Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I would also like to speak briefly on the proposed establishment of the joint committee and the 18 items in the motion—in particular, item (1)(a), which relates to the reach rule for regional and local news. We have some process problems before this chamber tonight and this Joint Select Committee on Broadcasting Legislation is an example of that. The inflammatory language from the minister, with his 'take it or leave it' statement of a couple of days ago, adds to the problems that this chamber has to deal with.

The House of Representatives has a role to play in improving legislation. There are standing orders that establish a proper and due process for the consideration by the House of Representatives of all legislation. I am disappointed to hear the minister in question and the government trying to ram this through, leaving behind issues that are at the heart of this media reform package—and I refer to item (1)(a) of the motion, relating to the 75 per cent reach rule—which in many ways define either the success or the failure of the whole exercise.

The 18 points listed in the motion do not mention the fact that this is not a 24-hour committee, as we were told two days ago, but, according to the terms of reference, it will report by 17 June 2013. My initial inclination of yesterday, when I said publicly that the media reform package was all in or none at all, is where I now end up. In many ways, this motion gives the game up, as far as I am concerned. If we are waiting till June this year to address the key issue of how local and Australian content is going to be dealt with through the new media landscape and in response to the considered convergence review of the last 18 months—if we are just going to park that in a committee for four months—we are now not conducting media reform at all.

I will be damned if I will be part of giving some sort of licence fee reduction to anyone on the way through and somehow dress it up as a media reform package. We deal with it all, including the reach rule, as part of a media reform package. We deal with it with the national interest in mind. We do not get caught up in tactical games of the moment around who is going to do mergers and acquisitions in what businesses, or tactical games around which party is trying to do over which party in an election campaign, or trying to subvert the processes of this chamber and speed the whole process up with take-it-or-leave-it language, or failing to consult with all the many stakeholders involved in what is a substantial media reform package.

From a content providers' point of view, for the first time in a long time they are united in saying, 'We need to do more than is currently being done.' Writers, producers and actors are united in saying, 'This package is undercooked.' Yet you are asking us to rush it through in some sort of take-it-or-leave-it language and you are parking the critical issues of quotas, subquotas, local markets and how the Australian story gets told in the future. You are saying: 'Don't you worry about that. That will get resolved in the future. Let's just get a license fee reduction through and the rest will look after itself.' I will not be a part of that.

In many ways, the motion to establish this committee bells the cat. I know that is the cliched term in politics at the moment, but it does bell the cat that the hard intellectual work has not been done. This committee is going to do what the minister, the government and the consultation process should have done in responding to the very good work of the convergence review. So we do not have media reform on the table at all; what we have on the table is a committee that is going to do media reform and a government that is going to give a licence fee reduction—with the support of the opposition by the looks of it—and not much else.

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