David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I note Senator Lambie will be moving an amendment to government business notice of motion No. 1, which I support, but I want to offer some comments on the Communications Legislation Amendment (Prominence and Anti-siphoning) Bill 2024 that is subject to this guillotine today. This is clearly a bill that deserves further scrutiny in Committee of the Whole and some time for the Senate to ask questions and flesh out some of the remaining questions and issues. I'm confident that we all support the intention of the bill but, looking at the range of the amendments that have been circulated, clearly, there are some issues that the Senate wants to iron out.

This is a bill that jams a digital reform into an analogue-era law and, in parts, it is clumsy. It expands the anti-siphoning list so that people can watch more iconic sporting events for free, but only if they have an aerial. We know that more and more people are watching TV through their smart TVs or over their NBN connection—if you're in the ACT, maybe not over your NBN connection. If you have an aerial, it is probably fine, but if you're going to be living in a new build without an aerial or if you're watching sport on a device, then this won't work for you. It's just going to see sporting rights put behind a paywall, and I really fear that means that a huge chunk of people who can't afford a subscription are going to miss out on events that unite us as a country—events that make us proud, events that offer a collective sense of participating in or watching something, such as cheering on our Olympians or your favourite team.

One of the things that I think is particularly clumsy about this bill is that, on the one hand, the bill recognises that more and more of us are going to be watching TV via an app but, on the other hand, it does nothing to make sure that the same safeguards that we have when we watch television through an aerial are applied to the technology that's evolving as more and more people watch on an app—on their phone, on their laptop or through their smart TV—and I just want to give the Senate some tangible examples. Recently, my office did a sweep of complaints through the alcohol advertising regulator, ABAC. We found Grey Goose vodka ads during Sunrise at 8.30 in the morning.