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

I will take the opportunity to respond to some comments from the member for Hinkler which I found resonated very much with those of us who sit on this side of the political divide. When the member referred to considering the matters of diversity, localism and competition to be of great importance, all I can say is hear, hear and amen. He went on to remark later in his speech that he had some ambivalence about Telstra; I think we share some of that ambivalence. I do want to acknowledge that the member for Hinkler has played a very constructive role, particularly for his constituents, in the debate and in the deliberations and policy outcomes as a consequence of the activity in this parliament, and in the introduction of other legislation concerning media which has been the subject of an enormous amount of public interest. But notwithstanding his comments, as he would be well aware, Labor still retains very strong concerns about the impact of the overall media package.

I also want to make some reference to the remarks of the member for Hinkler in encouraging the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts to consider both the timelines on the switch-off from analog to digital and those issues that both the minister and the department need to give some consideration to in order to expedite that. I will return to that a little later on in my comments when I refer to the inquiry into the uptake of digital television in Australia, which I, the member for Werriwa and others sat on and which brought down some recommendations that we thought were pretty useful in this debate.

The Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 amends the Broadcasting Services Act and it will allow commercial television licensees in remote licence areas the opportunity to multichannel their digital service—and that certainly will be a good thing for people in these remote licence areas. The fact that we have the possibility, in fact the likelihood, of a third commercial service coming into a remote licence area is certainly something Labor support and, as a consequence of course, we support the bill.

I want to make one comment at the beginning of this speech—that is, to encourage licensees, in particular if using Channel 10 material, to consider the broadcasting requirements which I think are both implicit and explicit in parts of the act but certainly are implicit in the exercise of the licence, particularly going into remote areas. A number of these areas will be places with high Indigenous populations, and it is very likely that over time, given population growth amongst Indigenous communities in remote Australia, particularly in Northern Australia, there will be a substantial viewing audience that is constituted by Indigenous people. I think any licensee has a primary responsibility to respond to that audience—and I know they will certainly wish to be aware of that audience’s needs—but also to be aware of the circumstances that those communities find themselves in, particularly with their viewing patterns and viewing habits and the kind of material and information that they may need delivered in the best way that media can, not only to entertain but also to inform and educate. It strikes me that that is an extremely important part of the overall responsibilities that a licensee would have.

If, in fact, it is Golden West Network and WIN in Western Australia that will jointly launch a digital service to remote parts of Western Australia, this obviously becomes important. With towns like Kalgoorlie, Port Hedland and Geraldton getting the benefit of a new service commencing in 2007, as we understand, with a lot of Ten Network sourcing material, it will be particularly important for the licensees to consider the nature of the material they are sourcing and the impact and good purpose that that material will serve to that viewing audience. But there is no doubt that regional viewers will get high-quality digital TV and an extra commercial television service, and that is a good thing.

We also hope that these changes will lead to other digital services being taken up in other remote licence areas, including the Northern Territory, Queensland and Tasmania. Certainly, the take-up of digital television means that spectrum can be returned for other services. We are really on the cusp of a quite exciting period, albeit challenging and in some ways frustrating because of some of the policy deficiencies of the Howard government. Nevertheless, it certainly is an exciting period more generally in terms of media access, media delivery, content delivery and the different technological models that are going to be available particularly once we have a freeing up of spectrum. I certainly see a very valuable role to be played in remote Australia for community broadcasting in particular, and that is something to be greatly encouraged.

I was alarmed to see that the one aspect of the community broadcasting program delivery content that was not given the support that it needed in the last budget brought down by the Treasurer related to the Australian music programs which could be networked across community broadcasting. I think they have played a very valuable role for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous performers and musicians to have their music heard in remote areas, and it was regrettable indeed that the resources for that program in particular were greatly reduced in the budget allocation.

