Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Regional Commercial Radio and Other Measures) Bill 2020 includes a range of deregulatory measures that will allow regional commercial radio broadcasting licensees to satisfy their local content obligations in a more flexible manner.

The bill makes minor amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 which will ease the regulatory burden on, and make regulatory compliance easier for, regional commercial radio and regional commercial television broadcasters.

Local content obligations for regional commercial radio broadcasters are designed to support the availability of local news and information that regional Australians value. The bill will introduce greater flexibility and lower the compliance burden for licensees in meeting their local content obligations, while ensuring the continued availability of local content to regional Australians.

The bill also includes a measure which will amend the Australian content multi-channel quota obligation for regional and remote commercial television broadcasting licensees. This measure is intended to assist licensees to satisfy their obligations when they have affiliation agreements with metropolitan broadcasters which mean that they have limited or no control over the amount of Australian content they broadcast.

The measures that the bill proposes will provide licensees with greater flexibility and certainty in delivering broadcasting services in regional areas to provide greater sustainability of regional voices, preserving greater choice for regional audiences.

Commercial radio measures

The Broadcasting Services Act places a range of local content obligations on regional commercial radio licensees, in order to support the ongoing availability of local content in regional Australia. This includes the general obligation to provide a minimum amount of material of local significance per business day.

The regional commercial radio industry has informed the government that it considers a number of the requirements associated with the local content and minimum services standards obligations to be inflexible, impractical or overly burdensome.

The measures contained in schedule 1 of the bill will provide industry with more flexibility in acquitting its local content and minimum service standards obligations.

The bill makes amendments to the exemption period provisions for both the local content and minimum services standards obligations so that they are more flexible. These provisions currently provide default five-week exemption periods for both obligations, over the Christmas and New Year holiday period. However, these are not the only times of the year licensees may face similar staffing and resource pressures.

The bill also removes the requirement for trigger event licensees to develop a local content plan, and replaces this with a requirement to prepare and publish a local content statement.

Commercial television measures

Currently, the Broadcasting Services Act requires commercial television broadcasting licensees to broadcast minimum levels of Australian content: at least 1,460 hours of Australian programming across their multi-channels between 6 am and midnight.

Metropolitan television networks provide regional and remote commercial television broadcasting licensees with content under affiliation agreements. Some licensees in regional and remote licence areas have faced barriers to providing the required amount of Australian content if they do not carry the full suite of multi-channels that metropolitan networks deliver. This is especially likely where metropolitan affiliates decide to schedule a significant portion of their multi-channel Australian content on a channel not carried by all regional and remote licensees.

The bill will also permit regional and remote commercial television broadcasting licensees to be deemed to have complied with the multi-channel quota obligation under certain circumstances, even if they have not broadcast the required 1,460 hours.

The measures that the bill proposes will provide licensees with greater flexibility and surety in delivering broadcasting services in regional areas to provide greater sustainability of regional voices, preserving greater choice for regional audiences.

Importantly, the bill will not lower the amount of local content that is currently available to regional audiences on commercial radio.

Likewise, the bill will not affect the multi-channel Australian content obligations placed on metropolitan television licensees, whose content forms the basis of multi-channels broadcast in regional and remote Australia. The bill also will not affect the current Australian drama, children's and documentary quotas, which continue to apply whether that content is broadcast on primary channels or multi-channels.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.