Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to be able to speak to the Communications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation and Other Measures) Bill 2017 and the amendments to be moved by the shadow minister for communications. This bill amends a range of acts so as to minimise the regulatory burden on the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors. Labor supported an earlier version of this bill in 2015. Of course, that bill lapsed when the election was called. This bill has been one of the last flames from the unmemorable deregulation bonfire initiated by the then Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, some years ago.

Some may be wondering why the bill has taken so long to reach a second reading debate. Indeed, it was not quite panic that I felt when I noted this was on the program and that I was to be speaking on this legislation. I then saw that I'd actually prepared the first draft of this speech about four or five months ago. It's interesting coming back to a piece of legislation and then reacquainting yourself with the central provisions, particularly with a piece of legislation like this, which is an omnibus bill.

The important issue addressing us today—it was of prime importance when I first prepared this speech—is that schedule 2 of the original bill had been removed. Labor intended to move amendments to remove schedule 2, because schedule 2, in Labor's view, was a bridge too far with respect to deregulation. Labor was going to argue and, in fact, successfully did argue with the government that the complaints handling provisions which were previously in place, which enabled complaints to be properly considered by the industry and then addressed by the ACMA, were appropriate and that this particular deregulation which sought to remove that was inappropriate.

Schedule 2 did seek to repeal part 11 of the Broadcasting Services Act, and, in our view, it was an overzealous and ill-judged deregulation. The effect of that particular amendment would have been to undermine and confuse the current system of broadcast co-regulation, where, as I indicated earlier, industry is the front line for consumer complaints handling, and the taxpayer funded ACMA is the backstop regulator for shortcomings within industry processes. There are also some administrative amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to amend account-keeping and licence fee administration arrangements for commercial broadcasters. These are fairly trivial in effect and really don't need to concern us here today. But it also removes duplicative requirements for licensees, publishers and controllers to notify ACMA of certain changes in the control of regulated media assets and also provides consistent classification arrangements for all television programs, including films, and amends statutory publication requirements.

There's also an amendment to the National Broadband Network Companies Act 2011 so as to permit NBN Co to dispose of surplus non-communication goods. A technical error within the Telecommunications Act 1997 is corrected so as to provide for admissibility of certain evidence in court proceedings. There are some minor amendments to remove the requirement for the ACMA to consult with an advisory committee before declaring a submarine cable protection zone. There are other amendments to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983, the Special Broadcasting Service Act 1991 and the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 so as to make technical amendments.

There are, I'm informed, some very interesting amendments to the Telecommunications Act 1997 and three other acts for the management of telephone numbering to be transitioned from the current arrangement, which is a co-regulatory arrangement, to an industry managed scheme. There is a repeal of 53 acts and the removal of redundant provisions in four acts.

There are amendments to the obligation imposed upon NBN Co to issue and keep a register of statements that they will not be installing fibre in new real estate developments. I'm really indebted to the member for Whitlam for his contribution this morning, particularly about the issues that arise with the rollout of NBN with respect to infill. I know, within my electorate, we're extremely fortunate to use the existing NBN fibre technology, which provides—much to the disgust of my fellow caucus members—400- to 500-megabit connections to domestic premises within Northern Tasmania, and the first commercial gigabit connections to NBN at a reasonable price in the Australian market. You can see how fundamental the installation of fibre is, and will be when you are talking about infill development, which of course is an important town planning consideration.

As I indicated earlier, the bill contains provisions that deal with the disposal of surplus assets by NBN Co. Due to some technical provisions in the law, NBN Co currently finds itself unable to sell surplus assets, such as office equipment and vehicles. Addressing this unintended consequence will assist NBN Co to manage its assets in a more efficient manner. Surprisingly, I'm informed that the bill restores a provision that was repealed by a previous deregulation bill.

Labor's view, as I indicated earlier, is that this legislation is straightforward. It fulfils an important function; it forms part of a rudimentary regulatory housekeeping exercise. Labor is supportive of aspects of the bill that amend unnecessary administrative requirements imposed on industry, and that portion which repeals redundant legislation and/or spent acts. We do give credit to the government for listening to the concerns expressed by the opposition with respect to the repeal of the consumer protection and complaints handling mechanisms within the act. I would like to digress, because, whilst this is nominally a deregulation bill, as I previously indicated, the bill doesn't appear to result in savings to industry. If it is a deregulation bill, it's relatively simple in operation.

