Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 is important legislation, and of course it is doubly important to people like me and the member for Canning, who sits alongside me, as it contains specific references to the dissemination of digital television services and additional services within remote areas. That is particularly so for those in the footprint of the two commercial stations that cover virtually all of rural Western Australia, impinging on areas of responsibility for the member for Canning and covering my electorate entirely. So I welcome this initiative.

Nevertheless, there are other comments that I am anxious to make, the first of which is that, in digital technology, the set-top box does a huge amount of the interpretation, allowing for all sorts of mixed signals to be sent over the airwaves—the spectrum as we know it—that can be sorted out at the point of receival. That is in great contrast to analog television, where the signal has to travel in its entirety through the air to effect the operations of the TV set. As a consequence of course, as has been reported in the past, the amount of spectrum required to distribute an analog television signal represents the same area needed for 100,000 mobile telephones. So the spectrum is a very important issue.

Interestingly enough, as I understand it, in my electorate the transmission via satellite into the footprint is already digitised. But clearly the problem arises when that signal arrives on the ground. If you are in an individual homestead somewhere with your own receiver dish, presumably the signal that arrives from the satellite presently will be transferable into your equipment. But what we find in the small communities that I represent—for instance, there are 50 individual local authorities, many of which have two or three towns—is that the townsfolk do not want a dish apiece; they want some locally transmitted service which has typically been provided by the community and, in particular, local government. I sincerely trust that when, as this legislation provides, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, is required to make a legislative instrument relating to a commercial television conversion scheme to set out the terms of the conversion process they will make sure that every time we get a technological change these community bodies are not forced to spend more money to be able to retransmit the new service, as has occurred in the past.

That is quite a serious issue because that is where some of the complexity resides, and it has been my experience that when the digitised signal came down from the satellite these community facilities were literally handed a domestic set-top box and told to put in their little television station—their little retransmission facility. Now that is just not of a quality sufficient to do the job in that circumstance, and is less so if one is talking about a high definition digitised signal. That is a matter I hope those at ACMA who might review the speeches made in this debate take note of: that when they set the rules for this purpose they make sure that there is an obligation on those who get a substantial income from these services to ensure that the smaller retransmission services—the stations providing the service in the larger communities—are not financially disadvantaged again in retransmitting that service. That is an important factor that has to be taken into account.

I noted a number of comments made by the member for Kingsford Smith to which I would like to respond, but I support his argument that there should be something different on the additional channels that are being provided. I saw GWN, as we know it, virtually covering my electorate. They were consequently able to cherry pick the most popular programs of the three commercial stations, and with one dish and one set-top box you got the lot. Then all of a sudden along came WIN to improve the service, and suddenly one had the rugby and the football. Of course, the retransmission of the WIN service took time, and people who had been able to make that choice on a single service were suddenly without the service. It was just too bad if you preferred AFL to rugby league or whatever—you suddenly only had half of it.

But the other point was about what else they got. One mob got Neighbours and the other got—what is the other program called?

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