Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This legislation will have a major impact on those living in rural and regional Australia, and that is what I am going to be speaking about to tonight. No doubt right across Australia the impacts of it will be massive but it will certainly be very harshly felt for those people living in rural areas.

The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 repeals the current cross-media laws and inserts new provisions, which are described and claimed as diversity safeguards. That certainly is not true: these safeguards are very weak and ineffective. The real effect of these changes is that the government’s media ownership bill will reduce media diversity, competition and consumer choice. While the abolition of the cross-media laws may potentially benefit some media owners, it offers nothing for the general public and it is especially detrimental to rural and regional Australia.

In short, this is another metrocentric piece of legislation from this very metrocentric government. With this legislation we see how the National Party have failed to protect the interests of their constituents yet again. We have seen it before, whether it is rolling over on Telstra or industrial relations and, again, they have rolled over on this legislation. Let no person in rural or regional Australia be deceived: this legislation and all the effects and ramifications of it will be passed as a result of the National Party’s failure to stand up to their Liberal masters. They have rolled over, and that is why this deal was done. It is nothing more than a shonky deal and the National Party have allowed it to happen. They got this legislation through the Senate with the deal that they did which ultimately will sell out those people from regional and rural Australia.

This legislation is this government’s way of buying positive media from the media moguls. Mark my words: it will be at the expense of independent media in this country and, again, it will be at the expense of those people in rural and regional Australia, and those media outlets. Tonight the National Party are proudly responsible for the eventual demise of local content in our community media because the deal they did will offer absolutely no protection at all.

In the regulation impact statement, the government acknowledges the removal of cross-media ownership restrictions may reduce local content, yet only regional radio licensees that change ownership will have any additional requirements placed on them, and those requirements are deliberately and blatantly vague. The arrangements in respect of local media content are very weak and the provisions of schedule 2 relate to material of local significance. The proposal is for the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, to insert a condition into a television or radio broadcasting licence in relation to retaining a minimum level of material of local significance.

In terms of ACMA’s development of the definition of material of local significance, the proposed legislation says:

The definition of material of local significance must be broad enough to cover news that relates directly to the local area concerned.

It sounds rather vague and the legislation requires that the definition of material of local significance needs to be broad. In other words, there is very clear legislative intention for ACMA to provide a vague definition in their conditions. There are no guarantees that this will not be exploited, and the legislation borders on asking for exploitation by requiring this very vague definition. Also, in relation to radio, there is no comfort at all. The proposed legislation states:

... the licensee must maintain at least the existing level of local presence.

Who directs ACMA on the supposed protection in this section? It is the minister. ACMA must comply with the direction of the minister—a minister who has willingly and somewhat gleefully sold out the bush and will cause the death of diversity in rural and regional Australia with this legislation. As we have heard from previous speakers, the minister can review the local content provisions. These can be totally up in the air or reduced from what may have been in the initial legislation, which impacts on those people in regional areas.

All of this news about local content is definitely not comforting for those in regional Australia, many of whom are already concerned about the low levels of local content in their areas. In some areas, local content has been given over to bought packaged programs that are produced outside the local area. There is no requirement that local content be produced locally; it could be produced anywhere in the country. It is an absurd situation where we will see further centralisation of news and the end result will be that local journalists in those regional areas will lose their jobs.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Transport and the Arts drew attention to the decline of local radio programming back in 2001. One of the submissions in relation to local content being produced locally pointed out that computers could actually insert local content into the programming from anywhere. The submission also pointed out, quite importantly, what a distant computer cannot do:

It can’t answer the phone from the local sporting group informing us of a cancellation or a bus running late from a sporting function out of town. It can’t read the fax from the Weather Bureau informing of an approaching storm or from the City Council informing of a closed road or the local police searching for a motorist.

In 2003, the ABA imposed the additional licence condition on regional broadcasters that minimum amounts of local content were to be broadcast. In many rural and regional areas, people have been concerned that these arrangements have not provided sufficient local content, just as the formalisation of this arrangement will not ensure sufficient ongoing local content. Many rural and regional communities remain concerned about the lack of local content on their televisions and radios. The passing of this legislation would only give them further concern about their current situation and how even that may decline.

