Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Broadcasting and Other Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014 is part of the government's so-called regulation repeal day. Most of what is in the bill is part of the routine function of government. The former Labor government repealed 16,794 acts and regulations during its time in office—all part of the ordinary work of government. It is important work, but we did not make a song and dance about it. This government has taken a different approach, holding regulation repeal days and making a lot out of very little.

The first regulation repeal legislation saved the communications industry $35 million. I said at the time that that was in and of itself a good thing, but its value should not be overestimated. You do not put out a press release when you vacuum the lounge room, and that is what the government was effectively doing there. If it was vacuuming the lounge room last year, then this is really a mopping-up of the bathroom, because this bill saves industry just $350,000, according to estimates from the Department of Communications. Having said that, much of the bill is straightforward, and we agree with it.

The purpose of the bill is to amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, the BSA; the Radiocommunications Act 1992, the RadComms act; and the Australian Communications and Media Authority Act 2005, the ACMA Act. It does a number of things. Firstly, it removes a number of provisions in the Broadcasting Services Act, which were associated with the simulcast of analog and digital television signals in the transition to digital broadcasting and the restack of spectrum, which commenced after the last analog signal was switched off. Given that digital television rollout is complete, these changes make sense and should be supported.

The bill also amends the framework used by the Australian Communications and Media Authority to plan the broadcasting services band spectrum by removing requirements in the Broadcasting Services Act and the Radcomms Act, which are no longer necessary. The bill also removes the requirement for reports to be made to ACMA under the New Eligible Drama Expenditure Scheme to be independently audited. The opposition is satisfied that compliance with this scheme is of a sufficiently high level and there are alternative mechanisms available for ACMA to ensure this continues to allow the removal of this requirement. The requirement that ACMA reviews industry codes of practice will also be removed under this legislation. The bill also amends the process by which the calculation of media diversity points is made in some commercial radio licence areas and introduces grandfathering provisions for commercial broadcasting licences which would be in breach of the statutory provisions on control as a result of fluctuations in population.

There are, however, some other areas of the bill that are more contentious. The bill makes a number of changes to captioning. For example, it seeks to remove the requirement for free-to-air broadcasters to report annually on compliance with obligations which require them to provide captioning of programs to assist vision- and hearing-impaired consumers with access to electronic media and to replace these obligations with a complaints based assessment process. The legislation also changes aspects of captioning-target obligations for subscription television and the assessment of the quality of captioning of live and pre-recorded broadcasts for free-to-air and subscription broadcasters. It also removes the requirement for a statutory review of captioning obligations.

The opposition has been contacted by representatives of the deaf community who are concerned about these changes. When the minister introduced this bill in the House in October last year, he said:

The ACMA and my department have consulted with industry and key accessibility groups on a range of potential reforms that primarily seek to improve administrative arrangements for the free-to-air broadcasters and subscription television licensees while requiring that they continue to meet their captioning obligations.

It turns out that those assurances that key accessibility groups had been consulted were not entirely accurate. The deaf community does not feel that they were properly consulted on these reforms. Members of Parliament received letters from the Chief Executive Officer of Deaf Australia, advising that Deaf Australia was not consulted on this legislation.

The bipartisan report of the Senate Environment and Communications Committee on this bill was critical of this lack of consultation with the deaf community. The report stated:

The committee notes that a large number of submitters indicated that the consultation process in relation to this bill had been inadequate. The committee agrees that the breadth of consultation in relation to this bill has been insufficient. As a consequence the effect of some of the proposed amendments appears to have been misunderstood, and inadequate attention was given to a range of serious concerns and interests.

This lack of consultation reflects poorly on the minister and on the government. It is their responsibility to make sure that all affected stakeholders are engaged and consulted when legislation before the parliament affects them.

