Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2012. The bill before the parliament today deals with the switch to digital television. Digital television has been broadcast in metropolitan areas since 2001 and in regional areas beginning in 2004. At the end of 2007, the Australian government announced that the switch to digital television would be completed by the end of 2013. We are now halfway through the process of switching off the analog signal. The end of this very long process is now in sight. The analog signal in the southern part of New South Wales will be switched off in just a few days, on 5 June. The northern part of New South Wales, including my electorate, will go digital only in November. The capital cities and remote licence areas will switch to digital only next year.

The switch to digital television is a complex and expensive process, and I commend Free TV Australia and Regional Broadcasting Australia for their efforts to ensure that the switch has been as smooth as possible. Australia is a very large country, so it has been an significant undertaking by Regional Broadcasting Australia to send technicians up and down suburban streets to fine-tune coverage and identify coverage black spots. Hundreds of broadcasting towers have been upgraded to digital standard by the broadcasters, and scores of self-help retransmissions sites have been upgraded or installed.

Of course, the switch has not been without its problems, and I know that some of my colleagues have raised concerns about specific locations. It is impossible to overlook the government's gold-plated set-top box scheme, which somehow managed to provide cheap set-top boxes to pensioners at an average cost equivalent to the price of two widescreen televisions. But, with that notable exception, the switch to digital TV seems to be running as well as could be expected.

The bill before the House today makes a number of sensible amendments to improve the rest of the switchover process and to remedy some minor issues which have arisen during the switchover. The most important changes included in this bill are amendments to the conditional access system which will allow earlier access to the VAST satellite system for people who will never receive a good terrestrial television signal. Presently, most people are not eligible to apply for VAST until six months before the switch-over date for their area. Many of these people live in reception black spots and will never receive reliable terrestrial television reception. For these people it makes sense to permit access to VAST at the earliest possible opportunity.

The television industry is not opposed to this change, and it will be a major benefit for many people in television reception black spots. The coalition believes that people living in regional and remote Australia should have access to high-quality services, which is why we support this bill. The VAST service has proven to be a significant improvement on the old satellite television services available in remote Australia. Instead of just providing a couple of free-to-air channels, VAST provides a full range of digital channels and local news channels. Making this service immediately available to everyone who cannot access a decent television signal is a good policy which will be welcomed by many people in regional Australia.

The bill also makes consequential changes to a number of sections in the Broadcasting Services Act to facilitate the change. The bill amends section 38C of the Broadcasting Services Act, which governs the allocation and operation of satellite broadcasting licences. This amendment will allow satellite broadcasters to provide VAST to Australia's external territories—Cocos Islands, Christmas Island, Coral Sea Islands and Norfolk Island. At the moment, broadcasters with a section 38C licence are not able to broadcast into these territories. Australians living in these external territories should have access to a decent television service, and I support this amendment.

The bill also amends section 211AA of the Broadcasting Services Act to allow broadcasters who operate in remote, central and eastern Australian licence areas to nominate more than one specified place in the licence area. The specified place is the location from which all time-based broadcasting obligations are determined. With the switch to digital television, some remote broadcasters are using the VAST service as the input feed for their terrestrial broadcasts. Different input feeds may be used in different parts of the broadcaster's licence area. Using different satellite feeds in different parts of the licence area allows broadcasters to better tailor their programming needs to the viewers. For example, a broadcaster may want to show rugby league programming in Queensland but AFL programming in Victoria and Tasmania. However, using these different satellite feeds could potentially result in remote broadcasters breaching their time-based broadcasting obligations. This amendment will allow the licensee to nominate more than one specified place in the licence area to ensure compliance with time based obligations. The amendment will ensure that viewers in remote licence areas are receiving appropriate programming for their time zone.

