Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am more than happy to come to Australia. We are talking about the growth in the US which we had reported back in September at 2.1 percent. They are hoping that it will go to 2.3 per cent in 2017 and maybe they might get to three per cent in 2018. So it is the complete opposite of what was reported in the media, which goes to the importance of this bill: media diversity.

I will take the interjection from the member opposite: let's come to Australia. So that is the US growth. They are hoping that they might get to three per cent in 2018, which would be the highest growth in the US since 2005. Guess what, member over there? Australia's growth is at 3.3—you asked me to bring it back to Australia on that particular point; I am more than happy to—so when we talk about economic growth, it shows how well Australia is going. This is an example of why we need great diversity. It is clear the member over there simply either does not understand or he has been reading from media outlets that tell him Australia's growth is not going well. If he did his homework, he would realise that Australia's economic growth at 3.3 per cent is one of the highest in the world.

Another example of why the 75 per cent media reach is out of tune and needs to be changed can be seen in an article by Terry McCrann that was published in the Herald and The DailyTelegraph yesterday. He was talking about a story that had been reported widely, in The Economist, on the BBC and SBS and by literally hundreds of news outlets across the world—so easily covering that 75 per cent rule or the two-out-of-three media ownership rule; the control rule. McCrann said in the article that last month the Paris-based International Energy Agency, in its latest World Energy Outlook, stated that 'renewables have surpassed coal last year to become the largest sources of installed power capacity in the world.'

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