Over the last month the Labor Party has done what the government should have done. We have sat down with deaf advocacy groups and the broadcasting industry and worked through their concerns with the changes that are proposed in this bill. As a result of that work, we have developed a reasonable compromise that both sides have agreed to: that is, 1) restoring the requirement for free-to-air broadcasters to report annually on their compliance with captioning obligations; and 2) restoring the statutory review of captioning to occur in 2016. This will allow a comprehensive review of all of the issues that legitimately concerned both the broadcasters and representatives of the deaf community. I will move amendments to that effect in this debate. I understand those amendments have now been circulated in my name. My office has also consulted with the minister's office on these amendments, and I understand that the government will support them. May I take this opportunity to thank the minister for that and thank his office for the work that they have done with my office on that. This is the sort of work that should have been done by the government. They should have sat down with the deaf community and consulted them on these changes, but they did not do that. They were more concerned with the headlines that come from a set piece regulation-repeal day rather than getting the substance right and making sure that the deaf community are properly consulted. These amendments get the government out of this mess, and I hope they do a better job on consultation with the next regulation repeal bill that they bring to this place.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the Broadcasting and Other Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill. This is an important bill that amends the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, the Radiocommunication Act 1992 and the Australian Communications and Media Authority Act 2005. It will remove unnecessary legislative provisions and in turn reduce the regulatory burden on the broadcasting industry. Today, I want first of all to speak about why reducing the regulatory burden is important; secondly, to argue the amendments in this bill seek to get the balance right between the objective of regulation and the burden it imposes; and, thirdly, to describe specifically the way in which some of these amendments will reduce the regulatory burden.

Let me turn firstly to the importance of a reduction in the regulatory burden. The Abbott government recognises that prosperity and jobs come from the business sector, but business is facing an excessive regulatory burden, and that burden imposes costs, slows down the rate at which business occurs and diverts resources. This is bad for growth, it is bad for business and it is bad for employment. It is no exaggeration to say that red tape is a serious problem in our economy. It is clear that the prevalence of red tape has a negative impact on productivity. The statistics as to how Australia performs compared to other jurisdictions are sobering. In 2014, we ranked 124th out of 148 countries for the burden of government regulation in the world competitiveness index. The cost of doing business in Australia relative to other nations is simply too high. The Productivity Commission, for example, estimates that regulatory compliance costs could amount to as much as four per cent of Australia's gross domestic product, a truly staggering number.

One of the particular problems with red tape is its tendency to continue to grow. Reporting obligations which are in place and which have been put there, in many cases, for the best possible reasons out of the best possible motivations tend to grow and grow and grow. Governments in general tend not to bother to come back and review regulatory provisions, regulatory frameworks, to determine whether they continue to be fit for purpose, and regulation often persists long after the problem which it was designed to address has passed into history. So, if government does not take decisive and proactive action, the unfortunate reality is that red tape tends to be ever expanding.

That is an ongoing structural feature, but on top of that we have the cyclical reality that this government succeeds the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, a government which showed an extraordinary and almost unprecedented enthusiasm for adding regulatory burdens to the Australian economy. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government added over 21,000 new regulations and repealed 105, notwithstanding the promise made by the former Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, in 2007 that his government would have a 'one regulation in, one regulation out' policy—a promise that was never honoured.

Red tape is a particular issue in the communications sector, a sector which is heavily regulated. Rapid changes to technology are driving, in turn, very rapid changes in business structures and business models. But the regulatory framework which presently applies to the media industry, to the telecommunications sector, to the radiocommunications sector, to broadcasting and so on is based on a mid-1990s world of stable technologies and business models. With the communications sector being as heavily regulated as it is, there are significant cost burdens and inefficiencies faced by the sector, and in turn those get passed on in the form of costs borne by consumers. It is for this reason that Communications Minister Turnbull and I, as his parliamentary secretary, have been enthusiastic participants in the government-wide deregulation agenda. We are strongly committed to reducing red tape in the communications sector.

Let me therefore turn to the measures in this bill and the way in which they seek to strike the right balance in the broadcasting sector and redress some errors. I want to touch particularly on two specific measures: reform in relation to the captioning obligations and reform in relation to the new eligible drama expenditure regime. Let me turn firstly to captioning. The bill contains in schedule 6 a set of amendments to the provisions in relation to captioning.

I should first describe what I am talking about. Captioning is the presentation of the audio component of television content as text on the screen. The purpose for imposing an obligation on broadcasters to provide captioning is to assist viewers who have a hearing impairment—a significant section of the community. The government strongly supports all Australians having access to television services, including of course ensuring that hearing-impaired Australians are able to have the benefit of television services. We believe that captioning of television services is a very important part of achieving this objective.

I want to emphasise, therefore, that this bill does not reduce captioning standards or targets, and the government will not be making any changes to captioning targets. Instead, the measures in this bill are designed to achieve the objective of reducing the reporting requirements. In particular, under the Broadcasting Services Act as it presently stands, television broadcasters face a detailed requirement to provide the Australian Communications and Media Authority with reports on their compliance with their captioning obligations on an annual basis.

