The Australian Greens support recommendations of the majority report.
The Australian Greens are deeply concerned that any changes that reduce the local content obligations for broadcasters would have a detrimental impact on the local screen industry.
Schedule 1 of this bill would halve the local drama content requirements on subscription television. The Australian Greens are concerned that these changes would result in a significant reduction in Australian drama content available to audiences.
The Australian Greens welcome the committee’s recommendation that schedule 1 of the bill be withdrawn and the process for introducing a framework for content obligations to be expedited.
The Australian Greens acknowledge that the Minister for Communications has recently consulted on a proposal which would require video-on-demand services to meet and expenditure requirement of 5 per cent on Australian content. The view of the Australian Greens is that the expenditure requirement should be set at 20 per cent in line with international examples.
The Australian Greens are concerned that the ‘reduction in regulatory burden’ for subscription television that the government had attempted to include in this bill would have delivered another favour to Murdoch owned Foxtel after the $40 million tax-payer funded grant Foxtel received to broadcast women’s sport on their platforms.
Schedule 2 of the bill would repeal a number of existing definitions and move subscription television caption rules from the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 into a disallowable ministerial instrument.
The committee heard from stakeholders who argue that the captioning rules should be kept in primary legislation to ensure that there is certainty for consumers.
The Australian Greens were concerned to hear that no consultation had been done on the matter of captioning with the disability sector and acknowledge that there are serious concerns within the disability sector about the impact these changes could have on the hearing-impaired community.
The Australian Greens recommend that the Government conduct a proper consultation process with disability stakeholders on subscription television captioning and audio-description. Reforms must be made to ensure there is consistency across all platforms—free-to-air television and subscription services—to ensure that these services are fully accessible to disabled people.
Schedule 5 of the bill would extend the timeframe for Australian Communications and Media Authority to implement grants under the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund (RASPI) beyond 30 June 2021. The Australian Greens do not oppose the extension of the timeframe for this fund.
The Australian Greens are concerned that given the significant impact the COVID pandemic has had on small, independent, regional and rural publishers that the funding under the RASPI fund has not been rolled out expeditiously to ensure that the Government is providing appropriate support to the sector at this difficult time.
The Australian Greens understand the concerns of submitters that the frameworks for RASPI were not adequately fit for purpose and focussed on print journalism at the exclusion of other forms of community-based journalism.