A significant change introduced by this bill relates to the timing of the final switch-over to digital television. At present, digital switch-over dates for different licence areas are set in a series of legislative instruments made by the minister. The minister has the authority to vary the switch-over date by up to three months, as long as the final switch-over date is no later than 31 December 2013. This final date can be varied to 30 June 2014 if switching off the analog signal by 31 December 2013 would result in a significant and unforeseeable technical or engineering problem. It is likely that the final switch-over dates for metropolitan areas will need to change significantly to allow a staggered approach to the switch-over process. A staggered approach will allow the broadcasters to better manage the engineering resources needed during a switch-over. A staggered approach will also ensure the government's assistance scheme is not overstretched. The bill will allow the minister to vary the switch-over dates as required; however, 31 December 2013 will still be the last possible switch-over date that is scheduled, in the absence of technical difficulties arising.

Digital television has provided a great improvement in viewing quality for many Australians, and the wide range of channels on offer these days, particularly in regional and remote areas compared with what they received previously, has certainly been welcomed. The coalition supports quality access to a range of technology services right across the country, no matter where people live. This legislation builds on that principle. It certainly works to ensure that people in regional and remote Australia have the very best television services available through this great new technology. I commend the bill to the House.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are going digital, which is a great thing. There might be a few luddites still floating around the House, but going digital has us moving with the rest of the world, and that is a good thing for viewers because it offers us all a range of services we could have only dreamed of once upon a time. However, in electorates like mine in regional Australia the transition can be problematic because there are black spots, and not everyone can receive new digital technology through terrestrial means. We are turning analog off, and that is obviously problematic for anyone and everyone living in a part of rural and regional Australia that is in what might be defined in colloquial terms as a black spot. This is welcome news because the government has acknowledged the problems, and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television) Bill ensures that those people in black spot areas can move to satellite technology more quickly than they might have been able to if this bill had not been introduced and not, therefore, passed by the parliament.

It reminds me that I have had many people in my electorate like Noel Googe from Wybong, who approached me at a forum earlier this year complaining about this very thing. It is good news for him and for my electorate, as well as more generally for all those who might have been disadvantaged by what is an inevitable transition and a good transition but which is, notwithstanding, a transition that could potentially disadvantage people who, after having analog removed, find themselves with a gap and an inability to secure new digital services.

The digital world is moving rapidly, and it is causing all sorts of transitions all over the place. It is changing the way we all access the media, and certainly the way in which we use our local technologies. Just today we were reminded about the pace of this change and how it might impact on people differently in different areas. Tonight we are focusing on rural and regional Australia. In a sense it is timely that we are debating this bill tonight because just today Fairfax announced some considerable changes within its own organisation which I believe will have significant consequences for people who live in my region and, indeed, in other parts of rural and regional Australia.

Most people in this place will remember that in 2006 Fairfax merged with Rural Press to form what was then a $9 billion media company. It goes without saying that the merger helped Australia to claim the mantle as the country with probably the highest level of media concentration in the world. Our lack of media diversity, given current events in the UK, would make the poms blush. I warned in 2006 that this merger would lead to (1) considerable job losses in journalism and production in the Hunter region and (2) a further undermining of both diversity and, indeed, local content. I remember having a pretty colourful conversation with a Fairfax executive at the time who called to admonish me because he believed my public statements at the time were misguided and misdirected. It was certainly a very robust conversation over the telephone, but I fear that my concerns expressed at that time have been somewhat vindicated. I would have been very happy to have been proven wrong.

When you pick up a newspaper in the Hunter, whether it be the NewcastleHerald, the Maitland Mercury, the CessnockAdvertiser, the Singleton Argus, the Muswellbrook Chronicle, the Hunter Valley News or the Scone Advocateand that is just in my electorate, as there are other examples in the electorates of some of my colleagues, including the member for Paterson, who I hope might show an interest in this issue—you will now be reading a Fairfax publication. In the past, with the Newcastle Herald, you would be reading a Fairfax publication, while the Maitland Mercury and those other, smaller newspapers would have been under the control of Rural Press, but it is one and the same now. For many years after the merger between Fairfax and Rural Press, if you had been listening to talkback radio—if you are such a masochist that you are inclined to do these things—you would have been listening to Radio 2UE streamed out of Sydney. Of course, 2UE is another tool of the Fairfax empire. That underscores the lack of diversity we have in the Hunter.