We have consulted with industry and with accessibility groups in relation to these issues with the aim of improving administrative arrangements for the free-to-air broadcasters and subscription television licensees while at the same time ensuring that they continue to meet their captioning obligations. The policy objective reflected in the provisions in the bill before the House is to amend the existing captioning framework to remove annual reporting requirements and to seek to revert to a complaints-only process.

Having said that, I want to acknowledge the fact that the shadow minister spoke of some amendments that he intends to move. I foreshadow that the minister will have more to say about the government's response to those amendments when he sums up this debate.

I also note that the captioning requirements which are faced by subscription television licensees are even more complex than the requirements which apply to free-to-air television services. That being said, the government does not consider that a move to a full complaints based system for subscription television licensees would be appropriate at this time. We want to make sure that we are not overreaching in the approach contained in this bill. Instead, our intention is to conduct further consultation with the industry—and with other relevant stakeholders, I hasten to add, including of course advocacy groups and representative groups, peak bodies, for the hearing impaired. Our objective in that consultation will be to identify ways in which the existing arrangements for captioning on subscription television can be improved from a regulatory burden perspective.

Certainly, though, this bill does contain some amendments which seek to provide additional flexibility right now for subscription broadcasters, including a 12-month exemption from captioning obligations for new channels, an aggregated captioning target across related sports channels, and more-targeted requirements applicable to repeat programming.

The government appreciates the suggestions which have been received from stakeholders as part of the extensive consultation process, which has included consideration of the bill by a Senate committee. Of course, through that Senate committee process, a range of stakeholders have had the opportunity to examine the bill and to provide feedback. Certainly the government is appreciative of many of the suggestions that have been made, and the government has agreed to the suggestion that the bill be amended to require the Australian Communications and Media Authority to undertake a review of the operation of the captioning requirements under the Broadcasting Services Act.

I now want to speak about a second important measure in the bill, which relates to the audit requirements under the new eligible drama expenditure scheme. The scheme requires that certain subscription television channel providers and licensees must spend at least 10 per cent of their total programming expenditure on new Australian or New Zealand drama productions or co-productions. Licensees and channel providers are required to provide an annual return to the Australian Communications and Media Authority which must be cleared by a registered auditor. The current scheme has been mandatory since 1999, and the authority advises that there has been a high level of compliance. The bill contains measures to remove the audit requirement and the requirement for the authority to provide related 'compliance certificates'. The government considers this appropriate, partly in recognition that there has been a high ongoing level of compliance to this point. I emphasise that the changes will not affect the level of new Australian drama expenditure required from the subscription television industry. In other words, again these measures are about striking the right balance between, on the one hand, maintaining the core obligations and, on the other hand, seeking to remove unnecessary requirements.

Thirdly, I want to speak briefly about the ways in which the measures in this bill will reduce the regulatory burden. I have spoken, for example, about some of the reductions in regulatory burden applicable to subscription broadcasters as regards some specific detailed captioning requirements. In relation to the new eligible drama expenditure requirement, by removing the audit requirements as well as removing the requirement on the Australian Communications and Media Authority to provide compliance certificates, the measures in this bill are going to remove a significant administrative and financial burden on the subscription television industry. But again I emphasise it is about striking the right balance so that these measures will not affect the level of new Australian drama expenditure required from subscription television. The government understands that at least five subscription television licensees and at least eight channel providers will no longer need to engage auditors to review their returns under the new eligible drama expenditure scheme.

The measures in this bill make an important contribution to the coalition's agenda to reduce red tape but to do so in a way that preserves the underlying purpose of the regulation. There is, as has been foreshadowed, more consultation that the government intends to engage in—for example, further consultation in relation to the detailed captioning requirements for subscription television. As I have indicated, while we have addressed some measures in that area, the broader set of requirements in relation to subscription television is not dealt with in this bill, because, amongst other things, we want to engage in full consultation before we take any measures in that area forward.

The Communications portfolio has made a strong contribution to the government's overall deregulatory policy thrust, and that is important because communications is a heavily regulated sector and there are significant opportunities for greater efficiencies. To date, our red tape reduction measures in the Communications portfolio have generated cumulative savings of over $70 million for consumers and businesses and resulted in over 3,400 pages of redundant or obsolete regulation being repealed. This has contributed to the government's overall goal of removing $1 billion in the cost of unnecessary regulation from the economy each year. I am pleased to commend the measures in this bill to the House.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to make a contribution on the Broadcasting and Other Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014, which makes some changes to the Broadcasting Services Act and a number of related acts. These include the digital switchover and restack. As we know, analog services ended in December 2013, so these provisions and the related provisions concerning simulcast rules were, indeed, fulfilled more than a year ago. Other amendments concern planning powers, auditing expenditure, compliance with new eligible drama rules, licence areas, and the ACMA's role in the code of practice review.

