Mr MOSSFIELD (5:51 PM) —I rise to speak on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill 2001. This bill make some minor and technical amendments to clarify amendments made to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 as amended by the Broadcasting Services (Digital Television and Datacasting) Act 2000. I support the amendment moved by the shadow minister for communications, Mr Smith. This bill could have been much more than it is. This could have been an opportunity for the government to take us into the 21st century. But, as usual from this backward looking government and Prime Minister, the 21st century is still some 40-odd years away. 1 January 2001 heralded in the new era of digital television. However, thanks to the government's lack of anything remotely resembling competence, this great event was witnessed by all of about 15 people. It is yet another example of the government catering for the privileged few.

Back in 1956, when television was first introduced to this country, there were roughly 100,000 sets in use to view the very start of this new technology. All John Howard's government could manage with digital television and so much more in the way of resources was a handful of people and not one set top box commercially available to the public. This was a monumental stuff-up and would be laughable if it were not so serious. It was not as though the government was not warned that is was going to happen. One example of what was being said in the media about that time is stated in an article in the Australian on 11 October by Michelle Gilchrist and Dennis Shanahan which says:

That forecast certainly proved to be correct. 250 years ago, the world was in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. There was a great deal of social upheaval and many within society were unable to cope with the rapid changes that were taking place. Vast numbers of people did not share in the benefits which the revolution brought with it. Overwhelmingly, these people came from lower socioeconomic positions within society. That sounds familiar. 250 years ago, governments were not all democratic. Essentially, there was no protection from the government for ordinary citizens. In fact, the modern form of democracy that we know today was born out of those times.

Modern-day governments exist to protect the rights of ordinary citizens in a way that did not happen during the Industrial Revolution. Governments exist to make sure that, when the next revolution comes along, the ordinary citizen will not be left behind as they were 250 years ago. Well, the next revolution has arrived. Today, we are right smack bang in the middle of a technological revolution and again vast numbers of people are missing out on the benefits that this revolution is bringing. The government is failing in its basic responsibility to make sure that no-one is left behind. The digital divide is a term that has only recently been invented, but the mere fact that the term was invented at all shows that there are large numbers of people who are being left behind. Information is the key and information technology is the tool. This government just does not understand the tools it has to work with. Digital television and datacasting are classic examples of a government totally baffled by the new technology.

So what is datacasting? According to the Broadcasting Services Act, datacasting is a service other than a broadcasting service that delivers information, whether in the form of data, text, speech, images or in any other form, to persons having equipment appropriate for receiving that information, where the delivery of the service uses the broadcasting services band. In layman's terms, the analog signal from a television station to your set at home takes up a certain amount of space within the transmission spectrum. For instance, Channel 9 in Sydney is transmitted at 196.250 megahertz and if you tune your television to that frequency you get Channel 9. If you are slightly off, you still get a signal but it is pretty bad reception. That is because Channel 9 uses about 7 megahertz to transmit its signal or, in effect, between 193 megahertz and 199 megahertz. A digital signal, on the other hand, is much more narrow and precise, and so is the equipment used to do the tuning.

So in the seven megahertz space around 196 megahertz which Channel 9 uses for one analog signal, you could fit three digital signals—in effect, three channels. If you were watching the cricket on one of those three digital signals, for instance, another slot could be used to carry all of the statistics of the players which you could access whenever you wanted or, staying with cricket, if the 6 o'clock news is about to come on but there are still five overs to be bowled, both could be covered. That essentially is what datacasting is—the ability to put more information in the same amount of broadcasting space. This means that the move to digital transmissions should result in far greater room for new players, more competition and additional services, but that is not likely to happen under this government.

In 1998, the government sat down with all the media players, the opposition and the Democrats and devised a regime for digital television. While not everyone was happy with the compromise, what was achieved gave everybody something, if not all that they wanted. When the legislation came before this House in 2000, it was clear to all that the government had ratted on the deal. This government is now going all out to protect the current free to air stations, basically because Kerry Packer told them to. The government has put in place restrictions on what sort of information may be datacast. Essentially, anything that looks vaguely like a television program is not permitted by this government. The datacasting regime in this country is not well liked by many people. I am grateful to the Parliamentary Library for providing me with an issues brief regarding datacasting. It outlines some of the reaction to the datacasting legislation. The Productivity Commission's inquiry into broadcasting criticised the restrictions on datacasting. To emphasise this point, I refer to a press release put out by the shadow minister for communications which refers to the Productivity Commission's inquiry. It states:

The Productivity Commission noted that the government's restriction on datacasting:

Other groups had some concern about the government's legislation. The Australian Information Industry Association claimed that the datacasting restrictions would impede Australian industry, the Australian Consumers Association claimed that digital policy is pandering to the commercial broadcasters, the Internet Industry Association urged the government to reconsider its policies, the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association criticised the provisions permitting enhanced programming and argued that the commercial networks' support for high-definition digital TV was purely to prevent others using the spectrum, John Fairfax Holdings Ltd and Telstra both announced they would suspend datacasting trials because of the restrictions, and News Ltd claimed that the legislation would put the free-to-air broadcasters beyond competition and retard the social benefits of datacasting. About the only group that supports the legislation is the Federation of Commercial Television Stations, and that is because it has more to gain—although even Kerry Packer has criticised the legislation, but that is because newspaper owners would be permitted to obtain datacasting licenses. This of course is the media ownership can of worms that I will be referring to later.

