Communications Minister Helen Coonan’s Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill returned to the Senate this week. As part of its passage through parliament, debate resumed as the bill was read a second time, with speakers including Opposition Communications spokesperson Stephen Conroy, and members of other parties, who all indicated they would vote in favour of the legislation.
Most of the debates centered around digital television, with some mention of the fact that the clearing of the analog spectrum will allow the government to sell it off for wireless broadband or other services in future years, creating a ‘digital dividend.’ The radio industry is also interested in part of that spectrum for digital radio.
In his speech Senator Conroy had a go at Senator Coonan for the lengthly 14 month period the legislation has gone back and forth in the parliament. He welcomed parts of the bill, which will bring improved services to regional areas, but also highlighted shortcomings, including the fact that “there is still no plan to get community television on to a digital platform” and that there are no guarantees that disadvantaged people will not miss out on tv services when analog tv is switched off.
Commenting on new services, mostly in relation to television, Conroy said: “In the UK, extra channels and interactive services
offered by the BBC have made an important contribution
to generating consumer demand for digital. Under
its new charter, the BBC will be given a leading role in
building a digital Britain. Labor believes that our national
broadcasters need to be given the regulatory
freedom and financial resources to undertake a similar
task in Australia.”
Senator Murray said the democrats also support the Bill: “It makes sense for commercial
television licences to multichannel and be exempt from
mandatory high-definition television quotas. This is
good policy, it is sensible policy and I regret that the
bill was not brought forward earlier.”
Criticising the government for being too close to the vested interests of current media owners, Murray said:
“So why until now has the government not supported
multichannelling? Again, it is because the free-to-air
media owners, looking at the American and British
experience, knew that the coming of pay TV and satellite
TV, along with broadband, would impact on their
revenue streams. So the big media owners bought into
pay TV and demanded that the government create a
regulatory system that would allow them to get on their
feet. That is not an uncommon position for people to
advocate, and it has a long precedent. They demanded
that the government implement policy which was at
odds with the immediate opening of a free and competitive
market. They did not want multichannelling in
the metro areas because that would have been a threat
to their immediate advertising revenue. That fear is
apparently not borne out by independent studies into
other media markets—the Australian market is a distinctive
one— but that has not stopped the big players
from arguing the point.”
Western Australian Liberal Senator Eggleston told the Senate that the bill “is further proof of the
Howard government’s determination to ensure that
those people living in rural, regional and remote areas
of Australia have access to high-quality services and do
not miss out on the advent of digital television.”
Commenting on the delay he said: “This bill was introduced into the Senate on 23 June
last year but, because Labor and the Greens have not
been prepared to grant it non-controversial status, and,
due to the weight of the government’s legislative program,
debate on it has not been possible until today.”
Liberal Senator Humphries, commenting on the Digital Action
Plan said: “That is an extremely important framework for
digital conversion in this country and particularly for
bringing into focus the time when Australians will be
told that analog broadcasting will end and digital
broadcasting will be the exclusive way in which people
receive free-to-air broadcasting. Despite criticism from
those opposite, we need to acknowledge that this is a
very delicate and sensitive matter which needs to be
the subject of very careful discussion and consultation
by the government. The Digital Action Plan has been
under development for some time. It has been consulted
about with stakeholders over that period and I
understand it is due to be released later on this year.”
Taking the big picture view, Humphries explained: “In recent weeks, the minister has spoken at some
length about the importance of keeping Australia at the
forefront of digital and other technological change. It is
really not just about giving people clearer pictures on
their television sets. It is much more complex than that.
It is about providing for an information-friendly society—
a society which is able to understand the benefits of technology and take up opportunities to use technology
in order to be better informed, better in touch and
better able to play a role in the world. I emphasise that
this is important for Australia in a commercial sense—
in the sense of Australians trading with the rest of the
world and developing these technologies in conjunction
with the rest of the world—and in order that, at the
end of the day, we can say that we have best practice in
this country and so that Australians are benefiting from
that dedication to making sure that we have the best in
this country.”
Senator Bob Brown said: “The Greens also support
this legislation, although we feel that Australian
consumers have a long way to go in order to catch up
with the use of broadband overseas.”
Debate will be continued in future sessions.