I want to focus most of my remarks on the issue of captioning, which is contained within this bill. Listening to the community of interests around this issue has informed Labor's approach on this matter and the amendment that the shadow minister has brought before the House. Just to give you an idea of some of the community of interest that has been alive in this matter, in October 2014 I received correspondence from Deaf Australia which said in part:

I am unsure if you are aware of Federal Government's bill covering certain elements of the Broadcasting Services Act that deals with captioning issue … Along with Media Access Australia, Australian Federation of Disability Organisations, Deafness Forum of Australia, Australian Communication Consumers Action Network and the Human Rights Commission, we are concerned that the deregulation was drafted with provisions that approach the whole issue solely from the perspective of the television industry … The elements of the drafting does not appear to have any knowledge of how captioning works in practice and how it will be regulated in real-world situation.

I am quoting that directly just to illustrate the level of concern that many who are concerned with this legislation have expressed.

The minister's second reading speech on this bill in this place said:

Reflecting stakeholder feedback, the communications portfolio deregulation road map identified captioning reporting as an area for reform in 2014.

I am sure that is true, but the problem is that some key stakeholders in the accessibility area were not afforded sound consultation, and that is a fact that has been conceded in the Senate inquiry outcomes, which I will discuss in a moment.

There are two limbs to the opposition's amendment that we have before us. The first is about the review of captioning requirements and compliance reporting. I turn specifically to the Senate committee inquiry, which recently gave its report into this matter. Part of what it discussed in terms of captioning obligations was the issue of granting exemptions from captioning obligations for new subscription television channels from one to almost two years depending on when the new service commences and removing the obligation for the ACMA to conduct a review of captioning obligations by 31 December this year.

Schedule 6 of the bill, concerning captioning, was as I said a specific area that was addressed in the Senate committee report, and I want to turn to paragraph 2.71 of the report and its discussion on consultation:

A significant number of the submitters to the inquiry expressed concern that there had been a lack of adequate consultation in relation to the proposed amendments to captioning obligations and NEDE scheme audits.

Here are a couple of examples. Deaf Australia said:

… we did not have an opportunity to provide any detailed feedback. They [the Department] just told us what the proposed changes were going to be. I do not believe that there has been any adequate or appropriate consultation with consumers or broadcasters.

It goes on in paragraph 2.73 to note the Age and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, the Hon. Susan Ryan, agreed that the captioning amendments in the bill should be delayed pending further consultation. Paragraph 2.74 says:

Mr Varley from Media Access Australia noted that the bill proposes to repeal the provisions requiring the ACMA to undertake a captioning review by 31 December 2015.

It goes on:

Mr Deaner from Screen Producers Australia argued that there had also been a lack of adequate consultation …

Paragraph 2.76 says, to their credit:

Dr Pelling, Department of Communications, acknowledged in evidence to the committee that consultation in relation to the proposed measures in the bill could have been improved:

…   …   …

I think it is true to say that in an ideal world we would have preferred to have an exposure draft; but, given the timing of the process and the way the bill was developed, an exposure was not able to be released.

Kudos to the department for acknowledging that. We do all learn from experience, but I think it is a salient reminder that, while we may all be focused on a certain area of intent—in the government's case it is to demonstrate that this spring cleaning needs certain fanfare to go with it—we need to remember what underlies that, and that is to ensure that we have sound policy arising as a result.

I will very briefly look at some of the committee's comments:

The committee acknowledges that access to captioning is of fundamental importance to the deaf and hearing impaired communities.

I do not believe anyone in this place would dispute that. In conclusion, paragraph 2.85 says:

The committee notes that a large number of submitters indicated that that the consultation processes in relation to the bill had been inadequate.

I think I have made that point, but I would also like to turn to a couple of matters that were raised in the human rights committee of the parliament concerning these issues.

In the 16th report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights the committee looked at this bill and raised a couple of matters of questions for the minister, seeking his advice as to the compatibility of the amendments with the captioning obligations of the right to equality and non-discrimination and the related rights of persons with disabilities. These were the questions sought, and the minister provided a number of responses, which were contained in the 18th report of the human rights committee. It was noted that many of these elements could in fact be justified on the basis that they were proportionate or otherwise fulfilled a legitimate policy expectation of the government.

