I speak today in support of the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Community Radio) Bill 2022. This bill will help community radio stations by providing greater clarity and certainty for community broadcasting licensing processes. There are more than 450 community owned and operated radio stations in Australia, attracting more than five million listeners each week.

One of these stations is the Illawarra's very own Vox FM, which has been serving the community for over 25 years. For anyone travelling through the region, you can tune in on 106.9. Earlier this year, they were the winners of the Community Group of the Year award at the Wollongong 2022 Australia Day Awards. The team at Vox FM are a dedicated group of volunteers, and I served on their donations committee for a period of time before running for parliament.

The station is run by an amazing group of people with Lilian Wings as president, John Clare as vice president, Judy Clare as treasurer, Barrie Keenahan as secretary and four directors: Reetu Verma, Joe Patterson, Ben Hession and Jacqui Preedy. Their presenters are: Monday Breakfast, Billy Harvey; Side By Side, Eric Davies; Grapevine, Dr Reetu Verma; Afternoon with Allan Bird; Vitamin Dee, Dee Milenkovic; Monday Drive, Judy Clare; Tuesday Breakfast, Dee Milenkovic; Carmel's Collection, Carmel Collins; Through The Past Darkly, Tim Brosnan; Headway, Tony S and Allan H; Smooth Connection, Sylvia J; Tuesday Drive, Peter Blom; Wednesday Breakfast, Matt Ball; Ease Away With Barrie K, Barrie Keenahan; Greenacres, Dan and Ian; Wednesday Drive, Sylvia Jones; Thursday Breakfast, Sean O'Neill; Fascinating Rhythm, John Fox; Heroes and Friends, Neill Hawes; Health Nuts, Liz Bowswart; Frank's Selection, Frank and Faye Costello; Thursday Drive, Jacob Henson; Friday Breakfast, Kevin Barron; My Generation, Lilian Wings; Mid-Morning Music, Elaine Hart; It is Well With My Soul, the Anglican Church; and Friday Drive, Des Mott.

I want to thank the board and the many volunteers who keep this station running. Your work for our community is so important, and we are so lucky to have such dedicated and experienced people running the show. Community radio fulfils many important functions for the regions they serve, especially in a country as culturally diverse as Australia. Many multicultural community groups use our local Vox FM to connect. Our region's diversity is one of the things I love most, and our diversity is reflected in the Vox FM's programming. A few months ago, Vox FM started a new Arabic program with Gus, and it has proven to be a big hit with the community. This service that community radio provides for groups who might otherwise be excluded from mainstream media outlets cannot be understated.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of attending Vox FM's member appreciation day with Lillian, Barrie and many of volunteers who run the station. It was a fantastic community day, with good food, music, dancing and even a paper-plane throwing competition—although I came second last. Last Saturday, I also attended their annual Christmas party hosted by Vitamin Dee, and it was a great to be able to thank the volunteers for all of their hard work at the end of another hard year. I was also recently interviewed on Vox by Dan and Ian from Greenacres Disability Services. Dan and Ian host their show every Wednesday from 12 to 1 pm, and they've been on-air since 2014. We spoke about the NDIS and their personal experiences of it in the Illawarra. They pulled no punches with their questions, but they were very fair, fun and professional. It was an honour to be invited onto their program.

Vox FM was a source of critical information during the recent floods, and they shared important health information. During the pandemic, they frequently provided the community with updates and Illawarra-specific information. They also support other local community groups, helping them to advertise fundraising efforts and events. Stations like Vox FM, and the people involved in them, really do help to make the communities they are in more connected and vibrant. That is why this bill is so important. We need to keep community radio alive.

The first measure of this bill clarifies that community radio licence renewal is not a competitive process. This is in line with the original intent of the act; however, it needs to be explicitly stated. The bill will also clarify ACMA's powers when allocating the new community broadcasting licences and temporary community broadcasting licences. This amendment will allow new stations to have advance notice to set up the infrastructure and station programming, providing these stations with the best possible start. The third change gives greater flexibility to ACMA when determining if a temporary licensee is not providing a quality service and clarifies the considerations that ACMA should be giving when allocating new licences. The intent of the temporary licensing scheme is to give aspiring broadcasters fair and effective access to the spectrum. This will remain unchanged.

The bill also allows ACMA to limit the number of temporary community broadcasting licensees that can share a particular frequency. It was the original intent of the policy to allow temporary licensees to share frequencies, but ACMA should have the ability to set a limit if necessary. ACMA will also be able to introduce deadlines for late applications to the community broadcasting licensing process. Finally, the bill will enable ACMA to delegate the decision to commence the community broadcast licence application process for administrative purposes. Current arrangements regarding decisions to allocate a community broadcasting licence to a particular applicant remain unchanged.

I'm speaking today because I want to see Vox FM operating well into the future, bringing our community together and broadcasting our voices across the region. The Albanese government's budget in 2022 includes an additional $4 million per year of ongoing funding for the community broadcasting program from 2023-24, taking total annual funding for the program to over $20 million. With this bill the Albanese Labor government is helping to keep community radio alive for more than five million current listeners. For Vox FM and the Illawarra community this will be a welcome suite of reforms, and it is for this reason that I commend the bill to the House.