David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a good piece of legislation which does something very sensible, which is to allow the very popular website of the Bureau of Meteorology to take advertising. It is good that the previous government intended for this to occur and it is good that the now opposition is supporting it. It is of course unfortunate that the previous government did not dot the i's and cross the t's on this process, leading to the advice from the government Solicitor-General of the need for this specific piece of legislation.

It is important to reflect on the Bureau of Meteorology and the important role that it plays in our society. It is one of the most respected institutions in the nation. It means a lot of things to Australians and it is something that we are all very pleased to support in this place. In the cities the Bureau of Meteorology provides you with information that might be more about whether you need to water the garden, or what to wear, or something relatively trivial like that. But in rural and regional Australia the information provided by the bureau is central to the economic livelihood of literally millions of people around the country. If you are growing crops, running a farm, the weather is one of the biggest factors in determining what is going to happen in your business and you need a robust source of information.

One of the great things about the internet is its immediacy—the fact that information can be updated in real time. Whereas previously people would have relied on the bureau's daily forecasts, now they can go on the bureau's website and there is real-time information about what is happening right around the country. If you are in rural areas that is particularly important because you need to know what to do with your crops on a daily basis and you need to be able to track weather conditions as they change. This is relevant not only from an economic perspective but also from a community safety perspective. We have seen a number of extreme weather events in recent years that have led to floods and fires. The information that the bureau provides about the likelihood of those events is literally critical to the operation of our emergency services.

Emergency services need to know the likelihood of various weather factors combining to produce a bushfire or flash flooding. It is the integrity and reliability of the bureau that is so critical. In my electorate of Banks we have the Georges River, which is one of the great waterways of our nation and the beating heart of the electorate. In times of extreme rain, that river can flood and lead to problems in the sewerage and water systems. The advice provided by the bureau about the likelihood of those events is critical to the Water Board and others in managing potential overflows.

It is good that the previous government moved to put in place what is a sensible economic measure. Those of us on this side of the House are very strongly in favour of sensible economic management. That is not something that we saw frequently from the previous government, so you could sort of say, when it came to economic management from the previous government: online advertising for the Bureau of Meteorology, good; most other matters, bad. It is a sorry tale, a litany of mistakes and errors in the area of economic management. But clearly when it came to this issue of online advertising on the Bureau of Meteorology website, narrow though it is, the previous government made a sensible decision, although they then failed to execute it correctly.

It is an important contrast. Economic management is at the heart of our nation and the government has moved to make important changes to our financial situation to get the budget back on track. Measures like this one, small though it is, do assist in that overall effort. We did see a situation where Labor spending went up by 50 per cent in six years and the budget position went from $50 billion in the bank to $200 billion of debt, with a trajectory of $667 billion of debt—which is two-thirds of a trillion—in the next decade unless this government acts. That is precisely what we are going to do.

The Bureau of Meteorology website is one of the top 50 most popular sites in Australia. In fact, according to Alexa, which is a web statistics company owned by Amazon, it is the No. 46 website in Australia, so it is right up there. This underscores the opportunity here for the bureau to make a sensible effort to get advertising on that site. Some big-name websites are actually smaller than the Bureau of Meteorology's website. Telstra, SBS and The Australian newspaper have less traffic than the Bureau of Meteorology, as indeed does Australia Post and a business that I used to have some involvement with, carsales.com, which is a very large business. The Bureau of Meteorology website is bigger than all of them. The bureau has also done a really good job of providing information in mobile formats. The internet is changing very rapidly, and the consumption of internet content is changing rapidly. Whereas a few years ago the vast majority of internet consumption was at PCs—sitting at a desk—or maybe at laptops, that is changing very fast, and it is all about tablets and mobile devices. Online advertisers are moving to develop products that work well in those mobile environments. That is the opportunity that the bureau will have here.

The online advertising market in Australia has grown at a phenomenal rate in recent years. Prior to coming to this House I spent the majority of my career working in that industry, so I have some understanding of the space. It is now a $4 billion industry. More than a quarter of all advertising in Australia is now on line. That is the opportunity which the bureau can now access. Of that $4 billion, $2 billion is in search advertising. Then there are classifieds—like car sales, which I mentioned before—and over $1 billion in what the industry calls 'general display advertising'. Those are graphic ads that you see on web sites and other display formats.

The bureau is very well placed, not only because of the amount of traffic but also because of the quality and the specificity of that traffic. Advertisers are reluctant, generally, to put their names against brands which are not well known or well trusted, or where there is uncertainty about what might appear. There are some environments on the internet where a corporate brand would not necessarily want its name to appear, but the bureau is the exact opposite environment, because it is an extremely well respected name and it offers a very high-quality, well-respected service.

The other thing the bureau does is provide information on a geographical basis. If an advertiser sees that somebody is looking into the weather conditions in rural WA there is a good chance that they live in rural WA. If they live in rural WA there is a good chance that they are involved in pastoral or mining activities so there is a good chance that advertising of that nature might be of interest. That is why the bureau represents such a potentially attractive opportunity for advertisers.

The task that the bureau and its advisers will now need to address is how to access that market and how to ensure that taxpayers are well served in that process. The general display market—$1.1 billion was spent there in 2013—is the obvious market for the bureau. As the No. 46 web site in the entire nation the bureau should be able to access a reasonable proportion of that advertising. This should not be a trivial source of revenue; it should be fairly meaningful.

More than 470 million people visited the bureau web site last year. The Munro report, back in 2011, which did the initial work in this area, recommended that advertising be taken. In a bipartisan fashion, it was good to see that trial process begin in 2012-13. But we need to talk a little bit about why we are in this position of needing to legislate. The Australian Government Solicitor had to advise the previous government that express legislation was required, because it was not entirely clear that the past enabling legislation was sufficient. That is what led to the litigation that my colleague the member for Swan referred to previously, involving another media outlet.

It will be important that this advertising is done in a sensitive manner. The advertising must be consistent with the interests of the bureau and that that there is no inappropriate content. It will be important that, whilst the bureau does seek the commercial opportunity of this capacity to advertise, it also is sensible about the nature of the advertising that it undertakes.

Under this law, the director of meteorology will have the express power to accept paid advertising and will also have the express power to prohibit advertising that is not in the bureau's interest. So there will not be any uncertainty anymore. It is important, of course, that senior public servants are given the tools they need to act, and that is what this legislation will do.

The bureau does a fantastic job. It is one of the most respected names in Australia. It is good to see a sensible bipartisan approach to this issue. It is a big opportunity for the Bureau of Meteorology. I am sure it is an opportunity that it will pursue in a professional fashion. I commend the bill to the House.

Proceedings suspended from 12:56 to 15:59

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