Senator SCHACHT (5:29 PM) —I rise to speak in this debate on datacasting. I was interested to hear the lame attempts of government representatives on the back bench to defend the indefensible. I would have been more interested to hear Senator Alston defend the shambles that has occurred in datacasting and broadcasting policy. Prior to the 1998 election, a bill on the introduction of datacasting was presented to the parliament by the government. At that time, the government attempted to bring in a regime that basically said, `The parliament passes legislation. Let us in government do, by administrative decision, all the definitions of what would be concluded as datacasting and the technical descriptions of multichannelling and of high definition television.' The Senate quite rightly rejected that approach and said, `When you've got those definitions and when the work being done on standards is completed, come back to the Senate and we will debate it then.'

The opposition agreed that there would be a moratorium on new commercial television licences to the middle of this decade, that there would be a starting date for digital broadcasting, which was 1 January this year, but that, before they started, the actual definitions would have to be approved by this parliament. The bill came in and, based on a wide-ranging view in the community that the government was far too restrictive in what it defined as datacasting in the new regime, we strongly supported the extension of multichannelling to the national broadcasters and, after some considerable reluctance on behalf of the government, the minister gave in and we were able to achieve for the ABC and SBS a level of multibroadcasting, to use a term from the new digital regime, so that they could provide a broader range of services in both the city areas and the country areas across the nation.

But the government rejected suggestions from the opposition and other minor parties in the Senate that they have a more liberal view of what would be allowed to be broadcast under the definition of `datacasting'. Basically, the government were of the view that the only matter you could show on a data screen under these licences would probably be a form of printed pages being reproduced. Under that definition, that is a waste of the capability of digital broadcasting. But it has emerged over the last two to three years that the government have decided this policy not on what is of benefit to all Australians, in the national interest, but on what is the best deal they can make with various media operators in Australia.

For reasons they have never explained, the government decided they would align themselves with the existing television broadcasters, in particular Mr Packer and his company PBL, who owns Channel 9. This, of course, meant making enemies with the Fairfax organisation and News Ltd, who wanted to have a much broader definition of datacasting, for the very self-interested motive that this could be a backdoor way to get a television licence and get around the policy which the Labor Party has never deviated from over the last 20 years: if you want to own newspapers in Australia, you cannot own television licences; if you want to run television networks in Australia, you cannot own newspaper chains.

We believe very strongly in the policy of achieving the maximum diversity of ownership and plurality of content. The government do not believe in that. They believe in doing a deal that works out at the bottom line to be what is in their best interests in political terms. They decided that their best interests may well be with the existing television broadcasters, Mr Packer and others, and not with News Ltd or Fairfax. I have to say that there is a fair bit of teeth gnashing among many elements of the coalition about the Prime Minister having decided to throw in his lot with Mr Packer and PBL, rather than with Mr Murdoch. Of course, whenever a government tries to do a deal on media policy based on favouring one proprietor over the other, you usually end up with a mess on your hands. We now have a mess with datacasting and the associated arrangements.

The opposition has moved to a broader definition of digital data. My colleagues Senator Bishop and the shadow minister, Stephen Smith, warned in the last couple of years that the definition in the legislation was too restrictive, that datacasting would not be taken up and that it would not develop and provide a broader range of services in the broadcasting sector. The government said, `No, this will be fine; it will be all okay.' In the last budget the government predicted that around $2.6 billion would come from spectrum auctions in this area, from people interested in the third generation spectrum auction and the datacasting auction. But what did they receive? They received only $1.1 billion; so they were $1½ billion short in their budget estimates.

So appalling has been their policy that no-one is willing to bid at all. So in the last month the minister had to humiliatingly back down and cancel any further auction. No-one was going to bid for the spectrum—which it must be remembered is a national asset; the spectrum belongs to people of Australia and must be administered by the government through the elected parliament—because they could see no use for it. So the government shot itself in the foot. It so restricted the definition of what the spectrum could be used for that it could not get its own budget estimate up. The government lost over $1 billion, in their estimate.

Datacasting is not taking place because no-one is willing to pay the figure; they cannot see any value in it. This is one of the worst messes in broadcasting ever in Australia, and it is all at the hands of Senator Alston and the Prime Minister. We appreciate that from time to time even Senator Alston gets gazumped by the Prime Minister over what should be media policy. In the past, we have described how, on occasion, Minister Alston has been the doormat for the Prime Minister: the Prime Minister has undercut him, decided what the policy should be and then rung him and told him what the policy is. This is one example.

When Labor initially discussed the introduction of digital broadcasting with the possibility of datacasting and multichannelling, the arguments that the free-to-air stations gave were that the next generation—after colour television was introduced more than 25 years ago—would be broad screen digital high definition television and that this would have a capacity for higher clarity and bigger pictures, going from a six by four to cinemascope screen proportion. This seemed to be a reasonable thing to do and would provide a new opportunity for the consumer. But to many of us in the opposition, the most interesting thing was that such a screen would have the capacity to provide more information and much more flexibility to consumers in not only television broadcasting but also full interactivity. Instead of the old style small computer screens we presently have, we could have bigger screens with much more capacity to provide that interactivity. Many of us thought it was an excellent opportunity—HDTV broadcasting could be used for the full range of interactive services, it would put Australia at the very forefront of these developments and it would give us a technological edge in all sorts of ways.