The flow of information to the citizen is vital to the operation of a modern democracy. Restrictions placed on that flow of information restrict democracy. Labor amendments would ease programming restrictions on aspiring datacasters and encourage new media diversity. It is our view that the government's datacasting regime is much too restrictive. It will reduce the chance of a new industry having the capacity to deliver new and innovative services to Australia. Our amendments demonstrate a clear and favourable distinction between Labor and the government at a time when the Australian people are expressing a keen interest in Kim Beazley's proposals for a University of Australia Online. In June 2000 the shadow minister for communications, Stephen Smith, authorised amendments to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television and Datacasting) Bill 2000 which would have liberalised the government's datacasting regime while maintaining our 1998 parliamentary commitment that a datacasting service could not be a de facto broadcasting service. These amendments were not supported by the government but were widely supported by independent industry analysts.

This new technology opens up all sorts of possibilities that we cannot even begin to imagine. Of course, there are many factors that influence the flow of information, not least of which is, as I have said, media ownership. But the issue of commercial pressures is one we must also examine in detail. The recent cash for comments scandal involving John Laws and Alan Jones shows just how insidious commercial pressures can be. It demonstrates how the free flow of information can be subverted by the commercial dollar. That is why we have the ABC; that is why the ABC must remain commercial free.

While I am not surprised by the government's actions, I must say that I am very surprised by the actions of the Democrats in the Senate last week when they voted down a Labor amendment that would have ensured any digital broadcasting or datacasting undertaken by the ABC would remain commercial free. The Democrats, in yet another betrayal of their voters and supporters, left the door wide open for the ABC to be commercialised and privatised. The ABC are in crisis. They have been starved of funds by this government and are close to grinding to a halt on programming. It is true that there are funds set aside for the move into digital and datacasting but not one cent has been set aside for content. The ABC are so starved of funds at the moment that they are running out of content for their free-to-air service. They do not even have enough money to buy another re-run of Yes, Minister, let alone a new program. How could they possibly cope with the extra content requirements that multichannelling and datacasting bring?

In effect the government have said, `We will give you the technology to datacast but you will be datacasting a test pattern.' What is the point? The ABC is part of the fabric of Australian society and has been since the first radio broadcast in July 1932. When television came along there was the ABC broadcasting from October 1956. With the invention of the Internet, once again ABC Online came into being in 1995. Every new medium has seen the ABC grow and provide content free from the pressures of commercialism to the Australian people. In every medium the ABC has been recognised for its outstanding achievements.

I want to refer to the awards that the ABC has received recently. In 1998-99 alone, the ABC won an astonishing 209 awards at a local, national and international level across all forms of media, not to mention a further 73 awards based on sales achievements for merchandise. The ABC is clearly a world leader. The future, however, is far from rosy. The possibilities of digital television with its interactive datacasting abilities are, as I have said, beyond what we can imagine, but the ABC is in very real danger of being left behind through lack of funds. This is new technology—a revolution in the information age—the boat is pulling away from the quay and our national broadcaster is stuck in the traffic trying to get to the pier. And all this government can do is put up more roadblocks.

The government want the ABC to fail. That is their hidden agenda in all of this. If they starve the ABC of enough funds and the ABC collapses, then the government will be happy. They will have the excuse to flog it off or at the very least introduce advertising. Of course, once advertising is introduced, it then gives the government the perfect excuse to cut more funding. `Well, you're getting advertising money now,' they will say, `what do you need government funding for?' It becomes a vicious circle, much like the universities and the CSIRO are experiencing under this government. Both universities and the CSIRO were given the `freedom' to raise money from other sources and when they did—lo and behold—what happened? The government cut funding. Make no mistake: any advertising revenue raised by a commercialised ABC would mean only government funding cuts and the ABC in the same precarious position with regard to funding that it is in now. Only it will be worse, because it will then be vulnerable to all the pressures and fluctuations that commercialism brings without any of the stability that government brings. The commercialisation of the ABC is something we should strive to avoid. The whole point of the ABC is that it is commercial free: it is free of the pressures that commercial sponsorship brings. Media ownership in this country is far too concentrated. The clout that a few individuals possess is incredible.

There is another reason why the ABC is vital. The ABC must remain publicly owned and commercial free, otherwise there is no point. If advertising were allowed on the ABC, it would become just another commercial network and, if it were just another commercial network, why keep it in public ownership? It needs to be kept in public ownership precisely because media ownership is already too concentrated. The ABC, therefore, needs to be kept commercial free. Commercialism is the ABC's Trojan horse—the way to get inside it and destroy it from within. If we are not careful, they will wheel the horse through the back door of this new technology. I simply cannot fathom why the Democrats would support advertising on the ABC or how they could possibly support the partial privatisation of ABC services like ABC Online, but their actions in the Senate recently have this possibility as a consequence.

There is a clear choice at the next election: a vote for Labor is a vote to save the ABC while a vote for the Democrats or the coalition is a vote for the commercialisation and privatisation—and, in effect, the destruction—of the ABC. The plain and simple fact of the matter is that the ABC needs more finance. So where is the money going to come from? If we do not allow advertisers to buy time and opinions, it must come from the government. Remember that part of the reason that governments exist is to provide protection for the ordinary citizen. Part of that protection involves the dissemination of information and the nurturing of culture, and that is what the ABC is all about. I have great pleasure in indicating my support for the amendment moved by the shadow minister for communications.