But today, very sadly—and of great concern—Fairfax decided it would sack about half of its editorial staff not only at the Newcastle Herald but also at the Illawarra Mercury and at other places. This means that a critical part of Fairfax production will now take place in New Zealand. We are now off-shoring a significant part of our news production in the Hunter region. We want our local newspapers produced locally—in print, online and of course on our television screens. The Hunter's residents—around half a million of them with very active communities everywhere—deserve to be able to access local news.

While I have no doubt that the Fairfax decision today is based on commercial consideration—that is their right and their will—I fear that it is going to be the beginning of not only the end of diversity in Hunter media but also the demise of local content. I have been concerned for some time that NBN3—which of course is a sister station of Channel 9, as is the case with all of the WIN television stations around the state—will begin to wind back its local content and focus its media presentations out of Sydney. I hope I am wrong about that.

I want to make the general point that media organisations in this country enjoy the right to produce, publish and screen their information thanks to the licence given by the national government. I am not saying that it is always a licence to print money—obviously Fairfax has considerable fiscal challenges before it—but I think that with that licence should come certain obligations. In terms of the interests of Hunter residents, I think that obligation should include not only every effort to overcome diversity with independent thinking and the expression of views but also of course the guarantee that they will meet certain standards of local content in their publishing.

It was a great disappointment today. We will see how things roll out tomorrow as Fairfax attempt to justify their decision. I am sure there will be a bit of spin and some guarantees that local content will remain and that they will do their best to prove that diversity does not necessarily matter because of their determination to be fair on every occasion and be independent in their thinking. But I think this is the start of a really worrying period for the Hunter in terms of media diversity and local content. I lament the decision today and I extend my support to all of those who, as a result of Fairfax's decision today, in a very short time will no longer enjoy the opportunity to be employed by Fairfax.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2012 and I do so because half of my electorate has just gone through the analog TV closure and I want to share some of my experiences with those Australians who still have this experience ahead of them—and that of course is most Australians. The closure of analog television must be the first government policy ever delivered to regional Australia ahead of the cities. When something good is to happen it almost always comes to the cities first and country areas have to wait years to catch up, if it happens at all. But analog TV closure is coming first to the country, and next year it will happen in the city. The country has been the test tube, and I hope that a lot has been learnt from the experience. Otherwise there is going to be chaos in the cities of Australia next year.

Digital television is certainly a new experience and delivers more programming choice and usually better quality pictures. Viewers with good signal like it, and our deeply indebted government likes it because it wants to sell off the analog spectrum, raising billions of dollars. But digital signal has different characteristics from the analog signal. It is less robust and flexible in hilly and forested areas, and some people who have perfectly good analog signals may have trouble receiving digital TV at all. I know that occasionally the opposite can occur: some people can get digital signal who were not able to successfully get analog. But it seems that it is more common for digital signals to cause trouble in areas where the signal is marginal than for the old analog system to do so. Of course, part of that is that analog signal would drift off and still leave something of a picture and sound on people's television screens, whereas when digital goes bad it cannot be seen at all; it pixelates and disappears. It is particularly likely to be impacted by heavy rainfall, as well as even some other weather conditions, and that can certainly have an impact.

Of course, everyone needs a new television set or a set-top box. On the basis of experience, I encourage anyone who is weighing up the difference between buying a new digital television and buying a set-top box: if you can possibly afford it, buy the new television set. Set-top boxes cause trouble. They are complicated to use, particularly for older people. The investment in a new television set would be looking much more towards the future than settling for a set-top box. I know the government's assistance program is built around the set-top box, but I think that if they could do it again it would be better to start by giving people the $400 for a television set to avoid a whole lot of the problems that have actually occurred.

The most important thing, however, is the antenna. Many people will need a new antenna. Nearly everybody needs some kind of adjustment and maybe even some new cabling. It is often said—and viewers often resent this fact, but it is sadly true—that most of the problems that are incurred in the changeover from analog to digital television are with the antenna. I know it can sometimes mean many calls, but if you have the antenna working right then reception problems are unlikely to be from your television set or any other part of the equipment in the house. In my own personal experience in my own home, in a regional city that has only moderate reception, it took several service calls. We have an external and an internal booster and we generally now have pretty good television reception. It fails us occasionally, but it is a pretty good effort. Digital reception is vulnerable to the weather, and of course in some places it cuts out altogether.