We realised that the initial cost of these screens and HDTV would be very expensive, but this would ease once the market developed and a critical mass was reached—just as it did with colour television. When colour television first came in, the sets were very expensive. Within a couple of years, the prices came down substantially such that ordinary consumers could afford them. However, it was quite clear that the government could never get this to work because no-one was able to use the screen to do anything else other than to access normal television—the normal broadcasting of the national broadcasters and the commercial broadcasters. Why would you buy anything else when you could not access anything else because you were restricted by the law? That is where it fell down. So no mass market was created for HDTV, which would have driven the price down by spreading the cost over many more units. I understand that the costs are still more than $10,000 for a HDTV set, and they will not come down until people know that they will get not only a better picture but also a screen that has a greater capacity. This is where the government's policy fell down.

The government could never get its head around the fact that the bandwidth that was available could be used to provide a broader range of broadcasting and other services, including datacasting. Initially I had no doubt that Mr Murdoch and the Fairfax organisation were hoping to pick up a television network licence for nothing. They were hoping to come through the backdoor of datacasting; they would not provide an additional service but would repeat what channels 10, 9 and 7 were already providing. I do not agree with that. I think we want a broader range of services, not repetition of the same services.

But again the government could not get it right. It did not give that opportunity for people to bid to provide a broad range of services. There were arcane debates about what the image and content should be on these screens. As I said before, it was made so restrictive that, in the end, it was like putting a page of print on a screen and calling it the new data revolution. The new data revolution is not about reproducing a page of Hansard on a screen, but that is the definition that this government got itself involved in.

There were other issues. This government has a very conservative censorious attitude towards content. Trying to censor the Internet further compounded its problems, with its very strict 19th century attitude towards what adults can see, do and hear on an interactive electronic system.

All in all, nearly four years of lost opportunity has gone begging. The opportunity has gone for us to place ourselves ahead of the rest of the world, because this minister and the Prime Minister were only interested in doing a deal for their political benefit with a particular range of broadcasters. When Labor are in government by the end of this year—when we inherit this mess—we will have to revisit this legislation and restructure it so that people can genuinely be involved and new broadcasters, new forms of service delivery, new companies and new groups of people—whether they be in the commercial or the public sector—can have access to the digital revolution to provide better service.

I do not agree with automatically allowing the existing newspaper networks to come through the back door and use that as a way to get a cheap television licence so that they can compete and try to put Mr Packer or the other existing free-to-air broadcasters out of business. If that is allowed to happen, Mr Packer will argue that he should have a licence to buy a newspaper chain, if he can buy one. We should always be guided on policy in this area by the fundamental principle of diversity of ownership and plurality of content. That is the best way to ensure in a democratic society that the people have the fullest range of information. That is not a principle in which this government is interested. It wants a restrictive deal done with a couple of media organisations and personalities.

Self-interest is not unusual in politics from time to time—I accept that—and from time to time governments of all persuasions may have got a bit interested in making an arrangement with somebody or looking at a particular arrangement. But I would point out that the last time there was a major change to the structure of broadcasting ownership in this country was when the Hawke government in the mid-1980s changed the rules to say that you had to make your mind up: you could own either a television network or a newspaper chain.

Previous conservative governments, right back to the 1950s, have said to the existing newspaper chains, `We will give you a television network.' Fairfax got Channel 7 and the Packer organisation, which then had the Daily Telegraph and the Bulletin, got Channel 9. That was the deal that was done. You had absolute concentration. We remade the rules to say, `Mr Packer, Mr Murdoch, you choose what you want but you cannot have both.' They made their choices. Mr Packer chose television; Mr Murdoch chose the print network. If they want to come back and have a monopoly, I think that ought to be opposed in the public interest. We ought to be looking to use digital broadcasting and datacasting to create new entrants, not new monopolies, to add to our diversity. We know that this is a concept beyond the wit of this minister and this Prime Minister. This government is incapable of taking that national interest on board.

It is disappointing that we have had 5½ wasted years in broadcasting. The only policy that this Prime Minister is interested in is getting the ABC, destroying the ABC as a proper, independent national broadcaster. The government took $50 million out in the first budget of 1996 and now $17 million has been put back for regional and rural broadcasting. That does not put back into the base funding anything near what the government took out in 1996. At least the Senate did force the government to accept that the ABC and the SBS have the right to multichannel. I look forward to seeing those two national broadcasters use it to provide a broader range of programs to the community. I think that would be an advance in Australia. But it is not through any initiative of this government. If it could have got away with it, this government would have left the ABC and SBS with one channel right across Australia with no ability to provide, independently of commercial services, a broader range of broadcasting services.

It is very appropriate that today we debate and bring to the attention of the Australian public a policy shemozzle all of the government's own making. In some ways it has made Australia a laughing stock. It tried to dictate what the technology and the content would be. This is Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler at their worst, in a sense, trying to dictate what the content would be. We in the parliament have taken enough action to stop the worst excesses being achieved, but we have missed an opportunity. I look forward to the new Labor government by the end of this year revisiting this issue and getting a decent broadcasting and information policy before the Australian people.