John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017, especially in relation to regional media. My chief of staff, Greg Kachel, is pretty well known around this building and he has been here with me for nine years, since I started my job on 1 July 2008—that's going back a while now, Senator Smith. I have the same four staff I started with—it means either jobs are scarce or I am a good boss; probably the former, I would think. I couldn't believe it when I moved from South Australia in 1979 to Inverell to find that, wow, they had their own local radio station. Greg had 32 years there—14 years working on the radio and 18 years as its manager. There were about 17 people employed at 2NZ and later on they brought in GEM FM. I think today they probably have five or six employed there.

What a great and essential service this radio station gives. For example, on 7 February 1991 we had a severe flood in Inverell. The staff were outside on the roof of the local radio station; they set up the transmitter out on the Glen Innes road and they broadcast for four days, relaying messages from the police and informing the community of what was going on with the clean-up et cetera. This is an essential service. This radio station has trained so many people. For example, Ashley Brown from Channel Seven started at 2NZ; Janine Toohey is at 2GB; Kelly Fuller is at ABC Tamworth. Kelly has just had time off on maternity leave, and I wish Kelly all the best when she returns to work. I'm glad she and her husband have the pleasure of a young baby boy. Luke Grant at 2GB spent many years working at 2NZ Inverell. He's a very humorous man; I've enjoyed his company very much. The local radio station is there to serve. I've mentioned my chief of staff, Greg Kachel. He was named best sports presenter in country radio one year and he also won the award for the best news event coverage for the 1991 Inverell flood. For years, 2NZ has had the best sports coverage, including the Grafton to Inverell Cycle Classic.

Then there's the humour of the local radio station. Years ago, there was a breakfast announcer named Terry Harkins. Come April Fools' Day, the jokes would often come out of the local radio station. One morning—1 April it was—Terry Harkins had a recording playing and the window was open. He said a livestock truck with a load of sheep had tipped over at the end of the town and the street was full of sheep. He was playing, 'Baa, baa,' and out of the window, through his microphone, he was calling for the local farmers: 'Jack, could you bring your sheep dog? We've got to round up these sheep up.' Of course, when Jack rolled in with his dog and his four-wheel drive Hilux, or whatever it was, there was no truck turned over; it was just an April Fools' Day joke. That was one of the many things that happened at the local radio station. There was the year that Pete Diskin was hosting breakfast on April Fools' Day. He said, 'Our chief-of-staff, Greg Kachel, the boss, has gone out to Copeton Dam to go camping and he's got the key to the music room,' so he didn't have any music; he kept playing the one track. He asked, 'Will you bring some music down?' and people were rolling up to the station with their CDs of music, saying, 'Here. Give these a run and play these.' Of course, it was simply an April Fools' Day joke, but people had a laugh out of it. This was the local entertainment by the local station. Greg was telling me that many years ago, when he started—about 41 years ago—there were about 17 people employed. Now there'd be five or six.

The point I make is that, for many in the media, businesses are doing it tough. I know that for a fact. For example, my wife, Nancy, worked for 10 years at The Bingara Advocate newspaper. For the last 20 years or so, she's owned that paper and a couple of years ago bought The Warialda Standard as well when that came on the market, because there was a risk that the The Warialda Standard would close down. If you lose your local paper in your local community, your country town, to a certain extent you lose the heart of your town—the communication—especially the towns with many elderly people who want to know where the meetings are and where the best bargains are at the IGA, et cetera. Nancy's worked hard in her business. I'm very proud of the work she's done. She doesn't make a lot of money, although in the 2015 financial year she made more than $1 billion. Yes, $1 billion more than Fairfax. Nancy made a profit and Fairfax lost a billion dollars. She still didn't make much money, but it was $1 billion more than Fairfax, which is a pretty good story, don’t you think?

All the media—newspapers, radio and, of course, television—are so essential to regional communities. Prime Television in Tamworth has the local news at 6 o'clock every night. Anyone who works in country television will tell you there is an enormous cost to putting local news together. The cameramen and the journalists travel around the community for hundreds of kilometres a day to various towns to do stories and put them together. This legislation makes it easier for television stations like Prime, NBN and WIN to survive financially. I'm quite amazed that those opposite are not supporting this legislation. When you've got Channels Seven, Nine and Ten, Foxtel, Sky, Southern Cross, Prime, NBN and WIN—all the media mobs—supporting it, I can't understand why it's being opposed by the Labor Party and others in this chamber.

