Mr NEVILLE (6:29 PM) —I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment Bill 2001. As the member for Moreton has said, he and I have had a very close association with digital television from its very inception. When others thought it was just a pie in the sky concept, I remember we spent a Saturday afternoon in Sydney with all the players getting across the issues and understanding what this digital medium—indeed, datacasting—would mean for the whole industry.

The digital regime is probably the most significant quantum leap in broadcast communications since the era of black-and-white TV—some might say even since the introduction of radio. We need to ensure that we work through the development of this new medium carefully and professionally. We do not want to walk into some of the traps that our colleagues in opposition have led us into. Not least amongst this was aggregation. It was going to promise people in regional and rural Australia a whole variety of services. In some respects it did. If, by that, you meant getting three different choices of soapie in the afternoon and another three choices of soapie at night, indeed it did offer a difference. But if you meant getting three local news services, then, with a few exceptions such as Canberra and perhaps Cairns, people did not end up with three different local news services; in most cases they ended up with the pre-aggregation station or, at the very best, two stations.

Let us look at the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and the laissez-faire approach which was inculcated into the radio regime. There we saw, equally, a number of parlous events that are now the subject of an inquiry. I am not going to try to pre-empt the decisions of my colleagues—indeed, the member for Moreton and the member for Greenway, who spoke before him, are both members of that committee and have both made great contributions—but one thing is very clear. I am not revealing any confidential evidence when I say this, because this is available on the Net. There is a huge disengagement in regional and rural areas and a huge feeling of loss in the reduction of radio services—I am pleased to say, by and large, not by the ABC, who are the subject of the bill we are discussing tonight, but certainly by a number of commercial broadcasters.

Radio and, to a lesser extent, television are part of the fabric of a community. I find it extraordinary to think that the township of Charters Towers, with 10,000 or 12,000 people, has no local radio station. When you think of the loss of localism that went with aggregation, very few country television stations today produce any sort of local program—other than news, everything is taken online from Sydney. After 7.30 at night, other than perhaps local state based news updates at 8.30 and 9.30, you will find that just about everything—current affairs and news—comes out of Sydney.

Having seen those mistakes made with aggregation and with radio, and having seen evidence of them in both fields, it is not surprising that the government is taking a cautious approach to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 in the bill we are discussing today. The bill transfers the provisions of the 1992 act that enable the ABC and SBS to provide datacasting services from the Broadcasting Services Act to their own governing legislation. The bill also contains a number of other minor amendments to the act. The amendments will harmonise the codes of practice and complaints handling procedures in relation to the ABC and SBS. The member for Denison, who was at the table earlier, ridiculed the comments of the member for Moreton about Triple J. The concept of Triple J is a very good one, but I think their standards at times are appalling. What is worse is that, in setting that standard for popular music, they have infiltrated the other `triple' stations in the commercial field, where to be smutty—at times, dare I say, filthy—is considered smart. That we would want to dish that sort of garbage up to our young people offends me. I am no prude, but I find that offensive. I can well understand why the government would want to keep the brakes on and let them off gently in relation to datacasting, because, as I said before, it opens up a whole new field. It is a quantum leap from anything we have experienced in black-and-white or colour television.

The amendments we are discussing tonight will harmonise the codes of practice and complaints handling procedures in relation to SBS and ABC broadcasting and datacasting. These amendments will assist the development of operating codes by the ABC and SBS. They will no longer be subject to the codes of practice developed by the commercial datacasting industry that may not suit the kinds of datacasting services that the ABC and SBS will be broadcasting. Importantly, the ABC and SBS would remain subject to the ABA—to the ABA's licensing procedures and to the ABA's oversight in relation to breaches of genre conditions. That is the important point. There will be a discipline at that level of genre conditions. This will ensure that they remain within the general regulatory framework for datacasting, so there will be no free kicks in that field. The amendments, however, do not require either of the national broadcasters to become a datacaster. The decision on whether to seek a licence is one that remains the responsibility of the board of each of those broadcasters. If either the ABC or SBS obtains a licence, datacasting will become an authorised business of the broadcaster.

The parliament has legislated that no new commercial television licence can be issued until 2006. This recognises the very substantial transitional costs which Australian free-to-air broadcasters face in converting to digital broadcasting. I do not think that is generally well understood. There is a school of thought in the parliament, especially on the opposition side, that says you should tear down the regulatory framework, throw all the balls in the air, just see the way they come down and let the fittest survive. I do not think that is a good way to approach this. The whole medium of digital broadcasting and datacasting is still in its relative infancy around the world. We have always been very cautious, even with the introduction of black-and-white television and colour television, and I suggest that we should, in going to digital television, which opens up a whole new field of experience for the viewer and a whole new conduit to information and entertainment in datacasting, be cautious in our approach to make sure that we do that in an orderly step-by-step manner.