I will point to one of the interesting elements arising from the 18th report, and that is in relation to the blanket exemption from captioning requirements for all new subscription television services for at least one year. The committee noted that it remained concerned that this might still have an adverse impact on deaf and hearing impaired viewers because, if there were no captioning requirements for all new TV subscription content, that content would of course then be inaccessible. As noted in paragraph 2.12 of that report:

… it is not clear to the committee that the limitation is proportionate to those objectives. This is because there is currently a mechanism by which a subscription service can seek an exemption if required (that is, through an application to ACMA, which must assess each application on its merits).

The point I am making here is that we have in the bill before us provisions for a blanket exemption for new subscription TV services when in fact there is a provision for exemption by application already contained here. I note the conclusion the committee came to on this point:

… the automatic exemption for at least 12 months for all new subscription services from the requirement to provide captioning of content may be incompatible with the right to equality and nondiscrimination.

I simply note these. I do not intend to move any amendments, but I simply wish to note this. We know it is a fact that captioning requirements on subscription TV licensees are more complex than those which apply in the free-to-air environment. But, to again quote the minister I his second reading speech:

To achieve a better outcome in the long term—

that is, in relation to subscription television services' captioning requirements—

the Department of Communications will conduct further consultation with the industry to identify ways in which the subscription television captioning regime could be improved to best suit the needs of all stakeholders.

I commend the department on the work I know they will diligently carry out. I simply urge them to take into account some of the comments that have been made by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights in relation to that issue.

I do want to mention something a bit closer to home: the work, the efforts and the passion of two individuals, David Cunningham and Paul Robertson. They are the co-creators of the Dangerous Dave show. It is a collaborative disability project which aims to present through the media, utilising ICT, the broad spectrum of issues facing Australians with a disability.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dave in Seven Hills, to discuss not only this bill but also to film a pilot interview in which we discussed a wide range of issues confronting people with a disability, including how people with a disability are portrayed in the media and how successful the Broadcasting Services Act has been in achieving its objectives, including its stated aim of taking into account the portrayals in programs that are likely to incite or perpetuate hatred against or vilify any personal group on the basis of physical or mental disability.

Amongst other things, Dave and Paul are working to: improve community awareness, understanding and education of disability in all its forms; increase the level of people with disabilities participating in the media; and fight the stereotypes that often surround people with a disability. As University of Wollongong academic Shawn Burns wrote in The Conversation:

Too often, media representation of people with disability is embedded within familiar models of 'tragedy' and 'hero' – but the weekend’s coverage of potential changes to the disability support pension and the welfare system paint an equally distorted and harmful image.

As people with a disability Australia president, Craig Wallace told TheSydney Morning Herald regarding classifying people into having permanent and non-permanent disabilities:

'The reality is that it isn’t as simple as that. I’ve got a permanent disability and I work.’ Mr Wallace also cautioned against the media demonising people with disabilities … ‘We are not rorters, we are not slackers,' he said.

These incidents I believe highlight why Dave and Paul's project is so important in informing and breaking down stereotypes. They also help to inform me how disappointed they were regarding the fact that the ABC's Ramp Up website, which worked to address these very issues, has come to an end.

The late-great Stella Young said, in a co-written article in the editorial of 5 June 2014 on the Ramp Up website:

After much speculation about the future of Ramp Up since the Federal Budget announcement, we have some news to share.

As many of you are aware, in 2010 the ABC received funding to establish an online destination to discuss disability in Australia. … Our current contract with DSS finishes on 30 June this year and has not been renewed.

The publication of ABC Ramp Up will cease on 30 June—

That was last year—

however the website will remain online as a resource for the disability community.

… … …

… Ramp Up has published over 500 pieces of original content …

And I would urge everyone watching or listening to go and have a look at some of those amazing pieces of original content. It is an archive of 3½ years of discussions and conversations regarding disability in Australia. includes, if you read nothing else, '17 things Stella Young wanted you to know'.

