Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Dunkley said, it is what happens consequent to this that is important. We went to a lot of trouble. I have to disagree with the statement by the Leader of the House that for 12 years we did nothing—quite the contrary. We expanded television right throughout Australia. We introduced the black spots program, which filled all those little pockets—all those towns—that could not get better than 60 per cent reception. That was done by having a program of $25,000 per channel not received plus an additional $25,000 for base infrastructure—a piece of land to put a tower on and an air-conditioned donga in which to put the transmission facilities. We are not aware of what the government is going to do with all those black-spots towers. It may not be a big task. We are not sure in those marginal areas whether analog will cover the full digital footprint. It will mean that there may even have to be new towers in some areas, and it may be that there will have to be transponders on existing towers. If we are going to get out into the whole of Australia then that is going to be one of the things that has to happen.

In addition to that, we have a situation where community television is caught between a rock and a hard place because, again, as the shadow minister said, until that spectrum is freed up we are not sure whether you will be able to give these community television stations a block of spectrum. If they continue to broadcast in analog while the rest of Australia is transferring over to digital then their sponsorship market will be greatly reduced, and that will have an impact on them. That could have been attended to. My view is that there could have been spectrum found—initially if the right negotiations had been done with SBS and the ABC, but that is my personal view not the opposition’s view.

In addition to that, we have to make sure that we cover the whole of Australia. When the original bill came out regional areas were to be given another four years beyond the capital cities. What has happened in this Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television Switch-over) Bill 2008 is that we have turned it round the other way: the country areas are going to switch off first—they will be the guinea pigs, if you like—and then, when everything has been well tested, we will change over the capital cities. But we should remember that there are black spots in the capital cities as well.

It is a big expense for country TV stations to have to transmit through both analog and digital. They want us to move forward—and I do not say we have to retain that four-year buffer, but we do have to make provision for people who are in that circumstance to get television. The British government have gone to the trouble of having a system whereby people can get set-top boxes to convert their analog TVs to digital. We need to have a similar program.

So the shadow minister is quite right: we are going into uncharted waters with this bill. It is a pity that some of our amendments have been rejected, but I would appeal to the government to get on to the detailed work now or we are going to be a lot of trouble and there is going to be a lot of heartburn throughout regional Australia and in the black spot areas in capital cities.

See this speech in context