In some regional areas, TV had come from local self-help transmitters, most of them funded under the coalition's Television Black Spots Program. These provided television in areas which otherwise would never have received television provided in a commercial way; they needed some financial support. Labor, with its program of conversion, chose not to convert any of those transmitters, and I think that was an error. I think that a lot of the trouble could have been avoided if the expenditure had been put into simply converting those existing transmitters to digital. But in most cases that did not happen. In some cases the television stations did put in the money, but in others they were simply closed down and people had to migrate to the satellite.

There have been many, many difficulties in the conversion. Many people have had problems. I think the Digital TV Ready service were helpful. They were friendly, and generally you did not have to wait all that long on the phone. But on many occasions the problems were outside their expertise. Technicians were run off their feet. People were inevitably in the end directed towards the VAR satellite system, but it was always seen as a second-best option. People were saying, 'I had a perfectly good TV. Why was it switched off? Why have I got to spend all this extra money on a satellite system?' It is costly and the government subsidy was only available to pensioners and people migrating from self-help transmitters. But those caught in black spots, particularly those who had had an analog reception but now cannot get a digital reception, naturally felt aggrieved by these changes. However, once people have got the VAR satellite system connected, I have to say I think it is a pretty good service. It offers all the channels, it offers regional news from around Australia. It took me a long time, many questions on notice and many letters to the minister without being able to find out what was actually going to come on to those channels, and it was only when the commercial broadcasters themselves came to me only a few weeks before my area was closing down that I learned what was going to go on those channels and I was satisfied with the answers that I received.

There is a new issue developing, however. The VAR service is so good that in areas still receiving analog signal many people now want access to the programs that are available on the digital network and they cannot get them even if they are in one of these black spot areas where the digital services do not come through. So now I am getting pressure in my electorate from those who have not yet been converted that they would like to access the VAR satellite. They will be entitled to it because they are in areas which are not getting any decent digital signal and they would like to be connected now. This legislation will enable that to happen and I am pleased that that is occurring. It has become especially pressing because the digital carriers are now taking a lot of the football coverage and people who have only got an analog signal and will never get a digital signal would therefore be denied those pictures. I am pleased that this bill is addressing those issues.

I had a number of problems in my electorate which I would like to refer to briefly. Only half of my electorate has been switched off. The other half has to wait until the metropolitan changeover next year. That caused a number of complications, particularly in a city like Gympie where two-thirds of the city is not turned off but the other third is. There is all sorts of confusion occurring. I had a particular problem on the Cooloola Coast, where there was a fairly unusual and difficult changeover and troubles have lingered on for months. On the Cooloola Coast there was no trial period of concurrent analog and digital signals before the analog signal was turned off. The existing transmitter at Cooloola Cove was one of the self-help transmitters and because of a spectrum issue the transmitter had to be swapped from analog to digital on the same day. In addition, the TV channels decided at the same time to install two new transmitters to better service the area—all on the same frequency. There were some anecdotal reports that it worked okay for the first couple of days but it seemed to be nothing but trouble from then on. There was denial. No-one would take responsibility for the fact that it was not working properly. Time after time technicians were called. Others simply dismissed the concerns. But they were real. New equipment had to be installed and I think that broadly now it is working okay. New parts have been fitted but it has been a very tortuous and difficult experience. If anybody else is going to have to live through one of these changeovers that involve multiple transmitters using the same frequency, they can expect a good deal of trouble.

I have a caravan park in my electorate which had permanent residents but there is no television reception following the switchover. This is a small caravan park and they cannot afford to install satellite services. They are now suffering financially because people do not want to stay at the caravan park because they cannot get any television. And there is no support available, no matter how impoverished the small business man might be, to enable a hotel, a caravan park or places like that to make the conversion. I think that is an area where there does need to be some support for the local people.

