Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Hansard source

I deliberately took the time to come into the House to listen to the contribution of the member for Hinkler, because I know that he is very genuine in his concerns about protecting diversity in the media, particularly in regional Australia—as I am. We are both from regional seats. I do not question his genuineness in that regard, but I do question his methods. I note that he puts enormous faith in the Australian Communications and Media Authority, but he does not seem to put a lot of faith in the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 per se. His speech was full of caveats, hanging big hopes on reviews. He is now an expert on local radio stations and whether or not a local radio station can afford an extra employee for so many hours a week. I am very pleased he has become so expert in that regard. But, with respect to the member for Hinkler, I do not have a lot of confidence in his expertise on these issues. Anyone who really knows anything about regional radio knows that, without question, local news is revenue negative for a radio station. So already they are behind the eight ball, and one dollar in additional cost puts enormous pressure on the viability of that local radio operation.

This just underscores the government’s approach to public policy and the dysfunctionality of the government at this point in time. You have Barnaby Joyce running off on one tangent and members like the member for Hinkler now fearful of their preselection and therefore muscling up to the government. What happens as a consequence? The government rolls. What happens when it rolls? We get extreme responses, like we have had in radio. No-one is more of a protector of local content in regional radio than I am, but there is a real question of the viability of the new local content obligations this government is placing on those radio stations.

We are talking about 200 radio stations competing in a market not much bigger than the size of Sydney. I think Sydney has 10 radio stations in aggregate. So it is a significant issue for them. Again, while we are already defenders of local content, this is the sort of knee-jerk reaction you get and it is going to put enormous pressure on those radio stations. The member for Hinkler is delighted there is going to be a review, but for some the review might come all too late. So I ask him to reflect on that and I ask his colleagues in the National Party to reflect on that also.

In my own area there is not any problem with local content. Local radio stations like KO FM already rack up about 24 minutes of local news on any given day, and 2HD racks up some 65 minutes. Of course, they are working in a pretty substantial market, the market known as the Hunter region. People in more far-flung areas of New South Wales would not have a market anywhere near that size and will struggle to meet the obligations that the government has imposed as a knee-jerk reaction to the complaints of National Party members.

I intend to devote most of my time in this debate to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006. The bill broadly proposes four things. The first is to permit cross-media merges in any given licence area in this country—in other words, it will unravel the laws put in place by Paul Keating to maintain media diversity in this country. It purports to replace those restrictions with the so-called five-four rule, which, as the member for Hinkler indicated, requires a minimum of five voices, as the government likes to call them, in the four biggest capital cities and four voices in the remaining capital cities and country regions.

The first thing I have to say about that is that it will put a big question mark over the concept of what constitutes a voice. As has been borne out in the Senate committee inquiry, a voice can simply be a music-playing station or a racing station, stations that do not add to diversity in any given market. I will return to those points. The second is to remove specific foreign ownership restrictions in the Australian media sector. The opposition does not have any degree of concern about that concept and would be more than willing to accept that if it were put forward as a separate item in a separate bill rather than being tied to the abolition of the cross-media rules, which of course we oppose.

The bill also purports to put in place additional disclosure laws that are supposedly to add more transparency to media ownership in this country. Fourth, it purports to introduce so-called regional protections, which again is a reaction to the pressure the government has come under from its rural constituency and National Party members in this place. The explanatory memorandum is at pains to point out that all mergers post this law will remain subject to the considerations of the ACCC, and that is a point I want to return to later.

If I did a survey of this place and asked members what the most important public policy issue was for them, you would be pretty certain that they would rate health, education and matters economic—keeping the economy healthy and strong, providing a low interest rate environment, a low inflation rate environment and a high-growth environment for the country. They might nominate other things like specific rural and regional concerns, but if they gave it some thought they would nominate media law. They would nominate media law because, arguably, media law dictates everything that happens in this place. I thank the Prime Minister for reminding us recently about the importance of media diversity when he said:

The strength and vitality of Australian democracy rests on three great institutional pillars …

The first is:

… our parliament with its tradition of robust debate …

The second is:

… the rule of law upheld by an independent and admirably incorruptible judiciary …

And the third, of course, is:

… a free and sceptical press …

Sometimes we do not like to admit it publicly but just about everything that happens in this place is guided by what happens in the media. I can give you a few examples. Not long after the GST was introduced and petrol prices were spiralling upwards, it became apparent that the GST, a tax on a tax on fuel, was adding to the cost of fuel and the burden on Australian families. What did the government do? It now regularly boasts that it further reduced the excise and froze indexation.

