Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note the member for Blaxland talking about the Paul Keating Park. Parks are good; I have only had a road named after me, and roads get you somewhere! So they are both good.

I draw the attention of the House to the inequitable situation of a large area within the electorate of Barker unable to receive SBS television and the full range of ABC Radio services—something that most Australian take for granted. The district council of Tatiara has a population of a little over 7,000 and is one of the largest local government areas in South Australia—some 6,525 square kilometres; far bigger than many federal electorates, I might add, but also about 10 per cent of the electorate of Barker. Tatiara is located in the Limestone Coast region of South Australia. It has the main service centres of Bordertown and Keith with three smaller townships of Mundulla, Wolseley and Padthaway. Tatiara means ‘the good country’ and the district is fortunate to have an abundance of good underground water, a low unemployment rate, excellent facilities and a great lifestyle.

The economy of the district is firmly based on the agricultural and pastoral industries, chiefly the production of grains such as barley, oats, wheat and canola and stock such as sheep and cattle. In some areas there is extensive underground irrigation, which has facilitated the growing of small seeds, flowers, vegetables and olives, and many seasonal workers are employed in the buoyant viticulture industry making great wine.

The ability to receive SBS television and the full range of ABC radio services such as Triple J, often taken for granted, is denied to Tatiara residents. Earlier this year I wrote to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy requesting an extension of SBS’s digital television service to Tatiara. The minister’s response, several months later, was that the populations of 2,581 and 1,089 in Bordertown and Keith respectively in the 2006 census are insufficient to warrant plans to extend the reach of SBS television. The minister failed to take into account that the small towns of Wolseley and Mundulla, only a few kilometres away from Bordertown, would indeed bring the population of Bordertown to more than 3,000 and make it eligible.

SBS television provides multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia’s multicultural society. It is disenfranchising to exclude rural and regional Australians from this service and I call on the Rudd Labor government to allocate infrastructure funds to improve radio and television services in the area.