Overview

Digital technology permits any content to be delivered across any network to virtually any sort of enabled device. Consumers can have video delivered to mobile phones, telephony over the Internet and Internet TV, to name a few converged services. Internationally, legislatures have been slow to adapt to these changes in technology and commerce. Broadcasting and telecommunications legislation remains separate, and there is a patchwork of legislation regulating online content, free-to-air TV content and mobile-phone content. In the 41^st Parliament, the legislative micro-management of the conversion to digital television continued with incremental changes.

In 2007, the Commonwealth sold its last interest in Telstra (although 16.5 per cent is still held by the Future Fund). The High Court heard Telstra’s constitutional challenge to aspects of the telecommunications’ specific access regime—a foundation of competition in this sector—in mid-November 2007. Telstra has been under pressure to delay the final migration of its CDMA customers to its 3G network, a process that it announced in October 2006. Shutdown was scheduled to occur on 28 January 2008. A licence condition addressing these concerns was imposed in September 2007.

The Howard Government established three major inquiries into these issues in 2007: the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee, the Universal Service Obligation Review and the expert taskforce into metropolitan broadband. There will no doubt be some overlap in the concerns of these inquiries.

The briefs in this section canvass some of the core challenges facing the 42^nd Parliament in communications, media and the arts:

• The development of policies that lead to the widespread provision of broadband services, which are said to add to social capital and have economic benefits.
• The development of balanced regulatory schemes that do not unnecessarily hinder the evolution of communications technologies and services, while protecting citizens from some of the attendant hazards. These include identity theft and other threats to privacy, exposure of children to inappropriate content and online predators, online crime and ‘cyberterrorism’.
• The control of the media—and its impact on diversity of opinion—following legislative changes that commenced in early 2007. This has led to some changes in ownership, but not, so far, the rush to media concentration that had been anticipated. Time will tell whether new sources of news and information, which were claimed as a justification for relaxing the cross-media ownership rules, will prove to be genuine alternatives to TV, newspapers and radio. Although changes in media control are now assessed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, parliament will need to monitor the extent to which diversity of opinion is being delivered.
• The resolution of arts issues, including artists’ resale royalty right, taxation, social security and arts education.