Do you think the government would have done that if the Daily Telegraph or the Sun-Herald were not running regular front pages about the prices on bowsers? Of course it would not have. The government would have held fast. It would have dug in and ridden out what would have been a relatively smaller storm. More recently, we saw the so-called energy blueprint. There was this big idea that petrol prices could be held down by the introduction of an LPG scheme. We know how unsuccessful and inadequate that was, but would we have seen a fuels blueprint if petrol at $1.40, approaching $1.50, had not been on the front pages on a daily basis? Of course we would not have. The government would have ridden out the storm.

Even more recently, on the skills crisis, something we on this side have been talking about for many years, would we have seen a statement from the Prime Minister—again, as inadequate as it was—if the media had not played such a significant role in publicising to the Australian community the effect that skills crisis is having on the Australian economy? No, we would not have.

We all know that the role of the media in this place is absolutely critical. Flowing naturally from that, we all know that diversity in the media is absolutely critical. I heard one of my colleagues reminding us yesterday that one particular media organisation could fairly claim credit for both the election and the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government, and no-one in this place could deny that.

The fact is that Australia already has a very high concentration of media ownership. We already have one of the greatest concentrations of media ownership of any country that calls itself a democracy. News Ltd and Fairfax currently control over 80 per cent of Australia’s metropolitan newspapers. Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, owner of Channel 9, currently has television coverage reaching 52 per cent of Australia’s population and has a 40 per cent market share of Australia’s top-selling magazines. This of course is not to mention News Ltd’s and Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd’s 25 per cent each share in Australia’s monopoly pay TV network, Foxtel, and a 33 per cent share in Sky News as well as an interest in Australian Associated Press.

I am grateful to the member for Lowe, whom you can rely upon for research on this issue—because, as we all know, the member for Lowe is quite passionate about media law and its direction in this place—for his analysis of what the passage of this particular bill could mean to media diversity. He says—and I am sure he is absolutely accurate—that the passage of this bill will allow News Ltd and PBL:

... to own every major metropolitan newspaper … most suburban newspapers; virtually every magazine; Channel 9 and Channel 10; Sky News; Australian Associated Press; monopoly pay television Foxtel; and more than 70 per cent of the news and information sites on the internet ...

I note that the second reading speech—and I am sure it was the same speech in both houses—starts by saying:

The communications environment, in Australia and across the world, is experiencing a period of rapid and accelerating change. New platforms are emerging, along with new forms of content and greater levels of interactivity. Media content is now available in multiple forms, on-demand, and to fixed or mobile receivers, providing Australians with an unprecedented level of choice and control in their media usage.

Who really believes any of that? How many people in this country rely on the internet, let alone their mobile phone, as their key source of news information? Very few. And, in any case, as the member for Lowe has pointed out, more than 70 per cent of the news and information sites on the internet will be owned by the two major players. So it is a furphy. It does make the point that the industry has moved on since the introduction of the cross-media laws, but it does not justify, by any stretch of the imagination, putting in place law that allows the low level of diversity we can expect as a result of the passage of this legislation.

In my region, we have seven players in the media now—and the floor is four. Of course, no shortage of experts have predicted a race to that floor. The government is introducing this as a minimum, and there will be a race to that floor. That is what we can expect in the Hunter in the not too distant future—and that is of course bad for media diversity. Since the passage of this legislation in the Senate the CEO of Rural Press has expressed a public interest in both the Newcastle Herald and the Illawarra Mercuryand I welcome the member for Throsby who is walking into the House now, as she has a strong interest in the Illawarra Mercury.

