Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I oppose the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 because they reduce media diversity in this country for no good reason and because they have very serious ramifications. The honourable member for Gorton referred to the appalling process that this government has undertaken in the House. I support those remarks and I want to spend a few minutes on them. I also want to spend a few minutes on the appalling process that the government undertook in the other place.

These bills are being rushed through with minimum opportunity for members of the public to make a contribution. They were referred to a Senate committee. That Senate committee was a complete farce. I read in the Hansard that a Liberal senator, Senator Ian Macdonald, agreed that the Senate committee process was rushed. He said that senators on the government side got 90 seconds of questions. I know that Senator Macdonald has recently been relieved of ministerial office, and probably no longer feels restrained to support the government line.

Is it any wonder that you find Liberal senators agreeing that the process was rushed and that the length of questioning was inappropriate when you find that the minister gave the committee just three weeks to conduct its inquiry into these very important bills? Members of the public were given one week to make a submission. This has been in discussion with media proprietors for 12 months, and I do not have a quarrel with that but, if it has been in discussion with media proprietors for 12 months, I would have thought that members of the public, academics, interest groups and think tanks who might be interested in this area of public policy could be given more than a week to make their contribution to the public policy debate.

The committee heard from 30 witnesses in two days. All of us have been to committee hearings. All of us know how long it takes to give a witness a proper hearing. All of us know that a witness should be invited to make a substantial contribution and then have substantial questioning. You cannot do that when you have 30 witnesses going through the process in just two days.

I mention this because it is symptomatic of this government’s approach. This government, having been in office now for more than 10 years, finds it convenient to rush legislation through the parliament with hardly any reference to public debate. I went back and had a look at the last very significant changes that were made to media ownership laws, which were piloted through this House by then Minister Duffy. In 1985 Minister Duffy announced that his department would conduct a study into media ownership laws. In 1986 that report was tabled in the parliament. It was not until 1987 that it was debated and went through the House—a very different process from this government rushing its laws through the Senate committee process and, indeed, not finalising the bills until during the committee’s process. So for part of the committee’s hearings they did not even know the details of the legislation they were meant to be examining.

I have been looking through the government’s arguments to find a coherent rationale for these changes, and I have been searching in vain. Two reasons have been put up by the government to abolish the cross-media ownership laws. The first one is that technology has improved since 1987, that is true, and that people can now access their news through a variety of mechanisms—not only television, newspaper and radio but also the internet, mobile phones and any number of other platforms—and therefore the cross-media ownership laws are anachronistic and no longer required. It is true that the technology has improved but the vast majority of people still access their news through the more traditional mechanisms—television, radio and newspapers.

Last year Roy Morgan Research examined the primary source of news for the Australian population. Forty-eight per cent said television, 22 per cent said newspapers, 19 per cent said radio and eight per cent said the internet. I do not say that the internet is not important and I do not say that it is not a growing mechanism for people to get their news and information from, but nobody would suggest that it has yet rivalled television, newspapers and radio as the day-to-day source of news and information for the Australian people.

But even looking at this internet platform, it is a fallacy to say that people are now getting their news and media from different sources. They are getting it through a different mechanism, not from different sources. The same Roy Morgan survey found that the most popular news internet site was Fairfax, which of course is the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and other important newspapers. Second was the News Ltd site, the publisher of the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, the Australian and others. Next was Ninemsn, which we all know. Fourth was abc.net.au, with 785,000 hits. Then there is daylight. Then comes Yahoo! News, which is run in conjunction with Channel 7, at 290,000 hits. In sixth place comes crikey.com—the only, if you like, new media outlet to have any substantial impact on people getting news and information from the internet. So as important as Crikey, Mumble and other innovative news and political commentary sites are, I do not think even they would suggest that they would rival the likes of Channel 9, PBL and News Ltd as sources of news and information for the vast majority of people.

This is not just my view. Graeme Samuel, the Chairman of the ACCC—one of the few witnesses who actually got to make a contribution to the inquiry—said:

We think the internet is simply a distribution channel. It has not shown any significant signs at this point in time of providing a greater diversity of credible information and news and commentary.