It would be remiss of me to not pass comment on the extraordinary changes that have occurred with respect to both telecommunications and broadcasting/datacasting. Of course, that fact that this legislation is in omnibus form and deals with telecoms, broadcasting, datacasting, media regulation, telephone numbering and the installation of fibre within real estate developments emphasises the broad field which used to be described as communications and media. It is a moot point to query whether social media, such as Facebook, Twitter or other platforms, answer the description of 'media', particularly the news media and entertainment. Of course this has been the subject of much debate surrounding the reach of organisations and whether the previous regulation on the extent to which you could have cross-media ownership was appropriate.

There has been absolutely amazing change in the last 10 years. Even in the short time that I've been in this place, social media has been refined, particularly with the pushing of video and other media into the community. That media can be targeted and shaped and the responses received can be taken into account really places an order of complexity on considerations of regulating that industry. And that's before you consider the fact that these very large organisations are, in the whole, based overseas.

As I indicated earlier, this issue was front and centre in other legislation. That legislation dealt with, at the request of industry, the threats presented from new technology. The question which was debated at that time was whether the threats from social media and new media determine the particular response which was sought by industry and in particular the abolition of existing cross-media ownership rules.

At the time I wrote this speech there was a very interesting article written by Margaret Simons published in The Guardian online. It posed the question as to how society will adjust the way it satisfies its information needs in light of the dramatic changes within the communications and media industry. Some of the material in that article is relevant and was relevant to the issue of cross-media ownership, but in some of the remaining time available to me today I would like to focus on the issue of so-called fake news and the potential implications for traditional media and journalism. It's particularly relevant in the sense that the government did listen to the concerns raised by the opposition with respect to the maintenance of the existing complaints regime.

The central tenet of Margaret Simons' article is that journalism still matters. I do agree with that. I think, therefore, there needs to be a robust discussion about the future of, in particular, public interest journalism in a landscape that encompasses both traditional media and social media as we now know it and the forms of other social and other media that are developing or yet to be developed. Deregulation of the industry may assist in resisting what is seen as a threat from new media, but from a public policy perspective it is very important for the public to have confidence in the institution which is always referred to as the fourth estate. Complaint-handling issues may be relatively arcane, but they remain important in ensuring that the public maintains confidence in the operation of the industry.

With the election of the current American President the concept of fake news has been highlighted. We now know that there are dangers associated with the nature of new media, where barriers to publication of information are so low so as to permit any person to publish any information, sometimes with malicious or less than honourable intent. Indeed, we have heard in this place about the fact that there are Eastern European farms that operate to harvest media and then promote that media through social media channels for pure financial gain. That may have the effect of distorting our political process and is something that we need to be mindful of.

Social media has demonstrated that fake news may be amplified to the extent that it drowns out even established media. Who could contemplate that an organisation as powerful as News Ltd could be shouted down by social media? That happens. We see that organisations like Fairfax are under pressure. The traditional print media is under pressure, and of course broadcast media is operating in an environment whereby anybody with a smartphone can broadcast on Facebook Live. The Simons article argues that the prevalence of fake news highlights the importance of good journalism. I argue also that the maintenance of confidence in journalism requires a regulation framework which ensures that good journalism is celebrated and breaches are called out.

So, again, congratulations to the government for maintaining the complaints-handling process within this legislation. As I indicated previously, the existing complaints-handling process supports an 'industry first, government second' approach to facilitate appropriate regulation, whereby complaints are made pursuant to the industry codes of practice to a broadcaster, and the ACMA acts as a backstop if the complainant does not receive a response within 60 days of making the complaint or if they are dissatisfied with the response.

This is a deregulation omnibus bill. As I indicated earlier, it is supported by Labor, with the concession of the removal of schedule 2. It is important that we recognise the environment that we're now operating in and the enormous changes that are occurring. Things that once were thought trivial may become very important or remain increasingly important. I think that the issue of complaints handling is something that really snuck under our collective radar, and it's very important that we ensure that we maintain confidence in both telecoms and the media industry generally.

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