I have also had an abiding interest in the ability of ICT to be a transformational power in terms of the digital divide but also more broadly of being an enabler of people with a disability. I want to acknowledge some of the amazing successes that have been taking place and the potential for ICT and captioning, for people with a hearing impairment, but also for people with a visual impairment through audio description. I think we need to do a lot more as a society to increase access to audio description. Just to give you a useful description, this is from the ABC audio description trial in April 2013:

Without knowing what’s on screen, TV becomes a guessing game for Australia’s 600,000 blind and vision impaired people. That’s where audio description (AD) comes in. AD is a track of narration which describes important visual elements of a TV show, movie or performance. It’s delivered between lines of dialogue and means that those who are blind or vision impaired can switch it on to keep up with the action without relying on other people.

It notes that audio description was provide for a number of programs for the trial, including: Rake, Lowdownand Summer Heights HighI would love to know how Rake was audio-described—just to give a flavour of some of the very important things I think we should be doing more of as a community to improve accessibility in this area.

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

I rise to speak on the Broadcasting and Other Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014. This bill amends three other pieces of legislation, streamlining them into one, to implement industry preferred changes in the communications portfolio.

This bill will amend or remove provisions in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 which were associated with the simulcast of analog and digital television signals in the transition to digital broadcasting and the restack of spectrum which commenced after the last analog signal was switched off. The bill will also amend the framework by which the Australian Communications and Media Authority plans broadcasting services band spectrum. Through the removal of certain requirements in the BSA and the Radiocommunications Act 1992, which are no longer considered necessary.

I welcome the implementation of amendments to this bill for my constituents in my electorate of Paterson, because of the many ways its introduction can directly benefit them. I will focus on one particular amendment that will benefit my constituency—that is, the proposed changes under schedule 2 permeating the digital switch-over and restacking.

By way of providing context, in my electorate unreliable digital television reception is the No. 1 local issue impacting my constituents across the length and breadth of Paterson. Schedule 2 of the bill proposes to remove definitions and references to the simulcast period and the restacking process. It inserts new definitions and descriptions which better reflect the post-analog environment. Greater transparency and less ambiguity in legislation is always a positive step. Based on the feedback of major interest groups at the bill submission stage, this is one area that was incredibly deficient.

At the end of the simulcast period, analog transmissions were to cease and broadcasters were required to meet quotas for the transmission of high definition digital programming. Thousands of my constituents currently suffer poor quality digital television signals that regularly drop out, and more often than normal on hot summer days. Every time the nation gets together to watch a major sporting event, I can almost rely on the digital signal to drop out each and every time. My phone rings off the hook for days. I want to use this speech as an opportunity to tell my electorate I am listening and the government is listening.

This amendment bill makes small but essential changes surrounding the spectrum allocation debate, a debate which I am actively involved in with my local broadcasters, the department and my ministerial colleagues to try to fix these digital issues. I am glad I am able to speak about this bill today because the mess that Labor left spectrum allocations in has contributed to the No. 1 point of aggravation in my electorate.

As I said previously, thousands of my constituents currently suffer poor-quality digital television signals that regularly dropout, even more on hot summer days. Deputy Speaker Kelly, you might ask, 'Why does this matter?' It matters because my sports-mad constituents want nothing more than to watch New South Wales win the State of Origin or Jamie Whincup take on the mountain, but the signal has dropped out on each of these occasions. It matters because my constituents in Paterson deserve better.

The last analogue services ceased in Paterson in November 2012, and a reorganisation of the television services—or a re-stack—commenced in my electorate at that time. It was intended to utilise the most efficient use of digital dividend spectrum resulting from the switch to digital television. In the light of these proposed amendments and their impact upon the references to the core primary commercial television broadcasting services, I want to take the opportunity to discuss how these reforms, had they transpired earlier, may have increased transparency a number of years ago when the previous government hastily switched over from analogue to digital technology.

Prior to the switch-over in November 2012, I warned—repeatedly warned—the previous government that existing self-help transmitters would have to be upgraded and new transmitters installed across my electorate to ensure that my constituents would continue to receive reliable digital television reception. My lobbying to Regional Broadcasting Australia Holdings, which is jointly owned by the commercial broadcasters, resulted in upgrades to self-help transmitters at Elizabeth Beach, Smiths Lake, Stroud, Forster and a new transmitter located at Anna Bay. Today, thousands of my constituents still have unreliable digital television reception. Areas like Karuah, the Tilligerry Peninsula, Medowie, Stroud, East Gresford, Gresford and Bulahdelah either have very little or no service. Prior to November 2012, these residents had reasonably reliable analogue reception to fall back on. Now, they do not.

