes of existing television licence holders at the expense of digital TV’s proper development is just not on. It is not acceptable that the government should hamstring digital TV’s development as it has by refusing to allow digital channels to offer competitive content with analog channels simply to ensure the corporate cronies still love them when the election is finally announced.

It yet again demonstrates the lack of backbone possessed by this government that it has chosen not to stand up to the Packers of this world and, therefore, also not to implement the policy changes which are sorely needed if we are ever to see a full take-up of digital TV. Spinelessness aside, the government should at least be congratulated on taking action to bring broadcasting services in remote areas more in line with the services available in metropolitan areas, as this bill proposes to do. Any action which will increase the quantity and diversity of programming in our most poorly serviced areas will receive the support of Labor.

Country people deserve the same quality of services as anybody else. We particularly support amendment (1), which allows that, where there are only two licensees in a designated remote licence area, one or both of these licensees may broadcast a third digital channel, increasing the diversity of programming. This proposed change has already led to an announcement by Golden West Network and WIN TV that they will launch a joint digital channel in Western Australia in 2007, and we can only hope that more remote licence holders will also choose to take up the third channel option. There are many areas of Tasmania, Queensland and the Northern Territory in particular which would benefit from the availability of a third channel.

Yet again, this bill does not go far enough in addressing the issues at stake. Certainly the changes to remote broadcasting rules may lead to a greater take-up of digital technology in these remote areas, which I suppose is at least a start in getting this technology into more homes throughout the country. But the government should be doing far more. It should be making digital TV the more appealing option by offering incentives to upgrade analog technology and allowing digital broadcasters to offer competitive content with current commercial channels. It should be standing up to the bullying of Australia’s media barons and acknowledging that the success of digital TV, and by extension the advancement of Australia’s technological development, is far more important than its own electoral fortunes, more important than keeping its media-owning mates on side. It should be demonstrating leadership on this issue rather than allowing itself to be led by people who have their own interests at heart and not the country’s.

12:26 pm

Photo of Bob BaldwinBob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | | Hansard source

I would like to thank honourable members for their support of this bill. Mr Deputy Speaker, you may ask why the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources is summing up on this bill and not the minister representing him. He is in the main chamber at the moment where they are summing up and debating the bills on other aspects of broadcasting legislation.

The members that have spoken to this bill have raised a range of issues regarding broader digital television matters, including the pace of digital take-up by consumers and the implementation of digital conversion. One thing that is quite disappointing is some of the comments from members opposite who do not seem to understand the issue at large. The general take-up of digital television in Australia has actually been quite good. The conversion to digital is the most fundamental change that the broadcasting industry has seen since the introduction of television itself some 50 years ago. This government is working hard to ensure the smooth introduction of digital television in Australia. We are committed to ensuring all Australian consumers have access to the new services that digital technology will bring into our homes.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you may be aware that over 95 per cent of Australians can now access at least one digital television service with the purchase of a set-top box or digital television. The government is encouraged by the most recent industry estimates that, at the end of June 2006, over 1.7 million digital television receivers had been supplied to retailers and installers. Around 48 per cent of these were supplied in the 12 months to June 2006, which represents a household take-up rate of around 20 per cent. These achievements are all down to the Howard government’s willingness to take the lead and to establish sound legislative frameworks to support the smooth introduction of digital television into Australia.

The claims by members opposite that the take-up is lagging behind that in other countries is not true. Let me disabuse opposition members of the view that Australia lags behind other nations in switching off the analog system. In fact, Australia’s new target for switch-over of 2010 to 2012 aligns itself with most comparable countries. As you may be aware, Germany will be completed by 2011, France is aiming for 2011 region by region, the US is looking for a nationwide switch-off in February 2009 and the United Kingdom is switching off region by region between 2008 and 2012. So claims opposite that Australia is lagging behind in this approach are without any foundation when Australia is compared to other leading nations.

But we do have a plan and, notwithstanding the considerable progress to date, the government continue to drive digital take-up. The Howard government have introduced legislation to comprehensively reform the media industry in Australia and to allow the Australian media sector to move from the old analog based regime into the dynamic new world of digital content. Under this legislation, a range of new digital services will be gradually introduced.

The legislation provides that, from royal assent, national broadcasters will be able to provide an increased range of programming on their multichannels, and I am happy to note that the opposition agrees with this approach—something new for them. Commercial broadcasters will be able to provide a high-definition television multichannel from 2007 and commercial broadcasters will be able to provide a standard-definition television multichannel from 2009, with full multichannelling from analog switch-over. The legislation will also facilitate the allocation of two unassigned digital terrestrial channels throughout Australia, as soon as practical in 2007, for the new digital services that do not resemble traditional TV. The allocation of these channels for new and innovative digital services will contribute to diversity, provide extra content and services for viewers and potentially assist with the digital take-up. As part of the new framework, the Howard government is developing a digital action plan for release later this year, to expedite digital conversion and bring the simulcast period to an end. Increased digital take-up will also be facilitated by further public education and a range of other measures to facilitate conversion to digital television under the DAP.

I note criticisms of the government over the progress of the passage of this bill. Since its introduction, unrelated amendments have been proposed to the bill by non-government parties. It is disappointing that this has resulted in delaying the framework for the introduction of new services to viewers in remote areas. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that in your position as the member for Page you would be aware of how hard it is sometimes for people to get access to digital TV reception. This bill works largely towards improving services, so it is interesting to note that the opposition are the main people putting up the barriers each and every step of the way.

This bill provides a framework to implement the model agreed with WIN and Prime for the conversion of their commercial television broadcasting services in remote and regional Western Australia from analog to digital. The bill facilitates, as a part of the conversion model, the joint provision by WIN and Prime of a third digital commercial service under section 38B of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. For the first time this will provide viewers in non-metropolitan Western Australia with a choice of programming commensurate with that in Perth by allowing the broadcasters to multichannel three digital services on a single channel, with an exemption from any high-definition television requirements that might be applied to remote areas.

The Howard government is providing them with significant cost savings that will help to underpin the continued viability of the remote broadcasting services. This is in addition to the significant funding assistance of $19.36 million over eight years that the government is providing to WIN and Prime, under the regional equalisation plan, to further assist them with digital conversion in remote Western Australia. Broadcasters will have the option of commencing high-definition television services in the future should they desire to do so. The bill also extends the same benefits to the commercial broadcasters in the other remote licence area, remote Central and eastern Australia, should those broadcasters choose a similar digital conversion model for that market. REP assistance will also be made available. The debate and discussions on this bill have gone on for long enough, and therefore I commend this bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.