I commend my good friend and colleague Senator Bridget McKenzie, who has done so much work on the issue of communications, especially in regional Australia. And I commend Minister Fifield for the great work he's done working with people throughout the coalition to come to a great result.

This legislation removes the reach rule of 75 per cent so that broadcasters can go further than 75 per cent of their audience. It also does away with the two-out-of-three ownership, which means that, if you own a television station and a newspaper in an area, you can't own a radio station as well. It allows people to expand. The reason they're doing that is to allow businesses to survive. I remember when I was a very young fellow in the sixties, we were fortunate to have television in South Australia. We had two television stations, GTS4 at Port Pirie and the ABC from Adelaide. If you turn on free-to-air now, there are many stations: ABC, ABC 1, ABC News 24, 7Mate, Seven, Ten, Nine—you name it. There's probably a selection of 10 to 15 free-to-air stations. Of course, that means that competition for a certain limited market is very tough. Of course, media is one of those industries where the costs continue to go up and up and up—whether it's the cost of employing the people or the cost of the licences. You have such a limited, restricting audience; people just don't flow in the door all the time; and there's only so much advertising that can be carried out. So here is the problem.

The key elements of this package are repealing the 75 per cent audience reach rule. The abolition of the broadcasting licensing fees for television and radio, currently totalling about $130 million a year, will allow broadcasters to better compete with other media platforms. I will give you an example. Prime television may buy programs from Channel 7 and show those programs in Tamworth, for example, through the New England area, but you can't go onto Prime and stream; you have to go to Channel 7. Then of course, Channel 7 in the city gets advertising for that very issue. This will free it up to allow streaming and will make it more competitive. There will be the introduction of a price for the use of spectrum by broadcasters that better reflects its use, a bit like a fuel tax—the more fuel you burn, the more tax you pay. That's fair enough because you're wearing out the roads more et cetera.

It is also protecting Australian children by banning gambling advertising during sports broadcasts in children's viewing hours. I think that's essential, and I'm sure Senator Xenophon would agree with that immensely. There are amendments to the antisiphoning scheme and list, which is simply there to create a level playing field for so many. I'm a big supporter of that level playing field, and I know it's one thing we don't have in the energy industry. It includes a broad-ranging and comprehensive review of Australian and children's content and a $30 million package for subscription television to support the broadcasting of women's and niche sports.

Revenue for radio and television is flat or declining in real terms. As I said, it's a tough game, as online and on-demand services draw audiences away from the traditional broadcast content. This is the new world that we live in. It's not so much that you have to be within the TV reception area—that was basically a monopoly, as it was in the sixties. Where I grew up, in Port Pirie in the mid-north of South Australia, there was one commercial station, GTS4, and the ABC. As I said, the costs are rising and audiences have the greatest choice ever in what they want to watch. The competition is there, big time. We've seen through technology that you can go on your computer and download any movie or watch whatever you want. It is just open slather to view whatever you want to these days. There is so much competition.

Regional radio, as I mentioned—and I talked about radio 2NZ at Inverell—has faced rising challenges. That is why, unfortunately, you see an owner, who may hold several licences around rural and regional areas, elect to run network programs at parts of the day and at weekends to save costs. Let me expand on that: 2NZ at Inverell was owned by farmers out at Moree, along with 2VM, another great radio station at Moree. Along came the buyers, who bought them up, and now 2NZ is one of 50 or 60 radio stations linked with 2SM in Sydney and the satellite is there. The one I know most about is 2NZ, thanks to Greg Kachel. They used to commence at 5.30 in the morning and they would close at midnight. They wouldn't broadcast from midnight through to 5.30 in the morning. That was shut-down time. Of course, now it's a 24-hour station. They can do that because of satellite and networking keeping the costs down. If you wanted to do that in the old days, you would have had to simply employ more radio announcers to be able to keep the doors open and the station broadcasting longer.

With the advent of satellite, a city radio station can send its programs live to many stations in regional areas, and that's what happens. With technology, the announcer in a city station can activate a regional station's commercials and weather, and that's exactly how it happens. Someone sitting in a studio in 2SM in Sydney, when it comes to an advert break, simply presses a button and runs the local adverts at local stations, not the city adverts, and likewise with the local weather. Of course, this obviously saves costs because the owner is paying for one announcer's wages rather than having announcers sitting in studios at all of the regional stations. There's undoubtedly a cost element to this.

