Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to stand here today and speak about regional broadcasting and to share the House with you in the chair, Deputy Speaker Claydon, one of my regional neighbours. It is so important. Sometimes I wonder whether, as politicians, we all forget the thrill of what it's like for someone to hear their name on the radio, to see their picture in the paper. We forget how important it is for local people to hear local stories and, more importantly, to be able to share those stories.

I am a proud product of regional education. The University of Newcastle was where I did my Bachelor of Arts in communications. When I was finishing my final year at Newcastle university, I was thrilled to be offered a job at NBN television. For a girl from Heddon Greta it was a dream come true to go and work at the local TV station. In fact, I couldn't believe it.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

Yes, Big Dog was there in those days. He put a lot of kids to bed, member for Moreton. I'm sure he put you to bed.

I then went on to simultaneously work with a great radio broadcaster at a station in those days called 2KO. David Jones did breakfast. I worked with David Jones on that breakfast shift. I used to get up at half past three in the morning and drive from my house at Heddon Greta over the mountain to Charlestown and start work at about half past four. We would be on air from five until nine. Then I would quickly get changed and drive into Newcastle to start my job in TV. You can do that when you're 20. When you're getting closer to 50 it is a bit tiring!

I then went to work for the ABC in Newcastle and 2BL in Sydney. Over the years I have worked for 2GO, CFM, 2hd—the mighty broadcaster that was actually once owned by the Australian Labor Party. I did breakfast on NEWFM. Finally, when I ran for the seat of Paterson I finished in the media at 2NURFM, so the circle was completed. I was back at the University of Newcastle where that station broadcasts from.

I can only tell you how proud I am to have served largely in regional media broadcasting the stories of my community; helping raise the profile of important issues, like PFAS; telling the stories of people like Mary. I will never forget her. She rang me and said to me: 'Meryl, I go out every morning. The first thing I do is switch on the wireless and then I put on the kettle. There it is in my kitchen every day, my extended family.' She said to me, 'And you feel like one of my daughters, because every day I tune in and I listen and sometimes your voice and those voices on the radio are the only other voices I hear in a week.' Can you imagine that?

In fact, I think that these days, in isolation, people living on their own would very much understand that the voices coming out of the radio or the television can provide a great deal of comfort and company in times of isolation, and we've all experienced that.

Even now when I go to public events as a parliamentarian, people still reflect on my time on the radio. In fact, sometimes when they say, 'Gee, you were good on the radio,' I wonder whether it's a back-handed compliment to my parliamentary career! But I have shared so many stories over the years and truly loved it. I have worked in situations involving bushfires. I've helped people navigate their way home when they couldn't gain access to any other navigation to get through. My local knowledge helped people get through bushfire affected areas, especially around the Medowie and Port Stephens areas when those big fires came through there.

I've also worked during floods and natural disasters, and I know that, when the electricity's off and you're relying on a transistor radio and you are hanging on that local information, it is absolutely vital to you. It is the thing that gives you that information. Whether there are flood waters rising near your house or a fire burning towards your home, these are the things that people want when they feel that their lives or their livelihoods are seriously under threat. They turn to their broadcasters, particularly their radio broadcasters.

Regional stations and regional media throughout Australia have long known that change was afoot. They know now that they needed greater flexibility. They could see the great behemoths that are Facebook and Google and the big stations bearing down on them. So it's not as if they haven't been aware and haven't wanted flexibility, particularly regulatory flexibility. They've been calling for it.

So now we have a government that's kind of wading into the regulatory waters but not very deep. Indeed, we should be throwing some of this old, stale water away and providing real reform so that regional media can have the platform it richly deserves to continue to tell the stories that make Australia great. I am pleased that the government has finally started to listen to industry and provide some of these minor amendments. Frankly, it's a little embarrassing when I speak to my ex-media colleagues. They just wring their hands and say: 'The industry needs reform. We know that the earth has shifted. The ground has shifted from under our feet in the media landscape.' This government, which has been at the tiller for seven years, has just, by an infinitesimal amount, changed our course. They need to be swinging on that tiller and really making some big differences. The reform is needed.

We're not opposing the bill, because we don't want to stand in the way of these relatively minor regulatory amendments, but we know that much more is needed. For a long time now, regional Australians have been missing out as a result of this government's abject failure to support regional media. It is important to note that the bill will not lower the amount of local content. This is important, because that local content must stay. Also, I know how much my community love the opportunity to hear stories that relate to them. Regional radio really is like a friendly neighbour, and we know how important friendly neighbours putting their heads over the fence have been in these times. It is so important that people stay connected.

