The Special Broadcasting Services (SBSTV) offers free airtime to 20 countries so they can transmit weekly news to Australia. Malta is the only country that fails to avail itself of this free airspace each Sunday to the disdain of the thousands of Maltese living in Australia. On November 25 and again on December 30, the Maltese segment did not arrive at all. This sorry saga has been going on for years. We have become the laughing stock of the TV viewers on this Australian national network.

You see the "ahbarijiet" that the PBS (Malta) sends over to Australia are now just normal news. Although a tiny country, Malta is there with the rest of the "World Watch" segment. When we get a blank half an hour we are being shamed. Today, I want to put it to the big shots at Guardamangia to explain to us why this programme is still being delayed. Maybe they can explain why the news is not being sent via the internet which instead of taking the long road to arrive in Sydney could only take an hour or so to upload and download.

I am told (please correct me if I am wrong) that with the speed of the internet and providing you have the right server, a complete DVD can be (FTP) uploaded in a few minutes and then downloaded and burned on the other side to a DVD.

Can someone, from the minister down, explain why they keep shaming us? We don't deserve this. If PBS (Malta) has nothing to hide, they should tell us why this is happening and when they intend to do something about it.

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