Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak about free-to-air television. We have seen, at long last, the deployment of multichannelling and an increase in free-to-air content. The ABC Kids channel is an example of the increase in choice available to Australian viewers. This is a very good thing, as we always knew it would be. The rise of multichannelling prompted dreams in some of us that free-to-air television networks would be able to schedule broadcasts that are a little more specialised, a little more observant of both niche and very large markets for programming.

I have spoken previously about the increased potential for free-to-air networks to broadcast a greater volume of the content of a particular sporting event. I have also spoken of the potential for a network to broadcast more Wimbledon, for instance, or games in the lead-up to the World Cup, as many of us would wish. But it seems we are in the same situation we have always been. Even with multichannelling, it appears that networks continue to have very popular events, sporting events, dictated to and compromised for viewers as if the network had no choice.

A topical case in point: the Adelaide Advertiser’s AdelaideNow website is running a story on how Channel 7 in Adelaide has refused to air this Friday night’s AFL grand final rematch between Geelong and State Kilda live, preferring to delay the broadcast by an hour and a half. Irrespective of how important one thinks this particular game is—and I am not a Geelong or St Kilda supporter but I do love AFL and I love watching it live, as many thousands of people do in both my electorate and South Australia generally—I found it encouraging that a fair number of the comments posted on AdelaideNow regarding the story referred to multichannelling and the antisiphoning rules. I will read some of the posts. StevieB of Bomberland wrote:

Not just this game, every game!! Wasn’t this exactly why you brought on a new third channel?

David posted today:

Put Better Homes and Gardens on Channell 72.

And Aaron of Adelaide made a good contribution:

The anti-siphoning list prevents the AFL from being shown on the secondary channel (I.e. 7TWO, OneHD) before it is shown on the main channels (I.e. 7, 10). In the case of last night, both Wimbledon and cricket (all matches in Oz or the UK) have to be shown on the main channel first, hence neither could be bumped to the secondary channel. Hopefully when the review of the list comes out later this year, the secondary channels can show first run sports on them.

It is a real pity that Channel 7 in Adelaide is not running the St Kilda-Geelong game live and I plead with them to reconsider and show it live for the sake of the sports fans in Adelaide. Whether we end up allowing a program to be aired live on a second or third channel before it is broadcast on the primary channel, I cannot say. I expect there will be less and less justification for the maintenance of such a rule over time. If live broadcasts were permitted on secondary channels now, with the existing practice of playing the delayed on the primary channel, would it be such a bad thing? Would anyone be disadvantaged?

When it comes to these issues, I have a compulsion to revert to commenting on SBS. I had the pleasure of meeting with Joseph Skrzynski and Shaun Brown of SBS the other night—a pleasure for the insight they gave me into their current thinking and the development of their services to the Australian public. The SBS is a great success story, and again I go back to sport: SBS was the primary vehicle, I would suggest, for the development and increase in the popularity of football, which some call soccer, in Australia. People like the late Johnny Warren, people like Les Murray, having been given the possibility of promoting football through SBS, have assisted substantially in it becoming absolutely commonplace around Australia.

Many years ago, soccer or football was an oddity, with its round ball, and the people who played it were, as Johnny Warren titled his book, Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters. We have come a long way from that title. The nation as a whole is captivated by ‘the beautiful game’ and SBS should be recognised for the central role it has played in this coming about. As we are currently in the World Cup finals, we are blessed with wonderful coverage of every single game—every game. If it was another channel, we might get highlights of a few, I suspect. But SBS can again hold its head high and be congratulated for the terrific coverage of the World Cup that it is providing.

SBS is an amazing institution and, as I have said, a terrific success story, but its future is still in the making. With the American free trade agreement and questions on the cost-competitiveness and viability of Australian content, with the availability of international channels that have been streaming directly into people’s homes from all over the world—Italy, India, Greece—the very viability of free-to-air television is more questionable than it ever has been. And the viability of a public broadcaster, a network that still is to a large extent a public service for the benefit of our population, with decisions weighed by not just the prospect of profits but social utility, is increasingly under threat. We want good things of our free-to-air television. We want the great achievements of SBS to continue.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 8 pm, the debate is interrupted.