I agree with him. The internet has not shown any signs of that. While it is a growing source, it does not provide the rationale for the abolition of the cross-media ownership laws. I agree with that respected commentator Mr Brian Toohey, who said that news collection and distribution is an expensive and labour intensive process, and that no internet provider in the foreseeable future is likely to have the resources to effectively challenge the existing major media proprietors.

I then searched for other reasons that the government put up to support this legislation. I saw that Minister Coonan argued in the other place that this would enable economies of scale to be realised and that media proprietors would be able to make their operations more efficient. That may be true but at what cost? If two media providers merge and amalgamate their newsrooms, that would no doubt be more efficient, but what does that do for diversity in this country? What does it do for the sources of news and information in regional areas if you have a newspaper and a radio station, for example, having a common newsroom and having common journalists—not having independent thought and analysis but having one set of information given to the public?

What would the impact of this bill be on that diversity? Of course we have the famous voices test. Now there must be five voices in metropolitan areas and four in regional areas. But as other honourable members have commented, this test is absurd. Channel 9 is given the same weight as, for example, the racing station in Sydney, 2KY. They are both regarded as equal voices. What a ridiculous proposition. At the moment in Sydney we have 12 voices, in Melbourne we have 11, in Brisbane we have 10, in Perth we have eight and in Adelaide we have seven. All will be able to be reduced to five under this legislation. In 19 major regional cities and centres throughout Australia, there are six or seven voices. All could be reduced to four under this legislation.

What is the reason for doing this? Do we have a particularly diverse media? Do we have a plethora of outlets and owners? Again I looked at the debate relating to the 1987 changes. Many of us in this House are interested in political history, so I read the Hansard of that debate and came across the views of a small ‘l’ liberal, which are very hard to find these days; you have to look in the history books to find them. Twenty years ago, Ian Macphee, the former member for Goldstein, said:

Now we have the greatest concentration of media ownership of any country in the world—certainly any country that calls itself a democracy.

That was 20 years ago when media diversity was greater in this country than it is now. We had a member of the other side, then in opposition, complaining that we had the greatest concentration of media ownership of any country in the world. He went on to say:

Certainly, we need cross-media laws, of course ... trade practice laws and cross-media laws are necessary to safeguard the freedom of speech.

He went on to cite the example of Kerry Packer owning the Bulletin, a TV station and a radio station, where the views expressed were all identical. Of course, that would be perfectly allowable under this government’s proposed law.

The honourable member for Gorton dealt with Senator Fielding, and he did so very eloquently, so I will not dwell on the matter. But I do want to deal with a particular argument that Senator Fielding put up to justify his support for this bill. He raised what I would consider the furphy that media proprietors do not determine the editorial content in their media, that the Packer family does not determine the editorial views of Channel 9, that Rupert Murdoch does not determine the editorial views of his range of newspapers and other media outlets—for example, Fox News. It is a very courageous view to suggest that the channel that Rupert Murdoch established, Fox News, to particularly push his point of view on political matters of the day does not reflect his views. It is a bizarre view for Senator Fielding to put.

A reality check—a survey by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance—found that 50 per cent of journalists have been required to report in line with their proprietor’s point of view. Other surveys have shown that journalists, even if they are not specifically required, feel some sort of obligation or requirement, even if it is not explicitly expressed, to support their proprietor’s point of view. That might be a political point of view or it might relate to the other businesses owned by the proprietor, where conflicts of interest arise and perhaps a full and fierce exposition of that individual’s business activities is not undertaken by a particular media outlet because it would not be considered to be in line with the boss’s wishes.