I have already acknowledged the effort that was put in to helping us with our conversion by the telephone service. But I also want to commend Emma Dawson. She comes from the communications minister's office and she is sitting in the gallery. I very much appreciated her efforts to help address our problems, particularly the problems we had on the Cooloola Coast and in other parts of my electorate. We were on the phone to Emma and she to us almost every day. I am sure that she endured some of the same pain that local members endured during the switchover. The advantage for us is that members of parliament only have to do it once. It seems that she has a life sentence, as this work goes on. But having helpful, friendly people who tried to do something was a great assistance to us and, Emma, I thank you very much for the service that you provided. I hope you will be around again when the other half of my electorate gets switched off fairly soon.

Another point I want to make—and it concerns quite a serious problem—is that I am currently in the process of surveying my electorate on a whole range of issues. One question I have asked is: are people satisfied with the quality of their digital television reception? We are still collating the results, but we have done enough to know that this issue is indeed going to be a significant one for us. Thirty-eight per cent of those who have responded to the survey say, four months after the switch-off, that they are dissatisfied with the quality of their digital TV reception. There will be people amongst that group who probably did not have a very good analog signal, but it strikes me as though that is a very large number. I can break down the number into those who have had a switch-off and those who still have the analog. But the dissatisfaction is probably stronger in areas where there has not been a switch-off. That will just be a coincidence and the numbers are not all that different. But 38 per cent of the people in my electorate, four months after the switch-off, are dissatisfied with the quality of their digital reception. That is an issue and I suspect that other members of parliament will run across similar issues. I will certainly be raising this with the television channels, because they have a responsibility to ensure that there is a good-quality reception available. There may be technical issues also that have to be addressed in association with the changeover in other parts of Australia to ensure that some of these problems do not occur.

In years to come we will look back on this and say that it was only a momentary issue, and people will grow up used to digital television and the better quality pictures, better sound and so forth that it delivers. But, for those who still have the digital switchover ahead of them, you can expect some troubles and some trying times. It is probably worth it in the end, but you will wonder about that every day while the changeover is occurring.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am somewhat confused following that speech by the member for Wide Bay on the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2012 as to whether or not the Nationals are in favour of this proposal, whether they are pro analog or pro digital or whether they are happy or unhappy with the process. It was a bit hard to tell. With speeches like that, I do not rate the Leader of the National's chances of holding off that barking mad senator from St George from the Nationals' leadership. I think we will be entirely in the chair's hands.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will withdraw.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, I was only complimenting you on your fighting spirit and our alliance, Chair.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Wakefield will withdraw.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. Big changes like this are never easy but, in hearing what people say about the world of analog, you would think it was perfect. The experience in my electorate is that analog was far from perfect. There are people living in a couple of suburbs, Hillbank and Craigmore, with a population of some 15,000 people, in the metropolitan area of Adelaide, who for about 20-odd years had terrible reception. It was an ongoing problem. We had a situation where the TV broadcasters, the council and the federal government would all point the bone at each other and say it was someone else's responsibility to provide a retransmission tower. That situation went on forever, for 20 years. People could not get the cricket, could not get the football and could not get soccer—and this was in the metropolitan area.

When people talk to me about analog being a perfect era, I have to say frankly that the experience of many of my electors is that it simply was not. That goes for some of the country areas as well. In Craigmore it is a story with a happy ending, and that is because of Emma Dawson, who the Nationals graciously paid tribute to. Her hard work was also useful to my electors in the seat of Wakefield, particularly those in the two suburbs of Hillbank and Craigmore. Ms Dawson, with the minister's help and as part of an election commitment in 2007, provided a new digital tower which has fixed all of the problems that those two suburbs were having. They are growing suburbs, where people work hard and do the right thing. They expect to be able to get a good TV signal and watch the footy, the cricket and the soccer.

This retransmission tower has been a great success. It has been much welcomed. When we opened it about 50 to 100 people turned out on a Friday afternoon to watch the tower being erected. That is a pretty strong turnout. I suspect most of them came to make sure that it was getting constructed and that I was fulfilling my promises. That is an important thing for local residents, and it is important for local members to make sure that their election commitments are met. It was one of my proudest moments as a local MP.