The Newcastle Herald and the Illawarra Mercury are, of course, part of the Fairfax stable—and we all know the emotional attachment between JB Fairfax of Rural Press and the former family empire. It is worth pointing out to the House and acknowledging—in fact, conceding—that there is nothing in current laws that would prevent Rural Pressfrom making a play for the Newcastle Herald. But it is interesting that they have been emboldened since the passage of this legislation through the Senate and the inevitability, unfortunately, of the passage of this legislation through this place.

What would be the scenario be in my region after reducing from, say, seven to five? What would happen, for example, in Maitland, the largest city in my electorate, which now enjoys two daily newspapers—the Newcastle Herald, which is Fairfax owned, and the Maitland Mercury, which is owned by Rural Press? Potentially, there could be a merger and less diversity in news sheet news in the Maitland area. Of course, another potential consequence of that could be the loss of a significant number of jobs. I think the Newcastle Herald employs about 300 people and I suspect that the Maitland Mercury would be fast approaching 100 people. I should say that the Maitland Mercury is the oldest regional newspaper in New South Wales—if not the country. It would be a great shame if that masthead ever disappeared.

I return to my point that the explanatory memorandum is at great pains to remind us that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission remains in this game. How much confidence can we have in that? How much confidence can we have that section 50 of the Trade Practices Act will prove sufficiently effective to stop mergers that lead to too low a level of diversity in this country? I do not think we can have any confidence at all. It was interesting to note that the Chairman of the ACCC, Graeme Samuel, I think on Saturday, came out—muscling up—to remind the media barons that he is still there on guard. But why would he feel the need to warn the media barons that he is on guard? If he has any confidence in the new laws being introduced by the government, why would he feel the need to come out and say that? If he was confident that the test being put in place by the government was going to be sufficient to protect media diversity, he would not have felt the need to do that.

We have seen the difficulty that the ACCC has in determining definitions. What is a ‘market’? What is a ‘substantial lessening of competition in any given market’? It is very difficult. We have additional concerns now and those concerns are contained within the Dawson bill, which is currently in the Senate. It was subject to media publicity today over some apparent deal that the Treasurer is trying to stitch up with certain sections of the business community.

What the Dawson bill proposes is a watering down of the merger provisions that we have in this country. It does so in two ways. Firstly, it intends to get rid of the informal process for clearance under section 50, which is a competition test. Currently, the applicant goes to the ACCC and informally seeks immunity from prosecution for an arrangement that could be seen to reduce competition. If he gets that immunity, he goes off and operates. The government’s proposal is to have a formal clearance process which will, of course, give the applicant something to appeal. The appeal goes to the Australian Competition Tribunal, a body which I could argue—given that the Treasurer has now had 10 years to appoint and reappoint every member of the committee—does not instil great confidence in the community regarding its willingness to protect competition.

Secondly, the government is proposing a new authorisation test. Authorisation is the path you go down if the ACCC decides that you do not clear the hurdle of the competition test under section 50. You make your application on the basis that it is in the public interest to allow the merger to go ahead in any case. The government, under the Dawson bill, intends to do away with the ACCC in that process and allow the applicant to go straight to the Australian Competition Tribunal—a body that I am not too confident is going to give the sort of defence of competition in this country that we would like to see it provide. The Dawson bill has become very important. Now that we have a weaker media law, it is very important to ensure that, if we do not have a stronger Trade Practices Act, we do not allow ourselves to be in a position where we have a weaker Trade Practices Act.

There has been a lot of debate in the papers this week about what Labor might do in response to these laws upon coming to office. There is one thing that is very clear and unequivocal: we will not sit by and allow the sort of lack of diversity in this country that we fear as a result of these bills. We will not stand by and allow a couple of media moguls to monopolise media and news comment in this country. We are prepared to use all of the mechanisms available to us—legislative and otherwise—to restore that diversity if our predictions come true and diversity of media ownership in this country falls to below acceptable standards. Diversity of media goes to the very heart of our democracy. That is why I began by suggesting to members of this place that this is more important than health, education or the economy. If we do not get the media providing fair comment on these issues, we will not have the power to do anything about them in this place.

See this speech in context