Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I add my voice to the support for the Communications Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2008, which will amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to give the Australian Communications and Media Authority the discretion to consider late applications for the renewal of community broadcasting licences up to the expiry date of the licence. This is not some after-expiry-date amendment which allows for further applications; it provides greater accommodation for community broadcasters to apply for a renewal of their licences while they still have a valid licence.

The bill was introduced into the parliament by the coalition government on 13 September 2007; however, it was not debated. The bill had not passed parliament when parliament was prorogued on 15 October 2007 and, as a result, the bill lapsed. It has been reintroduced in substantially the same form. I understand that there may be some minor technical variations to it but essentially it aims to achieve the same objectives as the bill introduced by the coalition.

Part 6 of the Broadcasting Services Act provides for the allocation and renewal of community broadcasting licences. When renewing or deciding to renew a community broadcasting licence, the Australian Communications and Media Authority—or ACMA, as we refer to it—takes into account a range of issues, which include the extent to which the proposed or existing service would meet existing and perceived needs of the community within the licence areas; the nature and diversity of community interests; the nature and diversity of alternative broadcasting services within that licence area; and the licensee’s capacity to continue to provide the service.

Currently ACMA has no discretion to consider late applications for renewal of community broadcasting licences, regardless of the circumstances that have given rise to the late application. Most broadcasting licensees usually have appropriate and adequate administrative staff and office processes to ensure that the necessary licence renewal requirements are followed and met. However, currently, if an application is not submitted by the due time, there is the potential for a community broadcasting licensee who is playing a valuable role and providing an important service to the community to lose their licence, even if the licensee can give a valid reason for the late application.

Section 90(1) of the Broadcasting Services Act provides that ACMA can renew a community broadcasting licence if the licensee makes an application for renewal by submitting the approved form. ACMA writes to the community broadcasting licensee 58 weeks before the expiry of their licence to request that they submit the application form. Section 90(1) provides that, as a general rule, a licensee must apply for the renewal of the licence within the following time frames. The earliest date to apply is one year before the licence is due to expire—so within about six weeks of being notified of it. The latest due date to apply is the first of the following times: 26 weeks before the licence is due to expire or a time that is notified in writing by the licensee to ACMA. So there is a window within which these licence renewal applications need to be submitted under the law as it currently stands.

This bill will insert some new provisions that provide for exceptional circumstances for late application. Late application is somewhere less than 26 weeks before the current licence runs out. A request to have the licence renewed within those parameters needs to be supported by a submission from the licensee explaining just why the application is late. ACMA needs to take into account these exceptional circumstances. It looks for reasons, to be given by the licensee, for the late lodgement of the application, a sense of the number of paid staff employed by the licensee—that is, their capacity to have met the general licensing requirements that they had not met on this occasion—and any other matters that ACMA considers relevant.

Essentially, this in no way reduces the function and purpose of the community licensee but actually recognises that the process might not always be suited to and may well be too rigid for some of the community licensees to comply in the window of time within which they can seek to have their current licence renewed. We have heard the example of 3CCC in Bendigo, a community broadcaster which, I understand, is highly valued by the local community. In my own local community 3RPP is one of these broadcasters. They have been providing a very localised focus to their content for many years and also provide some content that is not available through commercial broadcasting options. Importantly, they provide a valuable training resource for members of our community looking to pursue a career in broadcasting. It would be just appalling if the application was not received in time, within that tight 52- to 26-week window before the licence expires, and therefore deemed to be late, even though it was still within a valid licence period. This is common sense, as the member for Werriwa mentioned. It is an important recognition that there may be legitimate circumstances where a community licensee cannot comply with that time frame—that rather specific window that exists in the act. It is not as if this is an invitation for people to ignore those provisions, because ACMA needs an appropriate period of time to make sure that the very purpose for which the licence was issued in the first place remains valid. So those criteria I touched on earlier—the extent to which the service meets existing or perceived needs within the community, the diversity of community interest, what may be available as alternative broadcasting services and the licensee’s capacity to actually provide that service—are all still very valid and very crucial, key criteria that need to be met. This is just to make sure that the opportunity that people have to be assessed against those criteria is not lost because there has been some overrun on the time frame.