There are two separate issues at play here: interference and coverage of black spots. The phenomenon of atmospheric ducting, which I am advised creates conditions by which the Illawarra transmitter at Knights Hill, which broadcasts all channels on identical frequencies to the Newcastle transmitter at Mount Sugarloaf, results in major interference and dropouts. My constituents who only have the option of signalling to the Mount Sugarloaf transmitter suffer increased problems relative to their distance to the transmitter, and while conditions that result in atmospheric ducting are more prevalent in warmer weather—which means that many of these issues arise during the major television events, such as the NRL and AFL grand finals and the Bathurst 1000—towns like Bulahdelah face these problems all year round.

More than a third of my constituents have experienced these problems for over five years, and they are justifiably livid. Much of the anger stems from the previous government's 'Get digital ready' campaign that dishonestly—dishonestly!—promised my constituents that the changeover would result in equal to or better than television reception. Many of those contacting my office have never had worse television reception. Prime TV, that was previously broadcast on a different frequency now also fails, along with other channels, since the retune. While the nation enjoyed watching the Bunnies take on the Bulldogs and win their first premiership in 43 years last year, my electorate got the raw end of the carrot after constituents experienced dropouts in the reception all day across vast areas of my electorate.

Before last year's race on the mountain at Bathurst, Ford announced that it would no longer be competing. Now, to Ford and Holden fans this was the end of an era and so this is why there was much interest in the telecast for my constituents, many of whom could not watch it. On every one of these occasions my office phones rang off the hooks for days.

I wrote to Steve Brown, broadcasting engineer and technology manager at NBN TV Newcastle, who I would contend is probably the most knowledgeable expert on the local problems specifically impacting on my electorate. I asked Mr Brown to provide an update on the issue since the retune in September 2014. Mr Brown concedes that the installation of self-help transmitters has largely resolved the majority of interference problems on the Tomaree Peninsula and Anna Bay areas. It has also filled in the coverage gaps in locations like Boat Harbour, Corlette and Nelson Bay.

Mr Brown said, 'The only true fix for this problem is to have Wollongong—the Knights Hill transmitter—and Newcastle—the Mount Sugarloaf transmitter—on different frequencies. However, this will be difficult as no frequencies are available. Adding more, smaller transmitters to provide additional alternative coverage will not provide a 100-per-cent fix to the problem. However, the solution that RBAH has proposed for the Hunter-Port Stephens region will significantly improve the situation. Viewers then need to re-point their antenna to new transmitters. An education-and-awareness campaign targeting affected households as to the benefits in pointing their antenna to the transmitters to optimise their reception and viewing experience is absolutely critical.'

We know that when the self-help transmitter commenced transmission at Anna Bay it provided a fix both to interference and to poor coverage areas in a majority of homes in Anna Bay and surrounding suburbs. When I receive calls from constituents who are still experiencing reception issues in those areas, on almost every occasion the viewer's antenna is not aligned to the optimal transmitter.

I agree with Mr Brown that viewers need to be informed of their options. The commercial broadcasters could assist by running community announcements to educate viewers. When I met with the broadcasters they advised me that if ACMA were unable to reallocate the clashing frequencies then the only other solution was three new sites—at Peppers Mountain in the Stroud region; at Wallaroo Forest to service Karuah, Medowie and Tilligerry Peninsula; and in the Bulahdelah area—plus power upgrades to existing sites, including Gan Gan, and the addition of commercial networks to the Vacy transmitter, that currently only broadcasts ABC and SBS. Despite the fact that Regional Broadcasting Australia Holdings fully funded the latest transmitter installation at Anna Bay to service their viewers, the broadcasters advised that they were unwilling to deliver the proposed package that included similar transmitters without co-funding from the Commonwealth.

My question to Regional Broadcasting Australia is: why were you willing to fund a fix to the problem for your viewers in Anna Bay and surrounding areas while leaving the remaining viewers across my electorate in the dark? While I am extremely disappointed with the commercial broadcasters' request for taxpayers' funds to improve television reception in my electorate, I have met with both the Prime Minister and minister of Communications to ask for this project to be co-funded. I am pleased that both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Communications took the time to listen to my concerns and there is a plan in place.

For remaining households that should be able to access terrestrial signal, the broadcasters that profit from delivering advertising into viewers' homes have a responsibility to their advertisers and to their viewers to ensure the content can be seen. The recent retune has exacerbated an already frustrating situation. In fact, I questioned ACMA about the issue. The response I got from ACMA said, 'There are well-known spectrum constraints in the Newcastle, Sydney, Illawarra areas.' ACMA also advised me they had extensively consulted with broadcasters on this. In fact November 2010 was the first meeting of the restack planning advisory group which involved my regional broadcasters.