In many areas, there is a vast array of local content. In my electorate at the moment there certainly is, and I will be speaking more about that in a minute. It is important to have local voices, particularly in times of tragedy. On 30 June 2005 in Northern Rivers, New South Wales, we had some major storms and flooding right throughout our area. It was very catastrophic and major towns were cut off. I would like to tell a story of a local radio announcer, Barry Coleman, who is the daily breakfast announcer from Radio 97 from six until nine. He came into work that morning at three o’clock, as he normally does, and torrential rain and flooding had started then. Between 3.30 and four, he was unable to leave the station. Later in the day, all of South Tweed Heads, where his office is based, was shut off.

He was in there and he did his radio show from six until nine, and he was able to take calls and broadcast information about closed roads and keep people informed. It was really important for locals to have that local voice there all the time. At the same time, the ABC in Lismore were able to broadcast quite a few concerns about the situations they had. But back to Barry Coleman: his program ran from six until nine, but he actually stayed on air until about five o’clock that afternoon. He could not leave because all of South Tweed was flooded but, as he said, he stayed there because it was important that local people heard local news about a local event that was impacting on them. It certainly was of great reassurance to so many people, because in an event like that—major flooding in regional areas—to have a local voice and to be able to phone up and perhaps help somebody out is really important. I know that in many areas this does not happen. Those people have real concern that this legislation is only going to make their situation worse.

I believe this legislation should really be renamed the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Death of Diversity) Bill 2006 because diversity of sources and opinion will totally disappear with the removal of existing media regulations. The reality is that these changes will have a significant impact on the quality and the content of local news, particularly in rural and regional Australia. Diversity in media is crucial to those regional areas. My electorate of Richmond is an incredibly diverse electorate and the issues that are important to locals in Byron Bay in the south of my electorate are often vastly different to the issues that are important to locals in Tweed Heads. This diversity is throughout the electorate.

In Richmond, we are very fortunate at the moment to have a great diversity of local media throughout the entire electorate. In a lot of cases, the content of local radio stations is driven by local interests, local concerns and local issues. If we have a homogenous media source, we will get homogenous content—that is all we will end up with. As I said, in my electorate of Richmond we certainly have diversity. I would like to explain just how diverse the media is in that area. In Tweed Heads, in the northern part of the electorate—which is, of course, on the border with Queensland—many people source their information from the Gold Coast. We have radio stations including ABC Gold and Tweed Coasts, Sea FM, Gold FM and Hot Tomato. We have the Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper, which a lot of people from the Tweed use to source their information. Within Tweed Heads itself, we have Radio 97, to which I referred before. At the moment, that has a large amount of local content and many locals listen to that station specifically for local information. We also have the Tweed Daily News, which is the only daily newspaper for the Tweed, Tweed Coast and Murwillumbah area, serving locals who want to be able to find out what is happening in their area.

We also have weekly papers in the Tweed area—the Border Mail and the Tweed Sunwhich are obviously, again, servicing the needs of locals and providing important local information. Further south in the electorate we have the Byron Bay area within Byron Shire. There are some great papers down there. There is the Byron Echo, which is a weekly paper. It certainly is a great local paper in its content and views. There is also the Byron Shire News, another weekly paper. There is also a fantastic community radio station, Bay FM. It is run wholly by volunteers. They are in there all the time talking about a huge range of diverse issues, whether they be local, state, national, international and how any of those issues impact on them locally in the Byron area. Further south, there are a number of media outlets based in Lismore, which is just south of the Richmond electorate but a lot of people within Richmond listen to ABC Lismore. There is 2LM Radio as well.

Newspaper wise, there is the Northern Star and the Northern Rivers Echo. Again, they are very specific local media outlets that service a need in their area. Throughout the electorate there are a lot of smaller publications as well. There is the Banora Point Newsletter, the Lennox Wave, Better Business and the Tweed Weekly. Then, if we move onto some of the regional television stations in the electorate of Richmond, there is NBN, Prime, and Gold Coast Channel 9. That is a long list of diverse local media outlets and they really are specific to certain areas. There is a huge amount there because people in those areas want to hear about the issues that are important to them in their local area. For all that to be destroyed would be catastrophic because local issues are important. As I say, it may be national or international issues and how they impact on them locally. That is what our local media do. We need to have diverse media to represent diverse views and local issues as well.

What is some of the spin we have heard from the government about the justification for killing off diversity? They say that it is because of the rise in internet media. The internet is not a replacement for real local content or genuine local media diversity. There is no evidence to suggest that the internet is increasing the diversity of news. Around 84 per cent of hits on news sites occur on the websites of the major media players. Roy Morgan Research also indicates that the most popular internet news sites are controlled by existing media operators, including Fairfax, News Ltd, Channel 9 and the ABC. The existing major media players completely dominate the market for online news.

