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Federal Member for Grey Rowan Ramsey has raised doubts about Communications Minster Stephen Conroy’s January 5 commitment that, “All Australians, no matter where they live will have access to all free-to-air channels including the original three commercial and two national channels, as well as new digital services such as ABC2, ABC3, SBS TWO, GO!, 7TWO and ONE HD.”
Mr Ramsey said he had recently received a response from the Minister in relation to matters raised by a constituent. In the response the Minister says the television license holders Southern Cross, “have for commercial reasons, elected in a notification to ACMA, to broadcast on a single channel. The effect of Southern Cross Television’s decision is that it has half the capacity available to provide additional services than it would otherwise have,” Mr Ramsey said.
“If this is the case Southern Cross would be incapable not only of not supplying a raft of new secondary channels, but much to the disgust of all those in the broadcast area, viewers will not even be able to receive the third commercial channel the rest of Australia takes for granted.
“The government clearly promised that all Australians would have access to a full suite of free to air channels. The lack of the same program choice enjoyed by the city has been a major point of contention for many years.
“I understand the commercial realities that may be driving this decision by Southern Cross and so presumably, would the Minister. If that is the case he should be negotiating with Southern Cross to ensure they deliver the service he promised.
“At the time of the Minister’s announcement I welcomed the news, but with the proviso the Government actually deliver what it said it would. If the advice from the Minister is correct this would be a major failure.
“I have also recently received a letter from the Minster in response to a list of questions posed by me surrounding operational detail for the many different areas of the Grey electorate.
“The response sheds very little new light on issues such as which of the “self help” transmission facilities will be upgraded, will communities who have had historically poor analogue reception and no “self help” transmitter have access to the satellite signal and which time-zone will the programming run on?”
Mr Ramsey said he suspected this was because the government simply does not have the answers and was struggling to meet its self imposed time table.
“They should never have set a date to turn off the analogue system until the digital network was up and running with all the deficiencies addressed,” he said.
Media Contact: Leonie Lloyd-Smith (08) 8633 1744
February 23, 2010
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