In saying that, I am not totally without some scepticism, and the minister knows my views quite well on this. I would prefer with datacasting that the small commercial operators be given the opportunity to compete. I for one do not like the idea of gatekeepers. I believe that, if we genuinely want competition in this medium, we should give those who want to enter the datacasting field commercially—providing they stay within the guidelines set down by the government—the opportunity to do so without having to go through a gatekeeper. That will mean much more competition and that will mean that people will sink or swim on the quality of the datacasting they provide. However, returning to our two public broadcasters and their relationship with the digital medium, if either the ABC or SBS obtains a licence, datacasting will become an authorised business of that broadcaster.

The regulatory regime for digital television and datacasting has to be consistent with what I mentioned before, the review in 2006, and ensure that datacasters do not become de facto broadcasters. We want the industry to develop within itself and to provide unique services different from those that are currently available in the free-to-air regime. I think there is a general suspicion around that some might use this opportunity to become de facto free-to-air broadcasters. That is not my view of it. I would like to see datacasting itself developed to a high point and then the government of the day, whoever that might be in 2006, or those in the review that might take place in 2004-05 ahead of that 2006 date, assess where digital broadcasting and datacasting has been in the interim before making the decision to throw open the floodgates to new free-to-air operators.

The government considered the definition of datacasting in great detail during the reviews which were conducted in 1998 and 1999, and in the preparation of the datacasting legislation passed in parliament in June last year. The clear conclusion from this process was that the genre based approach to defining datacasting was the most effective and practical means of providing certainty both for broadcasters and potential datacasters. Datacasting is a service which delivers content in the form of text, data, speech, music, visual images and the like. These could include (1) information programs where the sole or dominant purpose is to provide information on products, services or activities, (2) interactive home shopping, (3) banking and bill paying, (4) Internet web sites other than ones designed to carry TV programs, (5) electronic mail, (6) education services, (7) interactive games and (8) parliamentary broadcasts.

However, the government does not want datacasters to become de facto TV broadcasters. As such, datacasters will not be allowed to show programs such as drama, current affairs, sporting programs, music, reality TV, children's programs and the like. They will, however, be allowed to transmit extracts from TV programs as long as these are no longer than 10 minutes and there will not be a facility for them to combine blocks of 10 minutes into a single program. Datacasting will open up a lot of fields, though. While they may not be able to provide the same kinds of programs that we already receive on television in the areas of news, sports news, financial markets, business information and weather, they will be able to provide 10-minute bulletins and similar types of programs within that 10-minute range.

Also datacasters will be able to provide a moving video program of any length on an individual news, financial market, business information or weather item if it meets certain requirements, such as menu selection, and it is not a hosted program. In other words, if you are watching your television, you see something on the weather, you want some more detail and you want to use the datacasting medium to get a 10-minute analysis of that particular weather program—or with the stock exchange an analysis of a particular company or its progress—those things will all be permitted. An example would be the federal budget. The headline news might be a two-minute story on the federal budget and then you might be able to be given the option to click on the menu and choose to hear the Treasurer's full budget speech, providing it is within the confines that I spoke of before.

There has been some criticism from the opposition about what the ABC will or will not be able to do as a result of the new digital and datacasting regimes. The government takes the view that the ABC should continue as a quality alternative to the free-to-air commercial stations. All broadcasters will be allowed to use spare spectrum capacity to provide enhanced services. I would very much hope that the ABC will take this opportunity to come up with new ideas and material in areas like education, history, art and culture, health, finance, parliamentary proceedings, rural news, rural information like animal husbandry and a whole range of topics where they are well equipped to deliver those services.

An example of what the ABC could provide would be as follows. If you wanted to go to the opera or the ballet, you could watch the opera or the ballet on the main channel. If you wanted to see what the orchestra was doing or if you wanted to hear an interview with one of the stars behind the stage, all those sorts of things would be delivered on the enhancement channel. We pointed out in the earlier bill, in relation to the free-to-air stations, that this enhancement channel could be used at a time when, say, a cricket match or a football game is delayed by rain and when broadcasting that later would cut into normal programming. The remainder of the match or game—a one-day cricket match, for example—could be then viewed on the enhancement channel. It would not have to be turned off.

There is a lot of mythology about the issue, but in essence, as I said earlier, digital television and datacasting represent a quantum leap forward in broadcast communications and something well in advance of what we experienced with the advent of black-and-white television and colour television. We need to work through it in an orderly and professional manner as a government, and I am sure that this is what the minister has done. I am equally sure that the new medium will be embraced, as it will offer Australians an immense opportunity to be a well-informed nation, a well-educated nation and a well-entertained nation and to leave a whole generation of quality communications for our children and our grandchildren.