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

I want to deal with an issue that Senator Ian Macdonald raised in his earlier contribution—the very important role of community radio. Of course community radio deserves a hearing and an audience, because it is a major contributor to diversity, which has been a very significant part of the debate that we have had in relation to this whole media package, both in metropolitan and regional areas. I am very glad that Senator Macdonald has seen fit to raise the issue on behalf of constituents in community radio.

There are over 160 regional community radio stations, and large amounts of local content are on community radio. It might be called more of a micro audience, but it is certainly very important to those who have the benefit of listening to local radio. It is characterised also by a very large number of local volunteers. It is, if you like, glue in a community if they have a community radio, because of the volunteers and the local content. It does provide a very important role in keeping those in communities—certainly small communities—in touch. It is extremely important to Indigenous communities. Often community radio can be the only source of broadcasting, in effect, that they get of messages that can be very important, such as extreme weather warnings and things of that nature.

It is not included in the voice count because of its particular characteristics. For that matter, nor is community television included in the voice count. That is not because it does not provide diversity but because, due to its particular structure and characteristics, it is certainly not thought appropriate to also be counting it as some additional voice. Community television and community radio fall out of the voice count, as does ABC radio. Metropolitan communities are served by up to five ABC stations, with Radio National, Local Radio, Triple J and various others, and of course there is SBS and ABC television. Community radio is also outside the voices count, as is pay television and certainly all of those new platforms, such as the internet.

There is no doubting the importance of community radio or the government’s commitment to it. The government does provide significant funding that the community sector leverages into large amounts of local content. I know that because it recently had a survey which I launched, and that was a very interesting indicator of both its audience reach and why it is so popular with local content, which also includes local music and entertainment. So it is a very valued resource within the community.

I look forward to working with the sector in its transition—both radio and TV—to the new digital platforms. It will be quite a challenge for very small analog community radios to make that kind of shift and, no doubt, it will take some time. Radio does pose particular issues in the move to digital, but community television does deserve to be brought along in how we are thinking about the new digital space. I expect to have something more to say about the Digital Action Plan and how community television will be accommodated within the scheme to get us to switch off the analog signal and free up all that spectrum so that we will be in a position to use the spectrum more effectively and to make sure that community TV is accommodated.

Senator Macdonald made an interesting suggestion about whether or not community radio and the community sector should have so many restrictions on their advertising content. As Senator Macdonald would appreciate, that does pose some interesting issues in relation to how effectively that might then act as a competition lever for existing commercial radio and television. There is a moratorium on new commercial radio licences on the broadcasting services band as part of the move to digital. There are some particular pressures on the community TV sector and the community radio sector that I will be very interested to deal with and to look at. I certainly welcome Senator Macdonald’s contribution and suggestions in this regard. We will take that matter forward, but not as part of these bills.