BROADCASTING LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (DIGITAL TELEVISION SWITCH-OVER) BILL 2008
December 04, 2008
Consideration of Senate Message
Message received from the Senate returning the bill and informing the House that the Senate has agreed to certain amendments made by the House and has disagreed to other amendments made by the House, has made a consequential amendment and requests the House to reconsider the bill in respect of the amendments disagreed to by the Senate and requests the concurrence of the House in the consequential amendment made by the Senate.
Ordered that the amendments be considered immediately.
Senate’s amendment — (1) Schedule 2, page 7 (lines 16 and 17), omit “after the making of the first determination under subclause 5G(1)”, substitute “from 1 April 2009”.
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland) (9.50 am) — I rise briefly to endorse some of the earlier comments made by the members for Riverina, Maranoa, Hinkler, Forrest, Mayo, Calare and Grey. I appeal to the minister, in the spirit of Christmas, by saying that we have just had more than 100 years of practical representational experience in this House speak with a great deal of passion, common sense and practical knowledge of what is happening on the ground in rural and regional areas.
Mr Albanese interjecting —
Mr CHESTER — I take up the minister’s point about a lot of emotion. There is a lot of emotion and passion associated with this issue —
Mr Albanese interjecting —
The SPEAKER — Order! The minister is not assisting now.
Mr CHESTER — because we are talking about the social and economic importance of the communication services in regional areas. I take up the point from the member for Grey in relation to the news services. Our regional TV services are very important in keeping our social connectivity going, and I say to the minister that he ignores these warnings at his own peril, because the people of regional areas are watching with a great deal of interest and they would like to keep watching in the future.