Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the Broadcasting and Other Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill. This is an important bill that amends the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, the Radiocommunication Act 1992 and the Australian Communications and Media Authority Act 2005. It will remove unnecessary legislative provisions and in turn reduce the regulatory burden on the broadcasting industry. Today, I want first of all to speak about why reducing the regulatory burden is important; secondly, to argue the amendments in this bill seek to get the balance right between the objective of regulation and the burden it imposes; and, thirdly, to describe specifically the way in which some of these amendments will reduce the regulatory burden.

Let me turn firstly to the importance of a reduction in the regulatory burden. The Abbott government recognises that prosperity and jobs come from the business sector, but business is facing an excessive regulatory burden, and that burden imposes costs, slows down the rate at which business occurs and diverts resources. This is bad for growth, it is bad for business and it is bad for employment. It is no exaggeration to say that red tape is a serious problem in our economy. It is clear that the prevalence of red tape has a negative impact on productivity. The statistics as to how Australia performs compared to other jurisdictions are sobering. In 2014, we ranked 124th out of 148 countries for the burden of government regulation in the world competitiveness index. The cost of doing business in Australia relative to other nations is simply too high. The Productivity Commission, for example, estimates that regulatory compliance costs could amount to as much as four per cent of Australia's gross domestic product, a truly staggering number.

One of the particular problems with red tape is its tendency to continue to grow. Reporting obligations which are in place and which have been put there, in many cases, for the best possible reasons out of the best possible motivations tend to grow and grow and grow. Governments in general tend not to bother to come back and review regulatory provisions, regulatory frameworks, to determine whether they continue to be fit for purpose, and regulation often persists long after the problem which it was designed to address has passed into history. So, if government does not take decisive and proactive action, the unfortunate reality is that red tape tends to be ever expanding.

That is an ongoing structural feature, but on top of that we have the cyclical reality that this government succeeds the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, a government which showed an extraordinary and almost unprecedented enthusiasm for adding regulatory burdens to the Australian economy. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government added over 21,000 new regulations and repealed 105, notwithstanding the promise made by the former Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, in 2007 that his government would have a 'one regulation in, one regulation out' policy—a promise that was never honoured.

Red tape is a particular issue in the communications sector, a sector which is heavily regulated. Rapid changes to technology are driving, in turn, very rapid changes in business structures and business models. But the regulatory framework which presently applies to the media industry, to the telecommunications sector, to the radiocommunications sector, to broadcasting and so on is based on a mid-1990s world of stable technologies and business models. With the communications sector being as heavily regulated as it is, there are significant cost burdens and inefficiencies faced by the sector, and in turn those get passed on in the form of costs borne by consumers. It is for this reason that Communications Minister Turnbull and I, as his parliamentary secretary, have been enthusiastic participants in the government-wide deregulation agenda. We are strongly committed to reducing red tape in the communications sector.

Let me therefore turn to the measures in this bill and the way in which they seek to strike the right balance in the broadcasting sector and redress some errors. I want to touch particularly on two specific measures: reform in relation to the captioning obligations and reform in relation to the new eligible drama expenditure regime. Let me turn firstly to captioning. The bill contains in schedule 6 a set of amendments to the provisions in relation to captioning.

I should first describe what I am talking about. Captioning is the presentation of the audio component of television content as text on the screen. The purpose for imposing an obligation on broadcasters to provide captioning is to assist viewers who have a hearing impairment—a significant section of the community. The government strongly supports all Australians having access to television services, including of course ensuring that hearing-impaired Australians are able to have the benefit of television services. We believe that captioning of television services is a very important part of achieving this objective.

I want to emphasise, therefore, that this bill does not reduce captioning standards or targets, and the government will not be making any changes to captioning targets. Instead, the measures in this bill are designed to achieve the objective of reducing the reporting requirements. In particular, under the Broadcasting Services Act as it presently stands, television broadcasters face a detailed requirement to provide the Australian Communications and Media Authority with reports on their compliance with their captioning obligations on an annual basis.

We have consulted with industry and with accessibility groups in relation to these issues with the aim of improving administrative arrangements for the free-to-air broadcasters and subscription television licensees while at the same time ensuring that they continue to meet their captioning obligations. The policy objective reflected in the provisions in the bill before the House is to amend the existing captioning framework to remove annual reporting requirements and to seek to revert to a complaints-only process.

