Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

The government will not be supporting these amendments; not because we do not agree with their general thrust but because they form part of a much larger package, to which Senator Murray alludes: how to extend better digital take-up right across Australia. It is part of a much broader media package. For those reasons the amendments proposed by Labor on lifting the current genre restrictions on ABC and SBS multichannelling are redundant, since I announced on 13 July that it was the government’s intention to introduce legislation to do precisely that—with the exception of sport on the antisiphoning list, to which Senator Conroy has referred.

This bill concerns only the implementation of the model for the introduction of commercial digital television services in remote licence areas, so the government will not be supporting these amendments, which are the subject of legislation that is in a very advanced stage of development and will be introduced shortly. Sport is a very strong driver of digital television, but the antisiphoning scheme needs to be seen in the context of a much broader debate than can be possible and comprehended with an amendment that simply refers to the ABC and SBS and genre restrictions.

The government has announced that during the simulcast period free-to-air broadcasters would be prohibited from broadcasting sports events on the antisiphoning list on any digital multichannels unless the content has already been shown or is simultaneously shown on their main channel. Quite clearly, there needs to be some balance between the interests of the subscription television sector and pay television, and the operation of the antisiphoning scheme is indeed a matter of balancing. While digital take-up is in transition, the migration of events on the antisiphoning list to multichannels would certainly not be consistent with the objective of the antisiphoning scheme, which is to provide the widest access for viewers to listed events. That remains the policy objective.

The government has announced a review of the operation of the antisiphoning scheme prior to the expiry of the list on 31 December 2010 for all of those reasons, plus the fact that there is a review ongoing, with the list to be made a ‘use it or lose it’ list as of next year. In my view, it would be appropriate to consider at the same time whether there should be a relaxation of the restrictions on the multichannelling of sports on the antisiphoning list—that is, in the broader review in 2010, not in the review of the antisiphoning list, which may result in some revision of the list next year.

The antisiphoning list is set years in advance. There is no immediate hurry to deal with antisiphoning on second or other channels of the ABC and SBS. The genre restrictions that we have in mind will substantially allow the ABC and SBS to develop their models along the lines of accessing their archives and developing a much better viewer experience for both of our national broadcasters. But to simply pluck sport out of the antisiphoning scheme and stick it on the national channels would be to circumvent the list and to circumvent the policy intent that we must review this with fairness in mind and balancing all the relevant interests.

Question negatived.