Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

in the seat of Indi. The member for Indi is interjecting as well; I will give a shout out to her once again. It was particularly good to see ABC Regional's commitment to that live broadcast, bringing the stories of that community to a broader audience. I strongly believe and am confident that the growing strength in ABC Regional is something that will deliver many benefits to our regional communities in the future. There seems to be a renewed passion for telling those local stories to a broader audience.

I want to mention one particular program, the Heather Ewart fronted program called Back Roads, which has been, I think, one of the great successes of ABC Regional in recent times. I congratulate the ABC for bringing that program to air. I congratulate Heather Ewart for her storytelling capacity, for her willingness to go out to those regional communities and tell the stories of local people and bring them to a broader audience. It is a terrific program, and one day I am sure Heather will find a Back Roads T-shirt for me so I can promote the program even more heavily than I already do. It is a great program, and just an example of how we do rely very heavily on regional media and the ABC in particular.

In relation to the bill before the House, as I indicated, the changing nature of the media market in Australia has led to three significant amendments being put to the House today. In relation to the abolition of the 75 per cent audience reach rule, much of the legislative framework governing the Australian media was developed when the industry really only had the three main media platforms. As I indicated previously, I worked in newspapers about 30 years ago and then went on to regional television. Obviously, the radio networks in our communities have been important and will continue to be so in the future, but we have also had the near saturation of smart phones, social media platforms and streaming services, which have made the 75 per cent audience reach rule redundant.

The current 75 per cent audience reach rule prohibits a person, either in their own right or as a director of one or more companies, from controlling commercial television broadcasting licences whose combined reach exceeds 75 per cent of the Australia population. In the digital media environment, I, as a member of parliament, can post a video on YouTube and potentially have 100 per cent reach to the Australian population—not that I am likely to get that sort of coverage from any of the videos I would post. It has become redundant to have those requirements in the digital age. Viewers can already receive myriad online video and audio media services such as Netflix, Fetch TV and the streaming services of the metropolitan commercial television services, which do not have these geographical restrictions placed on them throughout Australia. Two of the three metropolitan commercial television networks are already providing those streamed versions of their services, which are available in regional markets across Australia.

What we are seeing from the flexibility now provided by media is that people will view programs in their own time, not necessarily when they are put to air in the first instance. The term 'live to air' has almost become redundant when the consumers will choose a time that suits them when they catch up with their favourite program. They do not go to the scheduled programming time and watch their program when it suits the networks; they watch those programs when they are mobile, perhaps commuting to work by train, and catch up with their favourite programs in that way. This rule has little or no impact on media diversity, as we are already seeing viewers in regional areas receiving the same number of commercial television services and substantially the same commercial television programming, including news, as their metropolitan counterparts, due to their affiliation agreements.

I am concerned about the reduction in work opportunities for regional journalists, cameramen, photographers and producers. Those of us who live and work in regional Australia need to be particularly conscious that there should still be good career pathways and good career opportunities for regional journalists. I put it to the ABC management, in particular in recent times, that there is no reason whatsoever why more senior journalists and more senior ABC staff cannot be located in regional locations. We are starting to see that in the last couple of years, which has been a good move. I reflect on a member of staff in the ABC Gippsland studio, a gentleman by the name of Mark DeBono, who has had a long and illustrious career in regional media. Mark has had the opportunity to be promoted to a position of management within the regional ABC networks, but still has his home base in Gippsland at the Sale studio.

I think with the diversification of media there are more opportunities for some of these senior journalists to remain in the regional locations. It used to be a rite of passage for regional journalists to go to university or do a cadetship—like I did—move to a regional location, get some experience and go straight back to the city for career opportunities. What I would like to see is more opportunities for those talented and experienced regional media professionals to remain in their own communities and continue to progress through the ranks, and I think the ABC is uniquely placed, amongst all the media operators in Australia, to make that happen in regional Australia. I think the opportunity is there, and it is one that the ABC is closely monitoring.

The other opportunity that exists, with the technology that is available to us now, is for a greater diversity of voices to be heard through ABC investment in technology in those studios that are located right around Australia. There is the capacity for members of parliament, like us, or other leaders in regional communities, to have the opportunity to attend their local ABC and be streamed live, such as on ABC 24, which obviously is a service that requires an enormous amount of content. Rather than attending the studios here in Canberra or in Sydney or Melbourne or in other capital cities, there is a real opportunity here to have those voices heard without necessarily having the interviewee travel the distances they may have had to travel in the past. So I think there are real opportunities for regional media, but it is important that we seek to use those opportunities to help establish a better career path for regional media professionals without the necessity of moving to a metropolitan environment.

In relation to schedule 2 of the legislation, which is the abolition of the two out of three rule, and the legislative framework that referred to newspapers, TV and radio—the old media, if you like, although they still have a very significant role to play in the future—the two out of three rule was really intended to prevent a person from controlling more than two of the three regulated media platforms in any commercial radio licence area. It served to restrict those traditional media companies from optimising the scale and scope of their operations and from accessing the resources, the capital and the management expertise in other media sectors. At the same time, other unregulated platforms are free to consolidate and adapt their businesses as much as they like, although they are subject to wider considerations, like the competition rules. From a consumer's perspective, though, the online media is no longer viewed as something that is distinct from those traditional media platforms. Now we are seeing the consumer, the audience, using multiple sources to obtain information and multiple platforms to discover and to access the news. So I think changes to this rule would have a material impact only in the capital city markets and in a limited number of larger region licence areas, where, for most part, the sources of news and information are multiple and widespread, and maintenance of diversity is generally not an issue.

Turning to schedule 3 of the legislation, which relates to establishing new local content obligations, this is something that several members have commented on. I know that the member for Indi mentioned it in her contribution to the House just a few months ago. This is a critical part for those of us who are interested in making sure that regional Australians continue to have access to the local content and the local news that they do value. These new obligations will apply to regional commercial television broadcasters who are subject to what we describe as a trigger event, where, as a result of a change in control, they become part of a group of commercial broadcasting licensees whose combined licence area populations exceed 75 per cent of the Australian population. These new obligations will apply to licensees as a trade-off for the opportunity they will receive to exploit new possibilities and improve the efficiency of their operations. The bill specifies the minimum amount of local content licensees must broadcast each week to applicable local content areas, depending on the type of licence area and whether a trigger event has occurred.

Again, I see huge opportunities for media owners in a regional setting. The provision of local content, I think, is a critical part of their service to the community, but I think it is actually a bankable service, in the sense that people will watch their networks if they are seeing good local content on a regular basis. As someone who worked at WIN Television 20-odd years ago now, Deputy Speaker, the half-hour WIN news service that is provided in our regional communities—in Gippsland in this case—were very well watched and well regarded in the community. It gave them a chance to see the good news and perhaps sometimes the bad news that was occurring in the community. It ensured that people felt they were staying in touch with all the issues in their community. There is a need for local communities to feel part of the bigger mass of the region and I think the regional television networks and regional radio play a very important part in that regard. In Gippsland, we still have local radio stations 1242—GOLD—and 3TR actually doing local football matches during the home and away seasons. That is a real addition to the community's appreciation of sport in the region. So I think these local content rules are important and a valuable addition to the legislation before the House today.

In closing, I commend the bill to the House. I think it is a much-needed step in the right direction. I remain positive about the role of the media in a regional sense and I look forward to support across the chamber for these commonsense and worthwhile amendments.

See this speech in context