This bill is particularly important. It must pass during the winter sittings in order to provide VAST services for viewers in digital television black-spot areas in major population centres in Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Perth and Sydney. As I said before, these black spots are not unknown in metropolitan areas. They often cover vast areas and vast numbers of people. For too long we left the television stations to some degree off the hook. We left it to local communities to shoulder the burden of providing these towers. The advent of a digital signal has meant that the situation, certainly for my constituents, has changed.

This bill is very important because it is a $375 million initiative which will provide digital free-to-air services from the new satellite platform known as the VAST service. This will be particularly important for my rural constituents, who have often had indifferent analog services. As the member of the Nationals said, many of these people suffer from a digital signal that may be intermittent or affected by hills and valleys or the weather. That is the experience of some of the residents in areas around the Clare and Gilbert valleys. I have asked many of those residents, through the local paper, to provide us with feedback so we can point them to the services that they might need to provide. At Lyndoch and in parts of the Barossa Valley it is also an issue for some rural properties.

This is a good bill. It provides for a good service. As I said, I do not think we have much to fear from change. My constituents have benefited greatly from this government's program, and I think the minister and his office should be commended for their work.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2012 relates to the provision of access to digital television via satellite services. Of particular interest is the following aim, as described in the explanatory memorandum:

I wanted to explore some of the background of this to identify some of the significant issues. Satellite delivery of a digital television signal, as we know, is not new technology, and it is not even cost restrictive for most Australians. For Australians who live in or around a metropolitan area—around 90 per cent of the population—satellite coverage is a moot point; it is mostly irrelevant to that 90 per cent. With 70 per cent living in our major cities and another 20 per cent in the surrounding areas, we are probably amongst the most urbanised nations on earth. It is therefore simple and economically viable for television service providers to invest in adequate terrestrial infrastructure to provide a more-than-adequate signal to nine out of 10 Australians. As with most other services, however, the city-country divide again falls on the side that is to the advantage of those who live in our urban areas.

We have heard of TV black spots in certain urban areas, but most urban residents would not have an understanding of the fade-outs and pixelation that face regional viewers all of the time. Naturally, we regional viewers understand pretty well—although we might not always like it—why our service is poorer than that of our city cousins. We are spread out over a large area and we do understand that it would cost more to deliver to us the same standard of service that city viewers demand; it is basic economics at work.

Terrestrial digital antennas deliver a signal that has a limited range and is frequently disrupted. A good antenna might have an effective signal with a range of 100 kilometres, but this depends on the hardware and the software used by the signal provider. It also depends on the topography of the area, because the signal, as we know, is line of sight and that is easily disrupted. If the antenna is in the middle of Sydney, obviously that 100-kilometre range reaches a lot of homes. In some parts of regional Australia, including parts of my electorate, given the topography, the signal does not even reach your neighbour's house, as Deputy Speaker Scott would be aware. There are of course a vast range of people in the middle, but it is obvious that regional Australians have a greater chance of receiving poorer or poor signals. If someone is far from a terrestrial antenna, they may get no signal or a very poor signal sometimes, if they are lucky.

They can apply to the viewer access satellite television service for permission to receive a satellite signal. They can buy the appropriate hardware and software and could receive a very good high-definition signal. Many have already done so, but many applicants have not been successful. Under the access provisions for VAST, there is a time period of six months prior to the switch-off of the analog signal in which people are able to apply to VAST. As the switch-off for WA is not likely to be until August 2013, many households in my electorate and throughout Western Australia are not yet able to apply. Additionally, people are currently only able to apply for VAST services if they are in an area that does not receive digital terrestrial transmission from a commercial broadcaster's tower or if they are in an area of very poor signal reception. If they are within an area that is supposed to receive good digital terrestrial service but for some reason does not, they can apply and they will access the strength of the signal to determine if they are eligible for VAST. I note that, if they want just ABC and SBS, they can access VAST for just those channels. But this aspect of signal strength, especially the assessment of it for regional households, has the greatest impact on people's ability to access the service. The legislation preventing households from subscribing to VAST if they are within an area that receives a digital terrestrial signal from a commercial broadcast tower, even if they consider it a poor signal, is outlined in the Broadcasting Services Act under the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Act 2010. It is this assessment of an 'adequate' versus 'poor' signal that is most difficult.

