Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I am opposed to the Communications Legislation Amendment (SBS Advertising Flexibility and Other Measures) Bill 2015 because it is based on a lie. The last thing Australians want is more advertising on free-to-air TV. The last thing that Australians want when they sit down in the evening is more advertising whilst they are watching television. If this bill proceeds it will diminish the quality of viewing for Australians when they are watching the Special Broadcasting Service. This is yet another lie from the Abbott government. We all remember the now infamous interview that the Prime Minister gave on the eve of the last federal election when he gave an ironclad guarantee, a commitment: no cuts to the SBS or the ABC. The pre-election interview was astonishing for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was during that interview that the Prime Minister professed no intention to make significant or damaging cuts to the SBS. That is what he said, and here we are, still fighting to do the impossible: hold the Prime Minister to his word, hold the Prime Minister to the commitment he made to the Australian people on the eve of the last election.

What is even more shocking, even more striking and revealing, about the promise that was made was that he actually made it whilst appearing on the SBS. It was on an SBS program that the Prime Minister said there would be 'no cuts to the ABC or SBS'! You couldn't script this stuff—the irony. The irony of the bill that we are debating at the moment is that the commitment given by the Prime Minister prior to the last election that there would be no cuts to the SBS was given on an SBS news program. The deceptiveness of this Prime Minister is spellbinding, and it is contained in that commitment given on election eve.

Since then, we all know what has occurred. The government brought down its 2014-15 budget, featuring $53.7 million worth of cuts over five years to the SBS, $25.2 million of which was direct cuts. A further $28.5 million was cut on the basis of allowing SBS to alternatively raise revenue through legislative amendment to its advertising restrictions. That is the subject of the bill before the House this evening. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Special Broadcasting Service Act 1991 to allow the SBS to increase its revenue base through more flexibility in the scheduling of advertisements and to earn additional revenue through the use of product placement in its commissioned programming. The bill also makes minor technical amendments and changes to the SBS Act and the ABC Act to provide consistency with the Broadcasting Services Act and to repeal redundant provisions in both of these acts.

The SBS has restrictions on the amount of advertising that can be undertaken, in minutes per hour. Currently, there is a five-minute limit; five minutes per hour is the amount of time that ads can be shown during SBS programs. That equates to a maximum of 120 minutes of advertising being shown per day. This bill will amend the SBS Act to enable SBS to show up to 10 minutes of advertising per hour. In effect, it is doubling the amount of advertising per hour that the SBS can undertake during its programming, doubling the amount of advertising that Australians will see on one of our most popular free-to-air channels. This will allow SBS to schedule up to 10 minutes of ads during high-rating programs while scheduling less advertising during other hours so that the 120-minute daily cap is not exceeded. Translation: Tony Abbott's broken promise with regard to the SBS will result in more advertising during programs that more Australians like to watch on the SBS—programs such as Struggle Street, which has been very popular over recent weeks, and Eurovision, which was very popular. You are going to see more advertising whilst watching popular programs like that on the SBS.

I would argue that the last thing Australians want to see whilst watching the SBS is more advertising. More advertising is in no-one's interest. It is actually the antithesis of the objective for which SBS was established: to provide a multicultural broadcasting service that is easily accessible and in multilingual platforms for the Australian public. In that respect, the SBS has a vital role to play in the Australian media and social landscape.

The SBS was established in 1978. It has grown to feature five television channels—SBS ONE, SBS2, NITV, World Movies and Studio—and five radio networks—SBS Radio 1, Radio 2 and Radio 3, SBS Chill and SBS PopAsia. SBS online is also home to SBS On Demand video-streaming services. I am fortunate to represent a multicultural community, and I know how popular the SBS radio programs in particular are in the multicultural communities in my areas. NITV has an especially strong following in the electorate of Kingsford Smith, where I am honoured to have quite an active and participatory Aboriginal community that has produced some of our nation's best and most talented sportspeople and entertainers. NITV has some great sports programs and other artistic and cultural programs, and I acknowledge the importance of this channel and this service to the people of our electorate. And I pay tribute to everyone who works at NITV. I know that there are members of our community in Kingsford Smith who are employed by and who love working for NITV because of the importance of its service to the local community.

The stated purpose of SBS is:

… to provide multilingual and multicultural radio, television and digital media services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia's multicultural society.

Of course, one of Australia's great strengths and proudest features is our multicultural makeup. That being the case, SBS, like the ABC, is part of Australia's identity. Indeed, for decades, it has shaped the way we see ourselves as Australians. Sadly, this government's funding cuts have affected the operations of SBS; and, in planning for its future, earlier this month SBS pulled out of digital television service Freeview. Addressing the move, the SBS spokesperson who made the statement said:

Last year, SBS's funding was cut by the federal government by $53.7 million over the next five years. As an organisation which is already lean and efficient, SBS has sought to find further efficiencies to absorb this cut, focusing on back-office measures in order to protect SBS's unique content offering for Australian audiences …

That is the view of SBS management, pointing to the fact that, because of budget cuts, the team that manage the SBS have had to find savings through some of their content. As a result, sources told The Australian newspaper, SBS was likely to lose its place in Freeview's high-profile marketing campaigns. This is a direct result of the Abbott government's budget cuts affecting the Special Broadcasting Service, which is near and dear to the hearts of many, particularly in multicultural communities throughout Australia. It will affect programming and it will affect the viewing quality for those people who use this important service. Again, these are cuts that the Prime Minister promised would never happen. He gave that commitment to the Australian public on SBS TV on the eve of the election.

It is a great shame that, this week of all weeks, Labor is fighting to defend the SBS from the Abbott government's axe, particularly after the broadcaster's highly successful weekend. I refer of course to the wonderful Eurovision broadcast on the weekend. I went out for a jog early on Sunday morning and I came home to see my wife and two daughters glued to the television screen. I asked what was going on and I was quickly told to shush up because the voting on Eurovision was taking place. Not only in my household but in many other Australian households, people were glued to SBS seeing what was going on in the Eurovision Song Contest. For over 25 years, SBS has been delivering this wonderfully wacky and popular song contest. Its popularity, I think, can be attributed to the fact that Australians are a proud multicultural community and many of our migrants come from many of the nations that are strong participants in the Eurovision Song Contest—populations such as the Greeks, Turkish, Italians, Irish, Serbians, Maltese, British and the like. SBS has made sure that these communities can still enjoy having the cultural juggernaut that is the Eurovision Song Contest delivering a wonderful sense of nostalgia and entertainment. This year the strength of that connection with the Australian people paid off big time, with Australia's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time ever. I must say that it was good to see a Maroubra boy, Guy Sebastian, representing Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest. He did us very proud, placing fifth in the voting despite his rookie status.

Over 4.2 million Australians tuned in to watch for at least five minutes the Eurovision semi-finals and the grand final on the weekend. Eurovision provides a shining example of what SBS is capable of, particularly when it is supporting and celebrating Australia's multiculturalism and international interests. SBS provides wonderful content for the Australian community. It's multicultural affairs programming and also its news and entertainment broadcasts are very popular. It provides good quality documentary content that analyses and probes particular issues that are important to Australian society. All of that is being undermined by this government's shameful attack on the Special Broadcasting Service, by this government's misrepresentation of the facts, by this government's breach of its commitment to the Australian public which was delivered by none other than the Prime Minister on none other than SBS on the eve of the last election. It is shameful that this bill is before the parliament. It is a reform that is based on a lie. It will diminish the quality of viewing. As I said at the outset, the last thing Australians want is more ads on free-to-air television in this country, but that is exactly what they are going to get if this bill passes the parliament.

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