Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The two bills before us today, the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006, will determine the character of the media in Australia for the next two decades and perhaps beyond. I have drawn heavily on my submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, because I believe in this matter passionately and I argued my case passionately before that committee. I am hell-bent on three things: competition, diversity and a return to localism. Overriding even those things are the notions of freedom of the press, of diversity of opinion and of an informed community, which are not some esoteric concepts. They are real and integral parts of the democratic process. People in regional Australia are just as entitled to engagement with the fourth estate as people in the capital cities are.

The proposed changes under the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill will bring competition and allow media companies to achieve better efficiency while still protecting the diversity of the Australian media. The bills will remove the broadcasting-specific restrictions on foreign investment in the Australian media sector, but they will retain the media’s standing as a ‘sensitive sector’ under the foreign investment policy as well as under the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement. That means that all direct media investment and all portfolio investment over five per cent will be required to be notified to and approved by the Treasurer.

The laissez-faire attitude that has developed under the current Broadcasting Services Act, administered initially by the ABA and, more recently—and, might I say, in a better form—by the Australian Communications and Media Authority has contributed to the deterioration in the quality and diversity of services as well as a concentration of radio ownership. Under the old regime of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, a prospective broadcaster had to convince the tribunal that he or she was a person of good character and repute, had financial capacity, had the skills and expertise to run a radio or television station and could demonstrate an engagement with the community that was to be served. Note that last one: they had to be able to engage with the community that they were to serve.

The auction system that has been introduced more recently has fuelled an unfulfilled commercial expectation, and in the process it has driven up to a ridiculous level the price of radio stations. This in turn has led to excessive networking, a reduction in services and the disingenuous argument from some proprietors that they really cannot afford to have local newsrooms. With regard to that latter point, after paying up to $15 million in a regional market or $105 million, as occurred once in a capital city market, it is farcical for broadcasters to turn around and cry poor about the provision of a newsroom. Even small country stations have changed hands for figures of around $2 million.

Those factors have led to a concentration of ownership of radio stations, not necessarily in individual markets, but rather generically across Australia in specific regional districts. That leads me to my basic premise. If we allow some form of concentration of ownership, what are the trade-offs? If a proprietor can afford to purchase an additional form of media in a market, there should be a requirement to re-establish a newsroom as a demonstration of a serious commitment to that market. How do we avoid the continuation of the current situation? Or should we see this as an opportunity for a renaissance of regional media, rather than a meaningless concentration?

Under the Broadcasting Services Act there was no real control on foreign ownership of radio stations. In fact, other than the two-station rule—that is, two stations in the market—there has been no brake on the number and concentration of radio services that can be held by one organisation. Section 67 of the act has not been used for emergent or unusual episodes but rather as a commercial facilitatory process. Perhaps more importantly, I believe that the ABA failed to uphold the key objectives of the act, which section 3 specifically states as being, in part:

... to encourage diversity in control of the more influential broadcasting services;

and:

... to encourage providers of commercial and community broadcasting services to be responsive to the need for a fair and accurate coverage of matters of public interest and for an appropriate coverage of matters of local significance.

Clearly, that has not been happening—certainly not in regional Australia. These two points are pivotal, in my view, in maintaining and protecting the diversity of opinion and guaranteeing a degree of localism in regional markets. This is particularly crucial in the radio sector.

Another reason for my keen focus on radio is that in the terms of the bill local markets are determined by the footprint of the radio station rather than those of the newspaper or the television station. So, if you like, the pivotal medium is radio. I fundamentally believe that the holding of a radio or TV licence is a privilege, and it carries with it responsibilities. Content must be more than generic, piped, network programming. It should be part of the culture of the region it serves, expressing its ambitions, its expectations and opinions, as well as interacting with the activities in the community and with the community itself—the community of which it is a part. Sadly, much has been lost over the last 15 years, and it is simply not acceptable that people in regional and rural centres should be subjected to a second-class engagement with the fourth estate.

I am pleased that the concept of local content plans has been adopted by the minister. I am also pleased that with those local content plans radio stations, as part of their annual reporting of their statistics and finances, will give a report to ACMA on how they serve their local market. Every three years they will be submitted to the parliament for review so that we can see whether there is localism and whether people are taking the treatment of country people seriously. I believe that these should be not prescriptive documents but simple statements of how the station will engage or has engaged with the community.

In the future, commercial television licensees in regional Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania will be required from 1 January 2008 to provide minimum levels of content on matters of local significance. Local content licence conditions and local content plans would also be required of regional commercial radio licensees where a commercial radio licence is transferred or becomes part of a merged media group, if the format of a commercial radio service is narrowed or where the minister directs ACMA to consider imposing local content provisions. Licensees will have to demonstrate via their local content plan how they intend to meet the local content licence condition and what resources they will have in place to achieve that requirement. Regional commercial radio licensees that have a local content plan in force, as I said before, will report annually. Every three years we will have the capacity to review that in the parliament. Obviously, ACMA will temper its intervention in accordance with the size and capacity of the market. ACMA will also assess compliance of regional radio licensees with licence conditions. That commitment, as I said before, will be reviewed every three years.

The control provisions of the Broadcasting Services Act will be amended to include issues such as the sharing of production and transmission facilities, the sharing of staff, content agreements and financial relationships. I applaud the new emphasis which will be applied to content. That will be further bolstered by ACMA’s new powers. In extreme cases of noncompliance, ACMA will have the authority to issue a new licence. With a serial offender you can have that person fined $10,000 or $15,000 or $20,000 and, if it is a big organisation, it is one day’s embarrassment and a slap on the wrist. But if you end up with another radio station in a market then you may well affect the value of the other radio station by anything as much as $2 million, $3 million or $4 million. That is when people do need to take notice.

I believe it is reasonable that radio stations be required also to broadcast live and local for a set minimum number of hours per day. Before these arrangements come into effect, ACMA will investigate the current levels of local content in regional radio, the impact of the proposed minimum level on licensees and how different types of regional broadcasters will be affected by the requirement. I recognise that this may cause problems in some very small markets. Some of them have spoken to me and my colleagues. There are radio stations making less than $50,000 a year. Some of these new provisions may be difficult for them. As this review goes ahead I would be happy to support a lower threshold of compliance for those in small markets.

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