Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am returning to the matter of community television. I appreciate that it is in the forefront of your mind. You might know that, at this point in the allocation of spectrum for digital television, the only options remaining are for a licence for channel A, which is the narrowcast digital channel which is due to be auctioned this year, or must-carry provisions on SBS or ABC, both of which would be likely to have budgetary implications, which, of course, were not in the budget. Minister, given that channel A is due to be auctioned this year and Digital Australia, which will make recommendations on this, is still being set up and has a whole consultative process to go through, will the auctioning of channel A be delayed until some decision is made on the future of community television?

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