Having said that, I want to acknowledge the fact that the shadow minister spoke of some amendments that he intends to move. I foreshadow that the minister will have more to say about the government's response to those amendments when he sums up this debate.

I also note that the captioning requirements which are faced by subscription television licensees are even more complex than the requirements which apply to free-to-air television services. That being said, the government does not consider that a move to a full complaints based system for subscription television licensees would be appropriate at this time. We want to make sure that we are not overreaching in the approach contained in this bill. Instead, our intention is to conduct further consultation with the industry—and with other relevant stakeholders, I hasten to add, including of course advocacy groups and representative groups, peak bodies, for the hearing impaired. Our objective in that consultation will be to identify ways in which the existing arrangements for captioning on subscription television can be improved from a regulatory burden perspective.

Certainly, though, this bill does contain some amendments which seek to provide additional flexibility right now for subscription broadcasters, including a 12-month exemption from captioning obligations for new channels, an aggregated captioning target across related sports channels, and more-targeted requirements applicable to repeat programming.

The government appreciates the suggestions which have been received from stakeholders as part of the extensive consultation process, which has included consideration of the bill by a Senate committee. Of course, through that Senate committee process, a range of stakeholders have had the opportunity to examine the bill and to provide feedback. Certainly the government is appreciative of many of the suggestions that have been made, and the government has agreed to the suggestion that the bill be amended to require the Australian Communications and Media Authority to undertake a review of the operation of the captioning requirements under the Broadcasting Services Act.

I now want to speak about a second important measure in the bill, which relates to the audit requirements under the new eligible drama expenditure scheme. The scheme requires that certain subscription television channel providers and licensees must spend at least 10 per cent of their total programming expenditure on new Australian or New Zealand drama productions or co-productions. Licensees and channel providers are required to provide an annual return to the Australian Communications and Media Authority which must be cleared by a registered auditor. The current scheme has been mandatory since 1999, and the authority advises that there has been a high level of compliance. The bill contains measures to remove the audit requirement and the requirement for the authority to provide related 'compliance certificates'. The government considers this appropriate, partly in recognition that there has been a high ongoing level of compliance to this point. I emphasise that the changes will not affect the level of new Australian drama expenditure required from the subscription television industry. In other words, again these measures are about striking the right balance between, on the one hand, maintaining the core obligations and, on the other hand, seeking to remove unnecessary requirements.

Thirdly, I want to speak briefly about the ways in which the measures in this bill will reduce the regulatory burden. I have spoken, for example, about some of the reductions in regulatory burden applicable to subscription broadcasters as regards some specific detailed captioning requirements. In relation to the new eligible drama expenditure requirement, by removing the audit requirements as well as removing the requirement on the Australian Communications and Media Authority to provide compliance certificates, the measures in this bill are going to remove a significant administrative and financial burden on the subscription television industry. But again I emphasise it is about striking the right balance so that these measures will not affect the level of new Australian drama expenditure required from subscription television. The government understands that at least five subscription television licensees and at least eight channel providers will no longer need to engage auditors to review their returns under the new eligible drama expenditure scheme.

The measures in this bill make an important contribution to the coalition's agenda to reduce red tape but to do so in a way that preserves the underlying purpose of the regulation. There is, as has been foreshadowed, more consultation that the government intends to engage in—for example, further consultation in relation to the detailed captioning requirements for subscription television. As I have indicated, while we have addressed some measures in that area, the broader set of requirements in relation to subscription television is not dealt with in this bill, because, amongst other things, we want to engage in full consultation before we take any measures in that area forward.

The Communications portfolio has made a strong contribution to the government's overall deregulatory policy thrust, and that is important because communications is a heavily regulated sector and there are significant opportunities for greater efficiencies. To date, our red tape reduction measures in the Communications portfolio have generated cumulative savings of over $70 million for consumers and businesses and resulted in over 3,400 pages of redundant or obsolete regulation being repealed. This has contributed to the government's overall goal of removing $1 billion in the cost of unnecessary regulation from the economy each year. I am pleased to commend the measures in this bill to the House.

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