I want to mention The Maitland Mercury. It is Australia's third-oldest regional newspaper; it was established in 1843. This year, for the very first time in its 177-year history, the printing presses ground to a halt. We were distraught, to say the least. For a lot of it, of course, we can sheet the blame home to COVID, but we knew that this was coming long before, and so did the publishers of The Maitland Mercury. They knew that the advertising spend was changing. They knew that things needed to change, and they haven't had the scaffolding. They haven't had the reform that they've needed

For the first time in its 52-year history, the mighty Cessnock Advertiser stopped printing. The office was shut. It is a travesty. We have to keep telling these stories.

Our wonderful masthead The Newcastle Herald has done so much. If we hark back to its history when it was The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate, it has done so much good work. In recent years, with the able assistance of members like Sharon Claydon, the member for Newcastle, it has worked with incredible journalists like Joanne McCarthy and with Julia Gillard to run the Shine the Light campaign, which was able to secure a royal commission into institutional abuse. That has forever changed the lives of Australian people in a real and meaningful way, and that came about because of a regional masthead. Also, when my community, the community of Williamtown and surrounds, started to put pressure on the government, The Newcastle Herald backed us and walked with us for every step of that journey. Journalists like Carrie Fellner were on the story. That led to real and meaningful change, and we pressured the government into providing compensation for those people whose lives have been irrevocably changed by PFAS contamination.

So this is the real power of regional media. This is why we need those journalists to be on the ground, to be hearing stories, collecting those stories and collating the information. It's not just about copy, paste, rinse and repeat. It is about really good journalism—journalism with integrity, knowing the right questions to ask, knowing the right quotes to include in a story and knowing the sources. The only way you know the sources is if you spend time on the ground with them. That's why regional media is so important. It not only tells the stories but holds us all to account. It holds governments to account. It holds politicians to account. Regional media is very important for these reasons, and, when I see tinkering at the edge, it makes me really wonder where the future of our media lies.

I just want to spend a moment talking about the ABC. Of course, I declare that I've worked for the ABC. It was a long time ago now—20 years. It's an incredible institution. When I hear people, particularly members of the National Party, criticise the ABC, I can't help but shake my head, because, for everyone I know who lives in regional, remote and rural Australia, the ABC is definitely a lifeline. Whether it's Country Hour, stock reports or weather reports, they tune into the ABC like their life depends on it, because often it does. When I hear that there are cuts being made to the ABC, I find it soul-destroying. It is our national broadcaster. It is one of the best public broadcasters in the world. The Prime Minister this week has taken a liking to comparing Australia with other countries, saying how well we've done compared to Mr Trump's US or to Britain. Well, I want to say that the ABC, despite incredible and incremental cuts in the last seven years, continues to be one of the most outstanding public broadcasters the world over. It still has correspondents in all portions of the globe. It still provides us with essential news locally. It's still the national response broadcaster when there's an emergency. It is so vital that we continue to properly fund the ABC, not for some perverse political bias that conservatives feel that the ABC has against them but because the ABC tells our stories like no other. It is incredible, whether it's via the radio, as it's done for so many decades, or via the new platforms.

I want to give a shout-out to the ABC in Newcastle. Ben Millington and the team up there have been doing a fantastic job in doing a lot of TV these days. If you're watching the ABC News bulletin in New South Wales and you see more stories coming out of Newcastle, it's because they've been able to embrace the technology and present some more stories. That's the sort of reform that we need to see funded. These are the sorts of reforms that we need to see so that regional media can pick itself up out of the hole it's found itself in and start to flourish again and tell the stories that are just so incredibly important to us all.

In closing, I just want to relate a little story. I think I was 25 and I went to New York for the first time. I'd never been there before. When I saw the bull sculpture in Wall Street, I remember thinking: 'Wow! I've seen that in heaps of movies and on the news, and here it is, in all of its brass glory, in Wall Street.' And it hit me. I thought: 'Oh, my goodness! This is what Americans experience.' It's their local place. They see their stories come to life. When you see one of your stories come to life, when you see something local come to life, it's deeper than it just being on the telly or on the radio or in a movie. It's about our culture. It's about the things that we hold dear. It's about our democracy. It's about our legal systems and institutions. It's the very fabric of who we are. So, when you as a politician pen your next letter to the editor, just remember that. You want to hope that that letters space is still there for you to be able to put an opinion, because those opinions matter. Everyone's opinion matters.

(Quorum formed)

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