The digital television signal will in fact carry a long way further than the 100 kilometres mentioned before—many times further. However, it is only for the first 100 kilometres or so that the signal retains sufficient strength to be picked up and displayed by the receiving television set—there is no distinct cut-off point. The range that can result in inadequate signal reception varies dramatically depending, as I said, on topography and climate. Trees and buildings also disrupt the digital signal. As the range increases, the quality and strength of the signal declines and that results in pixilation and channel freeze, for example.

You may be granted access to VAST if you are predicted to be in a poor coverage area and you are likely to experience difficulties receiving the available digital TV services some or all of the time. However, this depends on a bureaucratic process accepting that your television reception is not up to standard. The real trouble comes when you are classified as being in a variable coverage area. Common sense tells us that someone in such a designation does not get a consistent or constant quality signal and that therefore their access to VAST should be obvious; but unfortunately this is not the case. Currently the system seems to believe that it is perfectly acceptable for country people to receive a lower standard of reception than city viewers do, and many whose reception is well below standard are being refused access to satellite services.

If someone tries to apply for VAST at the moment and they are not eligible because they are in the wrong area or it is not yet open for applications, two things will automatically happen when they apply. Firstly, they will automatically be refused. Secondly, the application will be referred to a review process and then there will be an investigation into the reasons for which they were refused.

The review process, however, seems to not understand or have little interest in the need for regional viewers to be able to access an equivalent standard of reception, and it appears to be a double standard. So I ask: why restrict the access to satellite signals? I have been told that there are two reasons to restrict access to the VAST satellite services at the moment, particularly in Western Australia. Apparently, it is in part to protect customers from the costs of signing up and maintaining satellite services that they may not need. I find that to be a relatively disingenuous reason. Of my constituents, there are some who are prepared to invest in the service. But, more importantly, restriction of access is apparently designed to ensure that commercial broadcasters are able to achieve a return from their terrestrial transmission infrastructure, especially the cost of converting it to digital to ensure the availability of terrestrial signals without the need for satellite installation in the future.

I understand there was a fear in the government and amongst television providers that, if VAST services were available to all, people would migrate en masse from the terrestrial transmission to the satellite. From this I assume that net return on investment on antenna installation is a key factor in who is allowed to access a satellite signal. But is it actually good enough to allow regional communities to endure lower quality services in the meantime in order to subsidise antenna capital costs? It is a question that really does need answering, because that is where so many people are at. Is there really any guarantee that regional services will ever catch up? That is a question that exercises the minds of those of us who represent regional and more remote areas. Many regional viewers currently receiving an Aurora television signal will be able to access digital satellite via the VAST system; however, some of those who live in regional areas and who have previously had access to Aurora will be prevented from accessing the VAST system because someone who has never seen their TV reception or the limit of it has decided from lines on a map that they already get an adequate terrestrial service. This is obviously not working and is a slap in the face to rural and regional Australians, who unfortunately appear to have been the target of the government on more than one occasion.

There is one remaining key issue here: who gets to decide if the terrestrial signal of a person's TV is adequate? According to a letter I received from the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, the commercial broadcasters decide if the signal is up to standard. Given that access is denied mainly so that the antenna costs of commercial broadcasters can be underwritten, it seems strange that they themselves determine the application. Of course, those denied can appeal to ACMA—the Australian Communications and Media Authority—but I would really like to know how many times there has been a reversal of the original decision. I think it would be much simpler if an independent umpire decided whether the digital signal that a country viewer received was adequate, and I would hope that they might even seek an equivalent signal to that available to our city peers. As we know, the digital satellite signal already covers Australia; what is needed is for people to be able to receive it in regional and remote areas.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be speaking for 10 or 15 minutes. Considering the time, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am happy if you would prefer to adjourn, and I will start afresh in the morning. I am happy either way.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 21:58