Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

The government might fall to bits. The fragile consensus, which is the prime ministership of Malcolm Turnbull, might fall to bits. But the reforms will still go through. We say that it is simply not true that the 75 per cent is contingent upon every other reform. I ask you to consider this: we accept, and we have accepted for years, that it does not make sense any more that, when a major television broadcaster can stream their content to 100 per cent of the Australian population—and, in fact, 100 per cent of the world population that has access to an internet signal—we persist with a 75 per cent reach rule. We are willing to give that to the government, to the Australian people, today. That can pass through the parliament today.

We have already voted up the reforms in relation to the licence fees. And when it comes to beefing up the local content provisions, we are willing to support those, as well. But, frankly, the government has not made out the case. They rely on the evidence from the Senate committee—the Senate committee which they opposed; the one that they argued against—which at best is perverse on the question of the two-out-of-three rule. It is simply not true that they are all interlinked.

Then we have the minister stand before us today and say, 'If you pass the two-out-of-three rule, you have nothing to worry about because nothing is going to change. Nothing is going to change if you pass through the two-out-of-three rule.' Well, I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, if nothing is going to change why the haste? Grab the three out of the four propositions that we are offering the government to get some real reform through and you will have the support of every member of the Labor opposition.

It is very unfortunate thing that we are seeing a pattern here. We offered the government a compromise when it comes to the backpacker tax. Would they even pick up the phone? No, they would not.

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