Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield for raising this motion and I would like to add my voice to the chorus of people extolling the virtues of a competitive and informed local media market.

I do not have to tell anyone about the values involved in this debate and I would like to back up exactly what the member of Corio just said in relation to the importance of our regional newspapers to our community. The ability to tackle the big issues facing a nation is different in the regions. While it is important to hold the political players to account in national issues, both social and structural—such as the ice epidemic, domestic violence and infrastructure—it must be handled with its readers in mind.

My local paper, the Townsville Bulletin, has to cover not only the issues such as energy and water infrastructure but also the local issues such as chooks, primary school pageants and swimming carnivals. While this may seem trivial to some, it certainly is not. The ability to be all things to all people is a tough gig. It is something which few can accomplish and fewer understand. The ability to affect a regional community's self-perception and mood should never be underestimated nor undervalued. Sure it is a training ground for journalists who want to be the next Laurie Oakes or Paul Kelly, but it is also home to wise old sages such as John Anderson who can show them the virtue of telling a story and writing for their audience and can show them that there is as much to learn from the publican at Gannon's Hotel in Julia Creek as there is from an exclusive with the Prime Minister—and many times it is probably more interesting and probably has fewer untruths in it. I may rue the day, but I never want to see the day, when locals cannot get a say with letters to the editor or with stories about lollipop ladies or Centrals rugby league. To do that, newspapers must have a strong economic base, good leadership and a strong sense of community.

In this, I would like to draw the tenuous bow and make mention of the proposed changes to my local ABC programming. ABC management have firmly stated that this is not a budgetary change but a programming change. The ABC has come out strongly and announced these changes without consideration of the Townsville market. We in Townsville will get out first hour of breakfast radio from Newcastle or the Gold Coast. This is despite saying that we would not lose one minute of local broadcasting. Our main morning talk show will be cut from two-and-a-half hours, to one hour. It would seem that the ABC has forgotten what the Townsville Bulletin still holds firm: programs such as these, are what gives our community its texture, its colour, its smell and its sound. It is what the regional media is all about.

I do not get a great run in either place. The previous speakers have said that we should be able to just put out our press releases and have them printed verbatim. I cannot see what is wrong with that, because at least you know when it is coming from me it is the truth. These pesky journalists wanting to know what the truth is and finding the other side of the story are wasting their time and they should know better. If they just put it exactly as I said, we would all get along fine.

Decisions made by others miles away—and, in Townsville's case, thousands of kilometres away—must be made with the view that we are an important part of our state and country. We deserve to be treated fairly, and head offices all over the country must understand that it is, indeed, different where we live and we need to be respected by all players. My Townsville Bulletin and my local ABC are vital cogs in my region's psyche, and so it should be. To that point, as busy a man as Rupert Murdoch is—the Townsville Bulletin is owned by News Corp—he came through Townsville because he wanted to see what the new printing press was like. He wanted to see the new offices and see how it was actually working in Townsville on the ground, and that is what the Townsville Bulletin represents.

My seat is only in Townsville, but around Townsville we also have the Ayr Advocate, the Herbert River Express, and the Northern Minorin Charters Towers. Those papers are very important in making sure it is not just about the Cowboys—paraphrasing what the member for Corio just said—it is about our local people, it is about your eisteddfod results, it is about your primary school kids, it is about your junior sport, it is about our community and I think regional newspapers are a vital cog in that. They are a great training ground for journalists, editors, sub-editors and advertising people on the way through. But it must come with a good, solid economic base, and newspapers, per se, have faced a great deal of change in the very recent years and have come through the other side.

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