It was good news, in a limited way, that the ALP stood up for our current local content quotas, by persuading the Government to agree to make them law. It's good news because at the moment it is just an administrative matter to change our local content rules.

What the ALP amendments mean is that it will be much harder for any future government to reduce our local content. They'll have to pass a law to do it, not just change some regulations within the bureaucracy.

But the effect of the FTA is that although local content levels were unchanged - for now - if in the future any government reduced them they could never be raised again.

And unfortunately those local content rules apply only to radio and free-to-air TV. Not to multi-channelling, not to subscription TV, and certainly not to the new media of the future.

So in the multi-channelling environment - which we have yet to experience in any big way, but it won't be long - we'll by and large be getting less local content.

Why? Well, if a multi-channelling broadcaster has 3 channels, then 2 of them must conform to the local content quota - which is the same as now - but if the broadcaster has 15 channels then no more than 3 are required to conform to the local content requirements. Thus there would be a lower percentage overall.

And Australia will not be able to introduce any increase without the permission of the United States.

In pay TV it's not the amount of local content, but the percentage of expenditure on it which is fixed. 10-20% of expenditure has to be devoted to local productions. Sounds good? Well it's not a huge proportion in a specialist channel (documentaries, children's, the arts and educational), and it is specialist channels which we can expect to see more of.

And Australia will not be able to introduce any increase without the permission of the United States.

Finally, the new media provisions are alarmingly negative: they aim to ensure that Australian content is 'not unreasonably denied' to Australian consumers of these services. To demonstrate this the Government has to find that the Australian content is not readily available, and must do so in a way which according to the Agreement is 'no more trade restrictive than necessary'.

Give up? That little lot is a lawyer's paradise.

For the ABC it will be more important than ever to live up to its Charter to produce programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community. And that the next government guarantees this and pledges the funding for the ABC to do it.

Jill Greenwell President ACT