Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to speak on the Communications Legislation Amendment (Prominence and Anti-siphoning) Bill 2023. There are two parts to this legislation, and I'll address them, but I just want to give a bit of background about people from regional areas such as myself and a bit of the history of what got us to this point now.

I grew up in the Goulburn Valley, as people around here know, in the great little place of Murchison, near Shepparton. Back in the eighties we had two channels; we had the ABC, which was channel 3, and we had the local commercial TV station, which was called Gmv-6. Those were the choices I had when I grew up. It's a far cry from what we have now. I can remember watching great shows such as Magnum P.I., CHiPs, and The A-Team, and then you could go over to the ABC, channel 3, and watch Monkey Magicall those great shows from the eighties. It was a great childhood, I must say.

Aggregation then came, in the 1990s, and with the advent of SBS we had five channels. Bruce Springsteen released a song in 1997 called '57 Channels (And Nothin' On)'. Young fans in the Goulburn Valley must have thought, 'Wow, that's this utopia where there are 57 channels!' We certainly never had anything like that. But 'the Boss' obviously thought more channels was a good thing until they showed the same boring shows not worth watching.

Now, with multichannel broadcasting, a television watched in Shepparton, Numurkah, Murchison or any of those places around my area will receive around 40 free-to-air channels, and I think that's been a good thing, because it's more diverse viewing for people, particularly for young people. Some people used to say television was a bad thing, but I think it is a good educational medium. Those Australians who can afford to pay now also have access to cable or satellite TV, with another eight channels. So, there are some provisions in this bill about new TVs that are sold and whether they have the free-to-air apps already loaded. I think that's fine, provided that it doesn't increase the cost of TVs, which I have a concern about.

One part of this bill seeks to address the complexity and improve the discoverability of free-to-air streaming services. Another part of the bill looks out for people who aren't able to afford pay TV or streaming services and makes sure there'll still be a free-to-air option to watch key Australian content. I think that's really important. It's particularly important for people in regional areas, who often don't have the financial resources or don't have access to the cable or internet streaming that people in metropolitan areas do. It's important that we make sure those people, and we as a nation, can still come together and watch some of these great sporting events, because, let's face it, the Olympics unites us as a nation, and we want everyone to be able to access sporting events such as the Olympics, AFL and all sorts of other key sporting events that become water cooler conversations at work: 'Who won the footy?' or 'How terrible was Collingwood over the weekend?'—or how difficult the West Coast Eagles are finding it, member for Forrest!

But anyway, the important thing is that sporting events that are supposed to stop a nation continue to stop a nation—for everyone, not just for those who can pay. One of the events that does stop the nation is the Melbourne Cup. It has stopped the nation since the late 1800s, and I think it's a great national event. But it's not going to stop the nation this year, because this place will be sitting on Melbourne Cup Day. I think the tradition of the Melbourne Cup stopping the nation is a sad thing to lose. I'll ask those opposite if they might reconsider whether this parliament should sit on Melbourne Cup Day. But that's for another time.

The most important thing about the legislation is that it adapts to growing technologies, and that's what we have to do here in this place. We have to look at the technologies that are coming onto the market—and they're good technologies; streaming technologies are good technologies: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Stan, Disney and the like. All these things are good things. But we've got to make sure that people who don't have access to these streaming services or pay TV—by dent of their simply not having the reception or the internet bandwidth, because they might live in regional areas, or not being able to afford pay TV or streaming services—get to join with the rest of us in enjoying great sporting events such as the summer and winter Olympic Games. We all came together as a nation to watch Cathy Freeman win that 400-metre race in 2000—and for the Paralympic Games, which are amazing because we're coming together to celebrate people with disability. Then there are the Commonwealth Games, which were going to happen in Melbourne but, unfortunately, due to the dysfunctional Victorian government, that is no longer happening—at a great cost, might I add. AFL men's and AFL women's—isn't it great that now we're coming together to watch women's sport in a way that I could never have thought when I was growing up. Women's sport was basically netball and that was it. Now you can turn on free-to-air TV and you can watch the AFLW, and you can watch soccer, the rugby codes, cricket, tennis and motor racing. It's very important. I wanted to make that contribution. It's very important.

We're supporting the government on this legislation. This is what parliaments should do: react to growing technological developments, making sure all Australians get a fair go and are able to come together and watch TV. But I particularly wanted to make the point that part of our culture as a nation is coming together to celebrate these sporting events, particularly when Australian teams are involved. I commend the bill to the House.

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