What concerns me is the next part. The group discussed these issues and plans for ways to address them. In July 2011 they presented the working group with two options for incorporating the block planning in the use of the channels. Option A was that Newcastle be co-channelled with Bowral and Mittagong, and Illawarra be co-channelled with the Central Coast. Option B was that Newcastle be co-channelled with the Illawarra as it was before and for the Central Coast to be co-channelled with Bowral and Mittagong.

In the government's view, through ACMA, the preferred option was option A. This would remove the problem of occasional interference by seasonal ducting through co-channelling down to the Central Coast. That was not a huge issue because the Central Coast in most parts can tune into the Sydney stations. But what we found in the July 2011 meeting was that none of the broadcasters in the Hunter supported option A. Their concern was that if people tuned in to the Sydney service in the event of a ducting event, they might never retune to regional services and therefore cost a loss of revenue. I say to them: you made a decision to increase this problem; you need to make a decision and fund the solution to this problem. I call on them to do it urgently.

This bill will also change aspects of captioning obligations for subscription television and the assessment of quality of captioning of live and pre-recoded broadcasts for free-to-air and subscription broadcasters. I welcome the changes proposed in the captioning of programs to further aid the vision impaired. My electorate of Paterson has one of the oldest demographics nationwide and features a high volume of aged care facilities where these concerns have been related to me. I am enthusiastic about the proposed changes to amend part 9D of the BSA to accommodate complaints in relation to captioning. According to the explanatory memorandum, the proposed changes aim to improve administration arrangements and increase flexibility for free-to-air broadcasters and subscription television licensees in complying with caption regulations.

Although, a lot of my constituents could argue what is the point of captioning—when a third of my constituents cannot even see the television screens let alone the captions. I have spoken on this issue ad nauseam advocating for my constituents and I am disappointed in the fact that Regional Broadcasting Australia are yet to submit their proposal to build the additional towers in my electorate.

Shirley Brown, the new chair of RBA, has been in contact with my office and originally told me that this proposal would be submitted during the first sitting week of the parliament. I was then told that this proposal would be submitted on Monday 23 February. Now this has been delayed and I have been told the proposal will be submitted next Wednesday 4 March. I implore RBA to submit their proposal as soon as possible to ensure that we can get the construction underway and the upgrades done before next summer. We, unlike the previous government, will not be handing out money without doing our due diligence. So again I call on broadcasters to lodge their proposal urgently to ensure this infrastructure program is underway as soon as possible. I support this bill and commend it to the parliament.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Broadcasting and Other Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014. In the few minutes that I have before this debate gets interrupted, I want to reflect on a few of the comments made by the previous speaker. I too am from a regional area, central Victoria, and we too have had our challenges when it comes to broadcasting and picking up channels, particularly on hot days. The reception does drop out. I do get the occasional phone call from people saying they are concerned because they have lost their television coverage whether it be for a sporting event or on bushfire days when they are making sure that they are able to keep in touch.

But what I get more calls about in my electorate when it comes to telecommunications is the lack of access to fast-speed broadband. So I would challenge the previous speaker on that because, for most other regional MPs, when it comes to telecommunications, the issue that we are most inundated about is having access to fast-speed broadband and reliable internet, and that is why the rollout of the NBN is so important.

As previous speakers have said, the Broadcasting and Other Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014 is fairly non-controversial, now that we have resolved the issue of captions. This bill was part of the government's so-called regulation repeal day. For most of the previous governments that we have had in this place, what is in this bill would be seen to be routine of government yet this government has taken a different approach and has basically put all this cleaning up, so to speak, into one particular big day and made a big noise about it.

This particular bill will only save the industry about $350,000 according to estimates by the Department of Communications. Having said that, this bill is fairly straightforward. It does talk about broadcasting. In my particular area, as I mentioned, broadcasting is quite topical. What we broadcast is also quite topical. At the moment, we are in the middle of the WNBL basketball finals. Being a basketball fan and a bit of a tragic when it comes to basketball, I was very upset to learn that this will be the last season that the WNBL will be broadcast on the ABC, ending a 35-year relationship between the ABC and the WNBL. So while this bill speaks specifically about some tidy-ups within the department—

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The honourable member for Bendigo will have leave to continue her remarks when the debate is resumed.