Mr McGAURAN (Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) (5:20 PM) —I move:

The opposition have moved three amendments to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Anti-Siphoning) Bill 2004 and those have been approved by the Senate. I now wish to outline why these three amendments are unacceptable to the government. I will deal firstly with amendment No.1, which relates to the 2010 World Cup. The opposition’s amendment seeks to permanently add the FIFA soccer World Cup finals to the antisiphoning list, via legislation—I hope I have pronounced that properly, as I am more an AFL man than I am a soccer man. It is going to be very interesting to hear the shadow minister for industry, workplace relations, manufacturing and all things economic, and formerly shadow minister for communications, explain this away—because this is a very significant departure from previous practice and an impractical, unworkable approach to antisiphoning issues, as I will now outline.

Certainly the government continually monitor the antisiphoning list to make sure it appropriately reflects the attitude of Australians and the commercial realities of sporting and broadcasting sectors. It is against that backdrop and in that context that we announced on 9 March that the 2010 FIFA World Cup final will be added to the antisiphoning list. That is exactly how it should operate: the government of the day, through the minister, takes into account community expectations as well as the commercial realities of broadcasters, including the national broadcasters—ABC and SBS—makes a decision and adds or subtracts from the antisiphoning list. But the opposition’s amendment goes far beyond this, because their approach is to amend the antisiphoning list via legislation. They do not want to do it by government decision, with all the flexibility and speed that that involves; instead, they will resort to a cumbersome mechanism such as legislation, which even Senator Conroy, the current communications shadow minister, described in the Senate as being a blunt instrument. By the way, under no previous Labor government did the Labor Party depart from the practice of the current Howard government, where we believe that you use the gazettal and tabling of a notice made by the minister and do not amend primary legislation. This approach has enabled ministers to add or remove events and it provides the flexibility for it to operate effectively for the free-to-air and pay television broadcasters, the rights holders and, most of all, Australian audiences. The opposition’s approach is deeply flawed, and I am waiting expectantly for the very competent member for Perth’s explanation of how it will actually improve the situation where a minister can list or delist speedily via gazettal and tabling.

By requiring the World Cup to be on any antisiphoning list created under the provisions of the act, the Labor Party’s amendment would remove flexibility, which is the key element of the scheme of this and previous governments. As a consequence, it is possible that the amendment proposed by the opposition would override the automatic delisting provisions of the act, which operate to delist an event six weeks before its occurrence—or 12 weeks under the bill—and also cover its delisting after the occurrence of the event, which enables pay TV licensees to broadcast highlights or news reports of the event. That is patently absurd. Why would the opposition seek to prevent pay television from even screening a delayed highlights package about the World Cup?

Critically, this amendment would also have the likely effect of preventing any minister in the future from delisting the soccer World Cup in the event that free-to-air broadcasters do not acquire the rights, thereby circumventing the entire intention of the scheme. It would lead to a bizarre situation in which, if Australian free-to-air broadcasters decided that (Extension of time granted) it was too expensive to broadcast the World Cup or that it was not in the right time zone or that there was any other reason that prevented them, in their commercial judgement—which they are entitled to bring to bear—from obtaining the rights, pay television broadcasters would not be able to broadcast the event. Australian audiences would be deprived of the right to see any coverage of the World Cup at all, should free-to-air broadcasters decide not to cover it. Is this what the opposition is seeking? I doubt it, and yet that is the effect of their amendment. Whether it is intentional or accidental on the part of the opposition, whether it reveals a clear intent or poor drafting, either way the amendment is unacceptable to the government and the Australian public, let alone the broadcasters. We ourselves have added the World Cup to the list. We reject the amendments.