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

The Minister for Urban Infrastructure, representing the Minister for Communications, has just given a feverish speech which will be much more popular in the boardrooms than in the lounge rooms of Australia. As the shadow minister has pointed out, 61 per cent of Australians oppose the grubby deal that the government has done which has led to these amendments being put before the House today—61 per cent of Australians oppose the grubby deal that has been done by the government to ensure that this legislation comes before the House today.

The minister made a great song and dance about the proposed job-creating benefits of the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017. Well, if mergers, acquisitions and takeovers in the media industry lead to job creation in regional Australia, it will be the first time in Australian corporate history that that has occurred. We know that it won't occur. We know that that is absolute rubbish. We know that job losses are going to occur as a result of the three green lights that this government is giving to mergers and acquisitions in the media industry as a result of this legislation that is before the House because the government has been able to cajole and take the bribes of crossbenchers to ensure a deal could be done. The $60 million so-called innovation and job-creating fund deal done by the Nick Xenophon Team is not a deal they will be looking at very proudly in a few years' time, because we know that there are going to be job losses, we know that there is going to be a close-down in bureaus, newspapers, radio stations and television station studios in regional Australia as a result of this bill. The question we ask is: where are all these people going to be working in regional Australia? We know the answer is that if they are working anywhere, they will be working in the capital cities and not in the regional areas. It is unfortunate that the minister has left the chamber, because we are all very keen to have a look at his new cufflinks. When you give $30 million to a pay TV operator to provide a service that is already being provided by its free-to-air competitors, you have got to say that is one of the most expensive pairs of cufflinks in Australian political history.

If there is an aspect of this grubby deal that requires the most attention, it is the deal that has been done between the government and One Nation to yet again attack and heap scorn on the ABC. There is not a more respected or more valuable service in rural and regional Australia than the ABC, and yet it is the organisation most interrogated, most attacked and most maligned by these people opposite. They bite the very hand that feeds them because in their communities it is often only the ABC that is providing regular, reliable, unbiased and quality journalism to the communities that they represent. But, because there are a few clueless, blockhead knuckle draggers who are desperate to make a political career out of finding conspiracies where they don't exist, they have done this grubby deal for something called a competitive neutrality inquiry. We know what the target is—the target is the ABC and quality journalism. They are not after quality or unbiased journalism; they want a pack of cheerleaders and they won't be happy until they get them.

We reject the deal and all that hangs off it. We know that it will not create one single job in regional Australia. We do know, however, that hundreds and hundreds of journalists, production staff, technicians, support staff and sales people right around the country will lose their job as the mergers and acquisitions sweep their way across the media landscape, all because of the actions of this government today.

See this speech in context