Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on this historic occasion of the standing orders having been amended to allow committee members to speak on or note reports to which they have been a party. I endorse the comments of my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts who have spoken previously on the committee’s report on digital television, especially those of the member for Parramatta and the member for Werriwa. The history to our inquiry into the uptake of digital TV in Australia and to the report that ensued as a result of that inquiry was the decision taken by the government to announce a changeover date from analog to digital in Australia. The date that they chose was an unrealistic one and, amongst other things, presented some political problems for the government. Additionally, it presented some problems of certainty and planning for both broadcasters and the providers of the technical material that is necessary for you to purchase if you actually want to receive digital images—so it was an important issue.

The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts is on the public record as saying recently that she thinks the switch-off time might be appropriate for about 2011. Our committee has recommended that in fact it should be sooner than that and that the date should be 1 January 2010. There is a clear view amongst committee members that there will be sufficient momentum within the marketplace when there is clarity about a switch-off date to enable the transmission requirements that are necessary to be in place. More importantly, seeing that particularly in regional areas we have double transmissions—digital and analog—people will have an opportunity to plan the purchasing of their television equipment—the set-top box equipment and so on—and the cost itself, the impost on people, should be fairly minor. It is important that the review that we have completed feed in to the consideration that the government is giving to media policy. The minister is due to release a discussion paper on media reforms. We would urge the government, particularly the minister, to take notice of the recommendations of the committee as to the switch-over to digital. In the past media discussion has been quoted as being around the government making a decision which would be a series of trade-offs and compromises, but at the very least removing the content restrictions on our national broadcasters is a key first step.

After all, there has been a significant public investment, through the government, to the ABC of about $1 billion in order for there to be digital provision from the ABC and the SBS. One of the views the committee had was that it is time Australian consumers get value for money for that investment in digital broadcasting. As a consequence, recommendation 3—that the Australian government remove the programming restrictions on multichannelling for national free-to-air networks as soon as possible and no later than 1 January 2007—marks some departure from where policy has been at this point, given that this is a unanimous committee report. Hopefully the government will heed that specific recommendation, as well as the others within this report.

The committee set itself an ambitious objective in terms of a turn-off date for analog. The most important feature about setting that date is that we will need additional content to encourage people to take up, as it were, that opportunity to look at digital images and content on their TV. Where are they going to find it? For most people, the major place that they will find it will be from those who are able to provide it. It is very clear that the ABC and SBS have the capacity to provide it and they should be given that opportunity. Up to this point, as members know, there have been genre restrictions on what the ABC and the SBS can produce and it is very clear that those genre restrictions, in time, ought to be lifted. That is clearly going to play a critical role in driving digital take-up. That is what happened in the United Kingdom and there was certainly evidence before the committee to that effect. I have to say that in the United Kingdom additional government support by way of a framework and financial measures has been given to stimulate production of content, including by independent producers.

Producing content becomes probably and arguably the most important feature in this debate because unless we have a framework and a capacity, particularly from our national broadcasters, to produce additional digital content, then the service to the community by way of the diversity available to them in the broadcasting arena is significantly impaired. So it is particularly important, when we talk about lifting genre restrictions, that there is, for example, adequate funding of the national broadcaster to enable it to take up the challenge to provide for that additional content.

Before I complete my remarks, I want to mention the great need that derives out of the committee’s recommendations for the national broadcaster to be suitably and substantially supported in this task. With some regret, I note that locally produced drama hours on the ABC have dropped from 100 hours in 2001 to just 20 hours last year—a very substantial drop, as I know you would appreciate, Mr Deputy Speaker. Of that, high-quality long-form drama is probably only three or four hours. This is a scandalous situation for us as media consumers and for the broadcaster to face. One of the reasons it faces that problem is that it has been starved of funds by the Howard government. Additionally a great deal of its existing funding in its funding model was to put money into its digital networks. Clearly one way around this imbroglio is for the genre restrictions, as we are recommending, to be lifted.

The other points I wish to make about the committee’s report go to a couple of things which I think are of some importance. One of them is the necessity for us to have adequate technical information in deciding the way in which the digital signals are going to operate through the spectrum. I will not confuse members present or Hansard by going into the technical aspects of how the broadcast of digital works, but it is clear when talking about selling digital that recommendation 9—‘that the Australian government ensure that the One Watt initiative and the MEPS standard are fully operational by analogue switch-off at 1 January 2010’—and recommendation 10—‘that the government work with industry stakeholders to establish a testing and conformance centre for digital television equipment; and provide $A1 million as seed funding in the first year for the establishment of a testing and conformance centre’—make a great deal of sense.

It was clear from the evidence that came to the committee that there are a number of possible technical standards that can apply to the broadcast of digital. Just as we have had numerous Australian examples—and I am sure it would have been said many times both in this forum and in the House about rail gauges that meet and different widths at different state borders—very much the same kind of debate, I have to advise members present, is now under way in the digital domain. It refers to slightly more technical matters, but the genesis of the debate is somewhat similar. We need to have uniform application of a standard that can run across the networks and across the country, and we need to have a testing and conformance centre for the television equipment to enable that to happen.

We additionally recommended in recommendation 11 that the government ‘coordinate the establishment of a mandatory labelling scheme that will accurately identify television and digital reception products’. There was some argument and evidence to the committee that you did not need a scheme of this sort. Some argued that the market itself would sort it out; it was in the interests of retailers to make sure that people were adequately informed of the technical nature or otherwise of the difference, say, between standard definition and high definition and even the difference between digital and analog, which for some people is still somewhat of a mystery. But I do not think we can leave it to the market in this sense and the idea that there should be mandatory labelling makes particularly good sense.

Of the other recommendations that I have time to refer to, the recommendation that the government remove all restrictions on multichannelling for commercial free-to-air networks on 1 January 2007 provides it with the necessary impetus to know with certainty what the regulations will be for digital broadcasts. My very strong hope is that the government will look very closely at the recommendations that have been made by this committee, on which it has been a pleasure to serve, and that we will have additional Australian content on both the free-to-air and national broadcasters.

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