Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill 2007. Labor supports this bill as a small but sensible regulatory reform to increase the volume of Indigenous programming on community television. The bill makes a technical amendment to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to provide retransmissions of television narrowcasts with the same regulatory exemptions as retransmissions of television broadcasts. At present, parties transmitting unaltered content from television broadcasters are exempt from the regulatory obligations imposed under the Broadcasting Services Act. This bill amends section 212 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to extend the existing broadcasters’ exemption to the unaltered retransmission of content from television narrowcasters.

This exemption allows parties to retransmit content provided by National Indigenous TV Ltd, an Indigenous television content aggregator, on Imparja television’s channel 31 satellite narrowcast service. The bill also makes amendments to the Copyright Act 1968 to exempt self-help providers from the obligations of the act and to apply the statutory licence copyright collection scheme to retransmissions of National Indigenous TV Ltd content.

In summary, the cumulative effect of the amendments contained in this bill is to place someone who merely transmits National Indigenous TV Ltd content in the identical position to someone retransmitting a national, commercial or community service. These minor regulatory exemptions are easily justified by the resulting benefits associated with increased Indigenous programming on Australian television.

The Australian Labor Party supports these objectives. Certainly, I well recall attending the Garma Festival near Nhulunbuy some five years ago when I was parliamentary secretary to the shadow minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. The impact that it had there is certainly something which Indigenous communities are very appreciative of, and it is important in terms of the maintenance of Indigenous culture.

National Indigenous Television Ltd is currently aiming to put the first of its programming to air in May 2007. As such, the amendments contained in this bill need to be in operation before this time to ensure that simple retransmissions of this content do not fall foul of either the Broadcasting Services Act or the Copyright Act. It is for this reason that Labor has supported this bill’s speedy passage through the House. I commend the bill to the House.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the member for Grayndler for his contribution to the debate today. We appreciate the fact that the Labor Party will be supporting this bill in the House. The bill at hand makes a number of changes to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to facilitate the commencement of the National Indigenous Television service later this year. The regulatory regime established by the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 creates various obligations on broadcasters. Section 212 of the act specifically exempts from most legal and regulatory obligations services that are merely unaltered retransmissions of the signals from a commercial, national or community broadcaster. However, there is currently no similar exemption for retransmission of signals from narrowcasters. This means that, without this bill, retransmission of National Indigenous Television programming will not be covered by the exemptions offered to the other broadcasters under section 212. Many remote Indigenous communities will retransmit NITV programming from the satellite, as do the ABC, SBS and the commercial services.

The legislation is vital for the future distribution of NIT programming. If it were not to go through, retransmitters in remote areas would be liable for broadcasting without the appropriate licence and would be theoretically responsible for the content of the service. They would also be financially liable to the underlying right holders for payments of royalties. The minor amendment proposed by this bill will not only protect Indigenous communities doing no more than retransmitting NITV programming but also remove any disincentive for other carriers, such as pay TV broadcasters, to carry NITV programming by extending the statutory licensing scheme in part VC of the Copyright Act 1968 to apply to retransmission of that programming. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.