The recent sex scandal involving Channel 10's Big Brother program has highlighted a soon-to-be-closed loophole in Australian broadcasting laws when dealing with live streaming video content.

The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan, on Wednesday said that although Schedule 5 of the Broadcasting Services Act was designed to regulate online content that may not be appropriate -- according to the national classification codes -- it only covered material that has been recorded and then stored on servers.

In this particular case, the controversial content was not recognised as 'Internet content' by the law because it was not stored on the Big Brother Web site.

"This matter has reinforced the need for changes to the Act to ensure that these new services being offered over the Internet and mobile devices are subject to the same content restrictions that apply to television broadcasts," said Senator Coonan in a statement. Legislation to ensure "appropriate content safeguards" would be imposed on all non-broadcasting commercial content services, including live services, would be introduced into parliament "at the earliest opportunity".

The national classification codes themselves may also be up for overhaul by the Australian Communications and Media Authority given the "community outrage" over the matter, Senator Coonan said.