But what is really important in this argument about the rise in internet media is: what about all those Australians who still cannot access the internet? What about those in rural and regional Australia who cannot access broadband? The latest OECD broadband statistics show Australia’s ranking in the use of broadband remains at 17 out of 37 surveyed countries in the developed world. That is unchanged from the previous year. Richmond is certainly not the most remote of electorates, yet, as an example, there are constituents who live in Bray Park, only a 20-minute drive from Tweed Heads, who cannot access broadband. There are people who live in certain areas of Tweed Heads who cannot access broadband. If the rise of media on the internet is to be bandied about as the saving grace of media diversity, then what do you say to all those people who cannot access it? It is a double whammy for those people in regional areas when we hear these arguments put forward.

Any threat to media diversity is a clear and direct threat to democracy. The Productivity Commission’s broadcasting inquiry concluded that the business and editorial interests of media proprietors may influence the content and opinion of their media outlets. In the 2000 report it said:

The likelihood that a proprietor’s business and editorial interests will influence the content and opinion of their media outlets is of major significance.

Locals turn to media for information. If that information is skewed by the beliefs of media moguls then people are not able to make informed decisions, especially in the political sphere. A concentration of power in the hands of a few media owners can potentially limit not only diversity of opinion but also free speech. It is a basic tenet of democracy that a diverse range of views be aired. Labor adheres to the principle that regulation promotes the free expression of a diverse range of views.

Of course, the government claims that its package has safeguards to prevent excessive concentration. In truth, these safeguards are completely inadequate. The first alleged safeguard is the five-four voices test. Under this test, a media merger will not be allowed to occur unless there will remain a minimum of five media voices in metropolitan markets and four in regional Australia. The two out of three rule will prevent proprietors from owning newspaper, radio and television assets in the same market. The proposal does nothing to protect diversity in the 17 regional markets where there are only five commercial voices. The revised test will still take no account of the relative influence of different voices.

The other alleged safeguard in the package is the ACCC’s power to examine cross-media mergers to see if they substantially lessen competition. Section 50 of the Trade Practices Act cannot be relied upon as a substitute for the current cross-media laws. The ACCC is a competition regulator; it has no responsibility for protecting diversity. It is not able to take public interest considerations into account in assessing mergers under section 50. In its report on broadcasting, the Productivity Commission stated:

It is clear that the Trade Practices Act as it stands would be unable to prevent many cross media mergers or acquisitions which may reduce diversity.

While the National Party is running around saying that this is a great concession, in reality it offers little additional protection for media diversity. In both metropolitan and regional markets a person in control of a newspaper and a television station would still be able to exercise an unhealthy degree of influence.

One more thing that merits mention is the way in which the government has rammed this legislation through. The bills before the House were the subject of more than 12 months consultation by the minister with the media. The public had just one week to make a submission on the four bills in this package. The Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee was given just three weeks to conduct its inquiry into the legislation, and the government’s rush job on this package continued last week until debate in the Senate was gagged last Thursday. This is indicative of how little the government cares for the opinions of all those people out there or for any constructive debate on this matter. I will certainly answer one question that should have been posed when considering media reform, and that is: what benefit is this legislation to the people of rural and regional Australia? The answer is none. That is all—absolutely none.

This House should be in no doubt about what will happen if the government’s cross-media ownership laws are passed. The end result will be a massive concentration in the ownership of the most influential media in Australia, and it will become harder for diverse voices to be heard. There will be fewer journalists to report on stories of local interest, and that will have a huge impact upon local regional areas.

Again, these bills are destroying the interests of rural and regional Australia. Again, it is left to this side of the House to put forward all the arguments on behalf of rural and regional Australians. We are not hearing those arguments from the other side of the House. Instead, we are hearing time and time again how the government are selling out the people of regional areas. These bills will have a catastrophic effect on the people in regional areas. Within the electorate of Richmond is a vast diversity of local voices, which is one of the many reasons people in my electorate are able to express their opinions in a whole variety of forums right across the board. To see all that disappear and how that will impact upon locals will be devastating, not to mention the impact upon the jobs of locals if we are going to outsource a lot of the news and pull in local content from all over Australia. It will have a huge impact upon those people. (Time expired)

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