This is an important window into some of the challenges community broadcasting currently faces. I know it is particularly topical in the area of community television. Access 31 is the Western Australian community television station. This Friday, I understand, they are meeting to decide their fate. Some of the uncertainty that has arisen out of the availability of their digital spectrum and of what broadcasting support may be available to them has caused Access 31 to consider whether they should be going into voluntary liquidation, and that will be canvassed by members of Access 31 at a meeting on Friday.

The issue that arises here is one of a lack of clarity about the transition strategy for community broadcasting into the digital age. The previous government, with its digital action agenda, was very clear and identified a need for assistance to make sure community broadcasters could make that migration from the analog space into the digital space. One of the key parts of that, though, was in fact channel A. You would be aware that the current government has—and I hope I get the term correct—‘stepped back’ from channel A and channel B processes, whatever that means. What I know it does mean is that they are not stepping forward to move on channel A and channel B considerations.

What the previous government always envisaged was that amongst a range of services to be accommodated on channel A there would be community television—that Channel 31 in Western Australia and certainly Channel 31 in Melbourne, which I visited, were looking forward to being part of an aggregate offering over channel A that could piggyback on the channel A broadcasting platforms and then assist their ongoing engagement with their audience as people take up the invitation to purchase digital televisions. I read some of the blogs about digital TV, certainly around the Access 31 issue. There are accounts of people who are flipping through channels on the digital spectrum and on digital services and, of course, they are not coming across community television because they have not made that migration. I have heard that the audience share of Access 31 is reducing because, as people flip between channels, they are not coming across the community television offer, as they might have done in the days of analog.

It is important that community television gets certainty. This bill provides one area of risk that we can manage, and we can put common sense into the process, but really the challenge facing community broadcasting is how they are going to be part of the digital broadcasting future. The previous government had a clear program. The digital action agenda set out a need for support and assistance that the technology used by these broadcasters would need in order to be converted and replaced with digital technology and the availability of spectrum. The government looked at how they would then be accommodated in the transmission systems that were around.

I mentioned how community television was very much a part of an aggregated offer on channel A but, now that this current government has stepped back from that, community television is wondering where it fits into that digital transition future. I call on Senator Conroy to address this. In my view, he has rather courageously nominated a final switch-over date to digital television. That deadline of 2013 is there and people’s minds are focused on it, and that may be a positive thing. But people such as the community broadcasters know that, when the lights get shut off, they do not know how they will keep their transmission going. So what is missing is the plan. We have a deadline and no plan. I think the current government’s criticism of the previous government was that we had a plan but no deadline. Plans are important when there is so much involved, and we need a plan very quickly, particularly with the stepping back from channel A and channel B. We need Minister Conroy to detail his digital bailout plan, which was carried on Channel 10 news in Perth. I think that might have been a rather herculean summation of his media release. In his defence, I do not think Senator Conroy actually said he was offering a bailout plan, but that was what was carried on the news in Perth. More particularly, it does highlight the fact that a plan of some description is urgently needed so community broadcasters know how they will migrate, how they will be allowed and supported in digital transmission and what will be involved by way of assistance in that costly transition upgrade.

I mentioned that the previous government was planning to auction TV spectrum channel A for narrowcasting, and that was the perfect Trojan Horse through which community television could be brought into the digital transition age. There was an acknowledgement in the digital action agenda that some resourcing was required and would be provided as we moved forward. None of that clarity is available under the current government’s plan, and that is something I would certainly encourage the government and Senator Conroy to turn their minds to.

For Perth’s Access 31, D-day is Friday. Contemplating whether to go into liquidation will be a very worrying deliberation on Thursday—a deliberation brought about because of the lack of clarity about just how their broadcasting future fits within this transition from analogue to digital. I commend Senator Cormann, who has been very active in his interactions with Access 31 in Perth. He has certainly written to me about the challenges that they face and their efforts to have the current government address this transition challenge now that the previous government’s plan with channel A and the digital action agenda has been put back or has been stepped back from. We have this deadline of 2013 with digital television switch-over. We have audience share disappearing as people are not quite sure where to pick up their community TV. Those who browse across a range of channels, if they have a digital TV, are not browsing across community television. That is a very compelling and important issue that needs a timely response. I commend this bill as an important practical step and invite people to turn their minds, once this bill has passed, to a more immediate and compelling challenge—that is, just what community television can look forward to in terms of its digital future.

See this speech in context