Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (13:21): I thank Senator Macdonald for the courtesy of not using up his full 20 minutes. That is certainly a relief to us all. For a change, I mention that there is a school group with us up in the gallery this afternoon. You might not have been aware that amidst that sanctimonious windbaggery we are actually debating a digital television bill: the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2012. I would like to address some of my remarks to the bill that is at hand so that some of the folks who are visiting us today can know what it is even about. I do not know whether Senator Macdonald declared whether the coalition is supporting or opposing the bill. I believe the coalition supports the bill. So do the Australian Greens. I am happy to support the bill. It is facilitating the digital switchover that was announced— Senator Ian Macdonald: You obviously weren't even listening. Senator LUDLAM: I must concede that that may be true. The bill is to facilitate the digital switchover announced in 2000. (Quorum formed)The digital switchover is occurring. Lessons are being learned as we get to the metropolitan areas, and those lessons may require some flexibility with the switchover and certainly within the deadline of 31 December 2013. This bill makes that possible. It gives flexibility to the staggered approach, which we agree with. It also provides certainty that the switchover will happen while assistance schemes and broadcasting engineering resources are available. Essentially, while we are planning this and looking at how this is going to work in metro areas, the bill is really about rural and regional Australia, with the people living there making up the bulk of those who will not easily be able to get terrestrial signals and who will in fact get digital television through VAST, the Viewer Access Satellite Television service, which gives Australians direct-to-home digital commercial satellite TV and the full range of commercial and national free-to-air digital TV. People in digital TV black spots will obviously need VAST. In May of this year, roughly 68,400 households were already using the service. Of all the states in Australia, Western Australia has the most towns eligible for subsidies under the satellite subsidy scheme, so I am invested in the success of this program because of the large number of people who will be added to that 68,400. Currently, if you cannot get digital television terrestrial reception, you cannot get VAST until six months before the switchover date in your area. This bill is intended to help viewers that broadcasters will not get to terrestrially to get the service over the satellite. Therefore, we support the bill and we support people receiving and enjoying quality television. While we may have the infrastructure—and it is good that this government got this process underway and are seeing it through, because we all know that it had been stalled for years—we should at least contemplate for a moment the question of what comes over the airways. Although this, I acknowledge, is a bill relating to infrastructure, let us consider the role of television as a large part of the media that people consume for information, analysis and, obviously, for entertainment and face the fact that we are experiencing at the moment, this week in particular, a point of inflexion—a point of crisis, even—in terms of media ownership that greatly affects the quality of what comes over the infrastructure that is partly addressed in this bill. We know that Ms Gina Rinehart has acquired up to 19.9 per cent of Fairfax and is receiving three seats on the board. Most of the focus of this week has been on the future of the big daily east coast masthead newspapers and the Australian Financial Review. In a converged environment, the boundaries between what is produced in a newspaper, content delivered online and content delivered on television is blurring. That indeed is the whole concept of convergence. It is not just about having adequate infrastructure in place, whether it be the National Broadband Network or adequate digital television reception, and the mode of delivery. It is about the material and the content that is being transmitted and distributed. At the same time as that announcement was made, Fairfax announced a cut of 1,900 jobs, the establishment of a pay wall for its online material and the compacting of the size of its broadsheets. News Ltd also announced cuts and restructuring to online content, although obviously we are not certain at this stage what that will mean for the people working there. Concentration of media ownership is linked to the independence of editors and journalists. In Australia, media concentration has now reached a point at which it represents a real threat to the health of our democracy. Although the comments from coalition spokespeople this week were in some sense ambiguous, there was—at least from Mr Turnbull, the opposition spokesperson for communications—a genuine and thought-through acknowledgement that there is a real problem here. Minister Conroy followed up in a similar vein. That is noted in the Convergence Review. It was noted in the inquiry by former Justice Finkelstein. It has become a matter of record. Eleven of Australia's 12 capital daily newspapers are owned either by Fairfax or News Ltd. The remaining one, which is in my home state, is effectively controlled by the owner of Channel 7. Ms Rinehart owns roughly 10 per cent of Channel 10 and with Fairfax now has interests in newspapers and radio. Just this week, News Ltd announced that it is tightening its grip on pay television and it has recently devoured the Eureka Report and the Business Spectator. Some Convergence Review recommendations need to be advanced urgently, in particular those related to the establishment of a new regulator, a public interest test and stronger cross-media ownership laws. Until we address these issues, we can have the most robust infrastructure in the world, we can have the best digital TV platforms in the world and we can have the NBN—provided those on the other side of the chamber do not pull it apart—the viewing experience and our democratic right to impartial and accurate reporting about our country, politics, what is happening in our local communities and what is happening in the world around us will be greatly impaired. That is something that is worth taking away and contemplating. As we consider this bill, which I now understand is being supported by all the parties in this chamber, we also need to keep in mind what exactly it is that is being broadcast and who is going to be producing it to make sure that we get the maximum diversity possible in the voices in the Australian media landscape. I congratulate the government on bringing forward this bill and I commend it to the chamber.