Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. Since 2014 it's been the policy of this government that the radio frequency spectrum that was historically made available to community television stations in our five largest cities should be put to alternative uses, and we have supported community television to transition to delivering its content online. Community television will continue to have an important future and will continue to be a place where members of the community can make television content, but there is the capacity to generate and disseminate that content online. Already the spectrum that was being used for community television in Sydney, in Brisbane and in Perth is no longer being used for that purpose. Our government provided funding to community television in 2015 and more recently in December 2019 to support the transition online.

If we look at where some of the best Australian new talent is developing today, it's people who are producing content online and disseminating it through, for example, YouTube—people like Ozzy Man Reviews, an Australian comedian with more than 3.9 million subscribers, and Natalie Tran, who runs communitychannel and has 1.3 million subscribers. So we know that people can be very successful in generating original creative content and disseminating it online, and that's certainly where we want to see community television go. We have provided funding for that, and that's the policy the government has been committed to and has been implementing since 2014.

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