Clear signal of need for change to TV licence fees

22 February 2010A makeover is long overdue, writes Julian Thomas in the Australian

CONFUSION and disarray surround Stephen Conroy's decision to rebate licence fees for commercial television broadcasters. The decision raises the most basic question that can be asked about government dispensation of any kind: what was this money for?

Was the $250 million a subsidy, a tax break, or a quid pro quo? Was it a grant for local content, assistance for digital conversion, a political pay-off, or bailout money for an industry which Senator Conroy now says is in terminal decline? Whatever the answer, the result seems to prove the contention that the more you ask for, the less you need to explain.

In fact, the confusion is not the senator's fault. He's not the first communications minister to give the networks generous rebates without much in the way of public discussion, and he won't be the last. The Coalition made precisely the same move a decade ago when the switch to digital began...

Read the full article

Julian Thomas is director of the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology

Photo: Shaun Lowe/ iStockphoto.com

Noticeboard

10 February 2012

The Attorney-General, the Hon Nicola Roxon MP, has announced the appointment of Professor Jill McKeough as Commissioner in charge of the ALRC’s Inquiry into Copyright Law.

20 December 2011

Arts Minister Simon Crean has announced an independent review of the Australia Council for the Arts ahead of the development of the nation's first National Cultural Policy in almost 20 years.

15 December 2011

We live in a 'wired society'. But how much are people affected by mental illness included in this? Does social media increase isolation or help people overcome it?