Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Communications Legislation Amendment (SBS Advertising Flexibility and Other Measures) Bill 2015. These government ministers really are the masters of euphemisms when it comes to naming their bills, aren't they? It is such an innocuous name for what is essentially a $28 million cut to Australia's multicultural broadcaster. In the interests of accuracy, I suggest that the bill should be renamed 'the communications legislation amendment (breaking pre-election promises and creating a fourth commercial broadcaster) bill'—but of course those opposite are not interested in accuracy.

Just to set the record straight: in his presentation, Senator Macdonald talked about the committee report, and I want to make sure that the record shows that Labor senators did not support the passage of this bill. We actually opposed it in our dissenting report and we proposed that the bill not be passed. I just wanted to correct the record.

What the government are interested in is ripping out the heart of public services. This is yet another example of the hatred of those opposite for all things public. We have seen it in the attacks on our national broadcaster. We have seen it in the government's decimation of the Public Service. We have seen it in cuts to health and education. We are seeing it again here today. This bill is simply a cut by another name.

Before the last election, as we have already heard today from previous speakers on this side, the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Tony Abbott, went to the Australian people and told them with a straight face that there would be:

… no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.

That is exactly what our Prime Minister said on SBS News the night before the election. Less than two years later, the government have broken each and every one of those promises bar one. We have seen $50 billion slashed from health. A further $30 billion has been ripped out of education. They have tried their hardest to cut the pension, but Labor managed to stop that one, in this place. Of course, we have seen half a billion dollars in cuts to the ABC and SBS. As far as the GST goes, the government's inability to break it so far is certainly not for want of trying.

The reality is that this is a fundamentally sneaky government that cannot be trusted. They cannot be trusted with health, they cannot be trusted with education, they cannot be trusted with the GST, they cannot be trusted with pensions, they cannot be trusted to look after the ABC and now we know they cannot be trusted with our multicultural broadcaster.

The bill before us is one part of the legislative means to break the promise that the Prime Minister made to Australians about SBS. We know that the 2014-15 budget papers included cuts to SBS of $53.7 million. What the bill before us today does is to seek to make up $28½ million of these cuts. Whether the bill passes or not, there can be no dispute that the government has broken its promise of no cuts to SBS. No matter what happens in this place today, almost $54 million has been ripped out of SBS. No matter what the outcome of the bill, it will not change the fact that this government has broken yet another promise.

As Deputy Chair of the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, I participated in the recent inquiry into this bill. SBS's own submission to this inquiry recognised the fact that this bill is cuts by another name when it said:

As a result of the Lewis Efficiency Study, Minister Turnbull announced further cuts to SBS’s funding in November 2014. Of the cuts, $25.2 million was based on back office efficiencies that SBS was already working towards. A further $28.5 million was predicated on successful legislative amendment to the SBS Act, which would provide SBS with additional advertising and sponsorship flexibility and allow SBS to deliver this portion of the funding cut via a modest annual revenue increase. The total funding cut of $53.7 million over five years from 2014-15 has already been reflected in SBS’s forward estimates.

So it is clear that the bill is nothing but an attempt by the government to make the parliament complicit in the breaking of a clear promise. I can tell you right now that Labor senators will have no part in this.

So what exactly is in this bill, and what will it mean for our multicultural broadcaster, its audience and other stakeholders? The bill allows SBS to screen double the amount of advertising currently allowed between the hours of 6 pm and midnight. This will mean that in prime time viewers are likely to see 10 minutes of ads in comparison to the current limit of five minutes. Not only that, but SBS will still be able to screen four minutes of promos in addition to the commercial advertising. Both Free TV and Save Our SBS contended that the passage of this bill would equate to the creation of a fourth commercial television network by stealth, as outlined earlier by Senator Conroy. This month Save Our SBS delivered a petition signed by 62,000 Australians who are thoroughly opposed to the measures within this bill. Many are concerned that the important social role that SBS plays will be subjugated to the need to meet budgetary targets. SBS is not just about entertainment and information. It has a role that extends far beyond the remit of most television stations. It reflects and encourages diversity. It recognises the stories of those who might be invisible in the mainstream media and it plays a vital role as a driver and participant in the national conversation about many important cultural issues. In difficult geopolitical times like this it can play a crucial role in fostering understanding between different cultural communities.

In the hearings the committee consistently heard concerns that the search for advertiser dollars will undoubtedly not coincide with SBS's legislative charter. As the imperative to secure revenue becomes a much more pressing demand for the network, there will inevitably be times when charter obligations will come into direct conflict with commercial realities. Witnesses voiced concerns that an effective doubling of the amount of advertising permitted on SBS during prime time hours could lead SBS to neglect its charter and commission programming of a more commercial nature in order to attract ratings and advertising dollars. Programming considered contentious or niche could very well be sidelined in favour of more mainstream content. Commercial realities will unavoidably become a very real consideration in the broadcaster's decision-making processes. Even the government's own Lewis review accepted that this is the case, when it said:

…there will be greater pressure on SBS management to consider the trade-off of delivering on commercial expectations, against delivering those functions described in the SBS Charter.

In creating a fourth commercial network, this bill will also have impacts on existing broadcasters. Free TV argued at the inquiry that the bill represents a significant threat to existing commercial broadcasters' revenues. At the hearing in Melbourne the CEO of Free TV, Julie Flynn, said on this matter:

Free TV is strongly opposed to the bill because it enables SBS to make up cuts in government funding by competing with commercial free-to-air broadcasters for revenues from a finite advertising pie. It is wrong in principle for privately funded broadcasters to have to subsidise a government funded broadcaster.

Free TV also recognised that if commercial broadcast revenues are hit the Australian screen industry could pay the price. On this issue, CEO Julie Flynn said:

In practice, it will potentially have a serious impact on our broadcasters' ability to continue to fund expensive Australian content.

The committee received 27 submissions to this inquiry. Only two of those 27 supported the bill before us here today. SBS was one of the two, but, given that the government was holding almost $29 million of their operating budget to ransom, it is hard to see that they were left with any other choice. The other exception was the Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia, but their reluctance was very clear. In the hearing FECCA representatives outlined the conflict that the bill presented when FECCA's Senior Deputy Chair, Athena Karanastasis, said:

We have found ourselves between a rock and a hard place given the current situation. On principle FECCA would not wish to see increased advertising on SBS; however, we are concerned that if this bill does not pass it could mean cuts to programs, to services and to opportunities to invest in additional initiatives that we believe could benefit our multicultural and multilingual Australian community.

This is hardly what you would call a glowing endorsement.

Labor will never support a bill that allows the government to break its promise that there will be no cuts to the SBS. For that reason we will not be supporting this bill.