Mrs IRWIN (5:50 PM) —Last weekend there were a number of major football matches held around Australia. Rugby league and AFL rounds were well covered by free-to-air television, but strangely the match which had the largest ground attendance was not directly broadcast on free-to-air television. That match was not the final of the Super 12 rugby competition, but that is another story. The game that attracted a record crowd of 42,764 to Subiaco Oval in Perth last Saturday was not an AFL game. It was not a game of rugby league. It was a semifinal match between the Perth Glory and the Wollongong Wolves in the National Soccer League.

If the AFL grand final or the NRL grand final were not broadcast live there would be an enormous outcry. Fans of those codes would demand that their government take action to ensure that there was live free-to-air coverage. But a commercial television network licensed by this government can turn its back on a huge viewing audience without the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts saying a word. How many viewers watch soccer? Let me give you the facts. The 1999 AFL grand final had a viewing audience of 2.97 million. The NRL grand final had a viewing audience of 2.9 million. Compare that with the viewing audience for the Manchester United versus Australia game last year which attracted a viewing audience of four million. Why was last Saturday's soccer semifinal not broadcast live and why will this Sunday's final not be broadcast live?

Before you think about that question, I should explain the full situation. Channel 7 has an agreement with Soccer Australia giving it exclusive rights to televise soccer in Australia. Channel 7 actually paid Soccer Australia $25 million for exclusive rights for 10 years. So why did they not show the game live? Why was it that, having shown highlights of every AFL game in its sports news, Channel 7 did not even show a glimpse of the soccer game? Around the bars of soccer clubs it does not take much for rumours of conspiracy to get started. So, when a television network with a high stake in AFL pays out big dollars for exclusive rights to soccer and then stops it from going to air, you have to wonder if there may be some truth to the rumours.

Why won't Channel 7 broadcast the final this Sunday? Take a look at its program line-up next Sunday afternoon. Channel 7 in Sydney gives us continuous AFL from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.—six hours of AFL but no time for soccer. Does Channel 7 want to kill off soccer in Australia? Does it want to convert all of us to Australian Football? Fortunately, the game of soccer is bigger than the likes of Channel 7; fortunately, the ABC provided a delayed telecast of highlights of last Saturday's match and will provide 55 minutes of highlights of this Sunday's final; and, fortunately, SBS provides a good coverage of Australian and international soccer.

With over 600,000 active players and at least four million fans, soccer is the biggest football code in Australia. Surely with this level of support the semi-finals and finals of the National Soccer League deserve to be declared `classic sporting events' and therefore subject to the anti-hoarding provisions of the Broadcasting Services Act. This would force Channel 7 to show the finals live on free-to-air TV or allow them to be shown live on ABC or SBS for a fee of $1. Will the minister do this in time for Sunday's match? I could hope that he is a Carlton supporter who does not mind seeing his team beaten by Wollongong live on free-to-air TV this Sunday.