Broadcast licence fees for radio and television will be replaced by a spectrum price for television and radio that will be set at a total of around $40 million. The first spectrum payment will be made in 2017-18. Unlike broadcast licence fees, a spectrum fee is not based upon revenue; rather, the price takes account of the type of transmitter used, the amount and type of spectrum used, and its location. This is a similar approach to that which applies to other spectrum users. Overall, the vast majority of broadcasters will pay considerably less in spectrum fees than they currently pay in licence fees. This fee relief will enable broadcasters to better compete with online competitors, invest in their businesses and produce Australian content. In June, in relation to the interim relief of $20 million announced in the 2016-17 budget, Joan Warner, the chief executive officer of the industry body Commercial Radio Australia, said:

We welcome the removal of broadcast licence fees for the 2016-17 financial year. It will allow radio to invest more in Australian jobs and content. However, we continue to call on the parliament to support the total media reform package which provides much needed long-term relief for local Australian radio.

That's what this package is about: long-term relief for local Australian radio. The government hopes to deliver permanent financial relief with this reform package.

In relation to the restriction of gambling advertising, the government has listened to the concerns that regular exposure to gambling advertisements during live sport normalises gambling in the eyes of children and encourages vulnerable persons to gamble, simply promoting it too much. In light of these concerns, the government has decided that existing rules are not meeting community expectations and that additional restrictions are required to provide appropriate community safeguards. It is about those safeguards for the community and not overdoing the advertising of gambling. The new restrictions will prohibit all gambling advertising and promotions from five minutes before the scheduled start of play of all live sporting events to five minutes after the conclusion of the play in the period between 5 am and 8.30 pm. The new restrictions are to be implemented, commencing from March 2018. Importantly, the restrictions will apply to commercial television, commercial radio, subscription television, the Special Broadcasting Service and online services showing live sport aimed at Australian audiences. The new restrictions will establish a clear and practical safe zone on any platform for children watching live sport, which will be straightforward for families to observe. The restrictions will apply to all broadcast gambling promotions, including advertising, in-program promotions of betting markets and odds, and sponsorship announcement.

The government will continue to work with industry to ensure the new restrictions are implemented effectively and in a timely manner. There are some existing restrictions in place that will reassure viewers who are worried that they will be saturated with gambling advertisements after this time. Appendix 3 of the Commercial Television Industry Code Of Practice already restricts when betting advertisements or the promotion of odds are permitted. For example, during a live sporting event, gambling advertisements may only be shown at designated times, such as before and after play and during scheduled and unscheduled breaks in play. The promotion of odds is not permitted during play, scheduled breaks or in unscheduled breaks during a live sport event. That is what this package is about: protecting the young from gambling—and not only the young but also the elderly, who may, unfortunately, have a gambling problem.

In regard to amending the antisiphoning scheme and list, the government supports the principle that nationally significant sporting events should be available on free-to-air television—that is most important. We all want to watch the Sydney Swans take out the AFL grand final this year, or even, in two weeks time, when they beat the Adelaide Crows—wouldn't you agree, Senator O'Neill? Are there no South Australians here? Yes, Senator Hanson-Young is here. The government is taking action to modernise the antisiphoning scheme. This includes updating the list of events to remove a modest number of events that no long warrant inclusion on the list. Most of these events coming off the list are those which are no longer broadcast on free-to-air, garner small audiences or where the relationship to Australia is remote or non-existent—for example, the FA Cup final and the US Masters golf. Iconic events like the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, all AFL and NRL Premiership matches, including finals, the Australian Open tennis and the Melbourne Cup will remain on the list—and so they should. These changes will enable greater competition between subscription broadcasters and free-to-air television, while retaining significant cultural or sporting events on the list to ensure they remain widely available for Australian audiences. Importantly, this does not mean that these events will necessarily end up on pay TV. There are currently events that are broadcast on free-to-air TV that are not and have never been on the antisiphoning list.

I want to say something about funding for under-represented sports on pay TV. This is very important. The government is providing $7.5 million per annum in funding over four years to subscription television to increase coverage of sports that receive low or no broadcast exposure—women's sports, niche sports and sports that command high levels of community involvement and participation. Women's sports, in particular, remain substantially under-represented in terms of overall coverage and news reporting relative to male sports. In 2013, dedicated television coverage of women in sport made up only seven per cent of all sports coverage. This package includes a promotion of women's sport. It is fair. It is reasonable. It looks after our children. It looks after the gambling issue as far as advertising goes. Most importantly, it provides a mechanism for those many battling media organisations, whether that they be local radio, local newspapers or regional television, to financially survive. We cannot see those great Prime, NBN and WIN television networks go under. That would be a huge loss to our community. I commend the bill to the Senate.