Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Improved Access to Television Services) Bill 2012, has very broad support both in the House and in the community. It seeks to increase the level of captioning that is provided on both free-to-air television stations and subscription television services. The aim of the bill is to eventually achieve a captioning service on 100 per cent of a commercial broadcaster's core or primary channel during the relevant viewing hours of 6 am to midnight. This is done progressively with the bill. It also seeks to incrementally increase the captioning targets for subscription television licences.

It is a fundamental matter of social justice to ensure, as far as we can, that people with disabilities are not deprived of access to those important means of communication and information, participation in which enables them to engage fully with the rest of the Australian community. We warmly support this bill. The principles enshrined in it have had the support of the coalition in government, and captioning requirements have been increased and imposed during our time in government.

There are a number of matters which we believe would enable us to improve the bill, so we have a number of amendments which we will move when we move to consideration in detail. I will not delay the House any further, Mr Deputy Speaker Oakeshott—I did not recognise you with your glasses on there for a moment. We will not delay the House any longer on the second reading given that there is a consensus that this bill should be dealt with tonight. I will come back to the amendments at the appropriate time. Both as a matter of principle and of policy the objects of this bill are worthy ones.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of this particular piece of legislation, the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Improved Access to Television Services) Bill 2012. I only want to speak for a few minutes on it. The bill amends the television captioning requirements in the Broadcasting Services Act to provide improved media access for the deaf and hearing impaired. That is a worthy bipartisan approach to take in relation to these issues. There has been consultation with stakeholders, media and other groups associated with this particular piece of legislation.

Access to electronic media is important for all members of a society which is supposed to be inclusive. It means that people regardless of their circumstances, disabilities and limitations can access film, television and the internet. It is important that we in this parliament take an approach that looks at assisting those people to enjoy an important recreation of ordinary Australians, regardless of their circumstance, their income, their geographical location or their physical capacity.

The bill increases requirements for captioning free-to-air and subscription television broadcasts. We have all had the benefit of seeing captioning on our TVs; it assists people with hearing impairment by providing a text version of speech and sound during television broadcasts. Those of us who watch other programs on SBS and the like will have had the benefit of that. In this short time I want to congratulate the government on this bill, congratulate the opposition for their bipartisan approach and support the legislation.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will speak briefly on the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Improved Access to Television Services) Bill 2012. I certainly concur with my colleague, the shadow minister for communications, on the importance of providing equity in access to electronic media services. This bill, which addresses the issue of captioning, supports that principle. However, the coalition has some concerns and as my colleague has indicated he will be moving a number of amendments to reflect improvements that we believe should have been made to the bill.

One of the first issues is that it is unclear what happens if the captioning system fails due to a technical difficulty. We have the ironic situation that where a broadcast fails completely and the screen goes black a broadcaster would not necessarily be in breach of their broadcasting licence; however, if there is a failure of the captioning system, it may well be that that broadcaster is in breach of their broadcasting licence. We feel that the provisions of the bill are somewhat onerous on the broadcasters and that a more common-sense approach should apply.

The second issue I would like to address briefly is the hours of captioning. Captioning is required between 6 am and midnight, but it would be reasonable to allow a broadcaster to include the whole duration of a program that begins before midnight and may finish at perhaps 1 am in the morning as part of its contribution to captioning. This is a common-sense approach: a viewer who is dependent on captioning would not want the captioning to conclude halfway through the program. This second amendment is a very sensible measure.

The third matter I would like to reflect on is the very onerous reporting requirement imposed by this bill. A more common-sense approach of having a complaint based system, rather than burdening the network with very extensive requirements for record keeping, would be a better approach.

Finally, there is the issue of pass-through channels such as BBC, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg and Eurosport which may have relatively small audiences. It would be appropriate to exclude their programs from the captioning regime. Because of the cost of captioning—and it is quite expensive; it can be up to $750 per hour—if they were required to caption their programs it may be that those programs, which are enjoyed by a rather small but important audience, disappear from our market. So there were a number of sensible suggestions that the opposition has made. I would hope that the government could see its way clear to support those. But we certainly do support the thrust of the bill; it is an important improvement for disabled and hearing-impaired people.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank members who have contributed to the debate.

Access to electronic media is important to all members of our community. This bill contains a number of measures to improve media access for the many Australians who are deaf or hearing impaired. The bill responds to the consultations with stakeholders, beginning with the Media Access Review process, which commenced in 2008. It amends the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to implement new captioning targets and obligations on free-to-air and subscription television. Captioning is an important tool that assists people with a hearing impairment. Importantly, the bill makes provision not only for improved quantity of captioning but also for improved quality through the implementation of minimum quality standards regarding the readability, comprehensibility and accuracy of captions.

The bill also enhances the role of the regulator, the ACMA, in working with stakeholders to develop captioning standards, to monitor compliance and to respond to consumer complaints. The bill will also provide for improved access to television emergency warnings for people with a hearing or vision impairment.

The government is committed to making meaningful improvements to levels of media access, while ensuring that our actions are practical for broadcasters and content producers. The amendments in this bill, accompanied by a regulation to be developed by the Attorney-General, will provide both viewers and broadcasters with a level of regulatory certainty through one set of clear future targets, one overarching regulatory system and a clear and cost-effective compliance and complaints mechanism. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.