I want to pick up very quickly on one of the comments from the previous speaker, the member for Hinkler, when he spoke about the desirability of making sure that the ABC, in this rapidly changing media landscape, is given sufficient resources to enable it to fulfil its functions, particularly with the additional capacity that it now has. I make the point that the additional funds that were made available in the last budget, including those funds that were directed into remote Australia and, in addition, the funds that would be identified for the production of drama content, were welcomed by us, but I think it needs to be acknowledged again here that they came on the back of some significant funding restrictions that had been part of the Howard government’s policy since the time that it took office. So, really, that was the government playing a little bit of catch-up, recognising in fact that by starving the ABC of funds up to that point in time it had to do something, particularly given the deficit of local drama and local stories appearing on the ABC, which traditionally had been one of the nurseries of film talent, television talent, writing, producing, acting and so on. I very much want to endorse the remarks of the member for Hinkler when he pointed out that the need for a greater enhancement of the ABC’s capacity is an absolutely essential prerequisite for the ongoing policy output in this new and changed media landscape.

One of the things that is interesting in this debate is that digital TV has not been taken up in any big way by the Australian population. Even though digital free-to-air TV is available to about 85 per cent of Australian homes, the take-up has been particularly poor here. I think the government must bear some responsibility for that, including the business of dates of switch-off, which has confused many of the public. In any event, under this bill, hopefully there will be more incentive for remote broadcasters because there is the capacity for multichannelling. In metropolitan and regional areas now, they have a requirement to broadcast over 1,000 hours per year of high-definition digital signal. Now that remote broadcasters are enabled and, in fact, required to broadcast in standard digital format their costs have come down, but it means that the take-up of digital as a consequence, hopefully, will be greater. It certainly means that remote broadcasters have an incentive to invest in digital TV whereas previously the costs were considered to be fairly high.

Other members have spoken of the benefits of digital and I agree. I think the fact that we focus on the availability of sporting events and we want to see more sporting events on television is natural in this country. I have a great affection for sport, as I know most members of parliament do and the public does as well. But, as we explore and examine the capacity for events of that nature to be seen more frequently and more accessibly, we also should think about other events including—in my capacity as shadow parliamentary secretary and Labor spokesman for the arts—arts events, which would probably generate a greater audience pick-up and interest than people might expect.

Why do we lag behind the world in standards of the take-up of digital TV? In the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts report Digital television: who’s buying it? that I referred to earlier, we found that take-up rates in the UK were 63 per cent, 17 per cent in Italy and 15 per cent in the US. The switch-off date that Senator Coonan has announced is intended to try and increase that amount of take-up, but there is clearly a lot of work to be done in the meantime. Labor does support this legislation, but it recognises the kind of work that has to be done by the government in providing sufficient public information and education about digital. It is really a shortfall and a shortcoming of the minister. ACMA released research last year which found that some 17 per cent of respondents did not know about digital TV at all, 45 per cent did not know if they could access it, 42 per cent simply were not interested and 38 per cent did not know that at some point in time digital TV would replace analog TV. We have a long way to go. The minister has a lot of work to do.

On the broader question of media reforms, I hope members will be granted many opportunities to debate more fully the so-called reforms that the minister has introduced and that are travelling through this House. I want to put on record the very high level of concern that I have about the likely impact of the reforms as announced in their final form by the government. In particular, I want to note the possible and likely impacts upon the journalists’ profession in potential job losses. Most clearly, there is the likelihood of the reduction of a diversity of voices, particularly in the metropolitan markets. It is the lifeblood of our democracy. There have been many comments of this sort made, but it is true and it needs to be said. The lifeblood of democracy is to have a diversity of voices, particularly in news and current affairs, and information available to people to enable them to participate and make judgements about civil society.

As a consequence of those reforms and those laws that are coming through this parliament, we have had our democratic capacity as consumers of media significantly truncated and reduced. I do not think there is any doubt that a number of the arguments that were put up by the government were not about diversity or new technologies or anything of the kind; they were arguments that had been driven by a need to do something. And it will be commercial interests, more than anything else, that will drive what the media landscape will look like in a few years time.

On the basis of those comments, to which I hope I will have the opportunity to refer again later on, we do support this bill. We recognise that the government has a great deal of work to do in educating and speeding up the switch-over from analog to digital. Additionally, we do urge licensees to consider the kind of material that they are able to provide to people in remote communities. For my part, I very strongly urge them to consider their Indigenous audiences in that respect.

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