Senator BROWN (9:39 AM) —I want to endorse that. For the proper functioning of this place, all parties should be acquainted with amendments beforehand. There is a special situation here. This legislation has been coming on not for weeks but for months, and the government and opposition, if making conjoint amendments, should have flagged them to all parties. This is a case where the minor parties have become the major parties because they are actually watching the deal as it unfolds between the two major parties.

We reiterate that this is no small matter. This is about digital television broadcasting and, ultimately, the whole range of digital communications which will affect the way in which every citizen in Australia is informed and interacts with the rest of the community. In fact, it will affect the way they will get their knowledge and express themselves on just about everything in the years ahead.

There is big money, many billions of dollars, involved in this. There is big potential for things to go wrong as well as for things to go right. There is the inevitable conclusion, because both the major party blocs here are in favour of it, that for years to come the current media moguls, the people who have given us the most constricted choice of media outlets of any country in the world, arguably, will transfer that constricted choice across to digital broadcasting. The position here is that until the years 2006 or 2008 they will have it, and goodness knows how long after that, without any other players being allowed into the field.

In the United States, for example, from the outset public broadcasters were assured of the opportunity to have a slice of the digital airwaves so that the public could have wider choice. In Australia, and in this Senate where we are representing Australians, we are cementing the limited choice that people will have, and we are cementing the power of the very few men who will control not just what we read and hear in so far as current affairs are concerned but in the entertainment field as well.

It is not a healthy thing in a functioning democracy that the fourth estate should be given such limited control. This was a sterling opportunity to break open the restricted choice that there is in Australia, to go beyond Mr Packer, Mr Murdoch, Mr Stokes and a couple of other people, but the big parties are choosing not to take that on. Part of the reason for that is that they are in thrall of those very same people. You know you cannot win office in this country if you do not have at least two of the three gentlemen that I have just mentioned on side. Fortunately, with the other parties in this place, we are not caught by that imperative.

Although we do not have the numbers, and although it will not change the outcome of the debate today, we can at least speak up for the ideal that there should be greater choice and that we should not be here dealing with a series of amendments which have been cobbled together overnight following an arrangement which has been struck between Labor and Liberal. No doubt Labor will say, `Well, we have made improvements here; we have saved the day.' But, if you take your eye off the minor differences between the two big parties and concentrate on the interests of the Australian electorate, you will find that Australian citizens and Australian voters have been let down because of the power of the media moguls to dictate, through the big parties, the outcomes in the parliament. That is an unhealthy thing, not just for choice of access to information generally for the Australian public but for democracy as well.

The CHAIRMAN —Before I call Senator Lundy, can I just say that we now have three sets of government amendments before us. I intend to identify them by the last three digits of the numbers that appear at the top right of the sheet. Therefore, 321 is the regional equalisation plan; 322 is modifications to the National Transmission Network Sale Bill, and 323 is the one that relates to schedule 1, datacasting.