Of course, one of the best reference points for this debate comes from the Productivity Commission—a free-market oriented body that traditionally supports less government regulation rather than more. The Productivity Commission looked at this matter in the year 2000. They undertook a very substantial hearing process—they heard from many witnesses and had 300 submissions—and came to the conclusion that cross-media laws should not be abolished unless and until three things happened: one, the removal of regulatory barriers to entry in broadcasting; two, the abolition of foreign interest controls; and, three, the amendment of the Trade Practices Act to provide for media-specific public interest tests to apply to mergers and acquisitions. How many of those things have happened? One out of the three has happened in this bill: the foreign interest controls are removed. The other two have not moved at all. So the Productivity Commission looked at this matter in detail and recommended those three things happen and the government has arrogantly ignored their recommendations.

This brings me to a point about the ACCC. We have heard—not from many people in this House but in the other place—government members argue: ‘It’s okay, the ACCC will be there to protect against inappropriate mergers. The ACCC are the appropriate body to work out who should be allowed to merge and who should not—not this parliament.’ That is what the government say. But, of course, the ACCC have no power to do so. The ACCC can only impose an economic test. They have no public interest test. The ACCC are not authorised to examine diversity in any meaningful manner which takes into account the health of our democracy and the health of the diversity of the media market. They can only examine the matter on a pure economic test. They have to apply a pricing test to say how likely it is that people will convert from newspapers and radio to television et cetera. If you read through Mr Samuel’s evidence, I would suggest that any objective reading of that evidence would bring you to the conclusion that even the ACCC believe that they have no meaningful power to deal with media mergers in any way which takes into account public interest—only that strict economic test. That is why the Productivity Commission recommended that a specific media public interest test be placed in the bill, which this government have not adopted.

In the couple of minutes remaining to me, I want to deal with some related matters in this bill which are not specifically related to cross-media ownership. The first of those is the antisiphoning provisions. I must say that, in my electorate, this is the matter on which I have received more correspondence than any other. Many members of the public are concerned about the government’s attempts to transfer major sporting events from free television to pay television.

There actually would be a way forward on this, I would suggest, that all members could agree on. In fairness, I hope and would like to think that all members in this House would agree that, where possible, major sporting events should be on free-to-air TV. If free to air refuses to show those programs live or close to live then there should be a capacity for pay TV to show them. That is a principle which most of us would agree with, I would suggest.

But the government have indicated that they will be changing the law without reference to this parliament—they do not need to bring it to this parliament—and in a manner which lacks transparency. The minister has refused to indicate what would meet the ‘use it or lose it’ test and has refused to report to this House or the other house on what criteria will be put into place. There is a complete lack of transparency about which programs will stay on the free-to-air list and which ones will be allowed to move to pay TV.

No wonder I have received something like 40 emails from my constituents in the last two days about this. They are very concerned and they have a right to be concerned, because this government and this minister have been less than open and transparent about how this will work. I remain concerned. While I strongly agree with the principle that, if a free-to-air station refuses to show a major sporting event live or close to live and if they buy up the rights just to stop somebody else showing it, of course that should be made available to pay television to try to pressure the free-to-air station into showing it. But we need to be clear and open about how that is occurring. The minister has failed miserably in that test.

There are two other matters I want to refer to. The first is the removal of the restrictions on the ABC’s multichannelling operation. I think that is a welcome thing. This is something that could encourage more people to move to digital television—and that is something in which progress has been very disappointing. The government’s targets have not been met. I think that, if the ABC and SBS were allowed to show more programs on the second station through digital television, that could be something which could encourage more people to move to digital television.

There are very real public benefits in moving to digital television. It opens up more spectrum. It provides savings, and it provides opportunities for other media to come in and use that spectrum. That is something we should welcome and it is something that this government should be encouraging. They have failed to do so. The evidence from the United Kingdom, where the BBC is allowed to broadcast a wide range of programs on its second channel, is that it has played a role in encouraging the move to digital television.

The second matter I want to refer to very briefly is the capacity for commercial stations to go into multichannelling. I fail to understand why that has been restricted to high definition only. All of the evidence is that free-to-air stations would be very interested in multichannelling with standard definition, but the economies of scale do not justify broadcasting in high definition. The government have not justified their restrictions in this regard. I oppose this bill, as we on this side of the House do. It is bad for democracy and it cannot be supported. (Time expired)

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