Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To say that the second Ashes test, which provided us with so much action and excitement this week, was one of the greatest games of cricket I have ever watched would be an understatement. To see Shane Warne ripping through the English line-up was a breathtaking spectacle. I want to add my voice to the many who have already congratulated Ricky Ponting and the whole team on this great win. But there is a serious side to all this. Great sporting moments such as the Ashes deserve to be seen by as many Australians as possible. The only way for that to happen is by having them played on free-to-air television. That is the purpose of the antisiphoning list which Labor designed to protect the Australian viewing public from being forced to install pay TV to see events like the Ashes series.

In February of last year I stood in this place and added my voice to the growing list of people who were rightly upset that the 2005 Ashes series in England was unlikely to be seen on free-to-air television. We had got into this situation because the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts had somehow allowed the series to fall between the cracks. The government had acknowledged that the Ashes series was an event of national significance but had not done anything to ensure that the broadcast rights first went to a free-to-air broadcaster. It was only at the last minute when SBS picked up the series that many Australians had the opportunity to watch what many described as the greatest series in the history of cricket. However, as I said at the time, parts of my electorate and many other parts of regional and rural Australia do not receive SBS.

This was all reminiscent of the government’s total lack of understanding regarding the importance to Australians of the World Cup soccer, where the minister stated in Senate estimates that the World Cup did not meet the government’s criteria of being an event of national importance and cultural significance. Apparently the fact that 14.8 million Australians had watched the World Cup in 2002 did not constitute it being an event of national importance. The minister went on to say that Australia does not have much participation in the World Cup, as justification for her government’s decision to drop the World Cup from the list. I think anyone watching Australia’s magnificent performance in the World Cup earlier this year would not be able to believe the government’s attitude towards it. Those millions of Aussie kids who now all want to be Socceroos would not have had the opportunity had the government continued with its plans for the World Cup.

My office has been receiving a number of calls and visits from concerned residents about the future of sport on free-to-air television following the recent passage of the government’s media ownership legislation. Residents of Central Queensland are increasingly worried about the potential to lose the right to watch the major sporting events that they have always been able to watch for free. These events were available to everyone in Australia as long as they owned or had access to a television set. This is in stark contrast to the only 25 per cent of Australians who have access to pay TV.

I watched with interest the Channel 9 coverage of the recent Adelaide test match and noted the commentators continually talking up the Channel 9 coverage and the history of the association between cricket and Channel 9. It leads to the question: where was the Channel 9 coverage of the 2005 Ashes series in England? The Packer and Murdoch media empires stand to gain a great deal more by forcing Australians to fork out for pay television just to watch these events.

Central Queenslanders love their sport and they are begging this government to ensure that these iconic sporting events are always available to them on the free-to-air stations. I would urge the government to heed these calls and move to permanently protect the rights of Australia’s sports-mad public. I also put the call out to Channel 9. I ask Channel 9 today: will they bring to Australia live coverage of the next Ashes series to be played in England or will they abandon us, as they did in 2005?