Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I too rise to speak on the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Regional Commercial Radio and Other Measures) Bill 2020. It's a delight to follow the member for Jagajaga, who, alongside the member for Paterson and, I think, also the member for Macquarie, actually cut her teeth on journalism in our regions and feels so passionately about it.

This bill amends the Broadcasting Services Act, and it does so with a range of deregulatory measures to ease the regulatory and compliance burden on regional commercial radio and regional commercial television broadcasters. It has sat on the Notice Paper, I note, for quite some time. Once again, this government has served up regulatory housekeeping when major reform is needed. Once again, this government has dithered at delays on genuine reform when industry is crying out for uncertainty to end. Regional media—including regional commercial radio, regional newspapers and regional commercial television and community television—are in crisis today.

As Labor have said, we won't oppose this bill—we don't want to stand in the way of what are relatively minor regulatory amendments to alleviate regulatory burden on regional broadcasters, particularly in the face of market failure of regional commercial television—but we are concerned that regional Australians are missing out as a result of the government's ongoing failure to actually support regional media. This is late, it's inadequate and it sells regional Australians short.

It's late because the government and everyone in the regions have known about this problem for years. The government has known since at least 2017, but it's only finally getting around to doing something about the issue now. The bill is inadequate because it merely tinkers with the problems in regional broadcasting and media. There are some big problems here, and they will require wholesale reform. But, instead of doing the hard yards to reform the legislative framework, the government is again shifting the deckchairs. All the government knows how to do is to dismantle piece by piece. Finally, this bill sells regional Australia short. It sells regional Australia short because it assumes that, where broadcasters face challenges in meeting Australian content requirements, the answer is to relax the content requirements rather than to assist broadcasters to bridge the gap somehow or to undertake genuine reform to address these structural challenges. When faced with the problem that some regional broadcasters are finding it difficult to satisfy their transmission quota, what does the government do? It looks to relax the consumer safeguard, not support these broadcasters to reach the consumer safeguard.

While the bill doesn't lower the amount of local content that is currently available to regional audiences of regional commercial radio, it does permit a reduction in the number of hours of Australian content on regional commercial television that is currently available to regional audiences. At best, this will only be an indirect and modest reduction in the number of hours of repeat Australian content or simulcast content already available to regional audiences—content that is currently used as filler to make up the hours to satisfy quota. At worst, though, it may have unintended consequences and result in a significant reduction in the number of hours of Australian content available on regional commercial television. This may lead to regional and remote licensees reducing the number of multichannels they carry, particularly if they're unprofitable. Or we could see metropolitan networks further diluting the Australian content they broadcast on their multichannels. Worryingly, we could see regional and remote audiences being deprived of first-release Australian drama, children's or documentary content. It is clear that regional media is facing challenges, partly as a result of the government's failure to keep the regulatory framework up to date, and regional Australians are missing out as a result. The bill does not do enough.

I live in a regional community. I'm speaking in this parliament from one at the moment. I'm very proud to represent the regional community of Ballarat. I know firsthand how important local media is to my community and the communities that I represent. Regional local journalists tell our stories. They examine and inform us about our communities. They report on issues that might not get a lot of attention from the metro papers but which make a real difference to our lives. That has been incredibly important, particularly here in Victoria at the moment as we go through stage 3 lockdowns in the regions—being able to communicate with each other, to tell our stories, to tell the wonderful things that people are doing in the face of really difficult times.

When I look around the country at the paper closures that are hitting regions across Australia under this government, I realise that, while Ballarat has been lucky to keep our 150-year-old major newspaper, that does not mean that we've been unscathed. We've lost 140 jobs with the closure of ACM's print site. ABC cuts have hurt every regional community. Jobs have been lost in commercial media, such as at 3BA, our radio station. We've had our losses, but I know Ballarat and the small towns that make up my electorate are largely still lucky to have a range of locally based news, with proud old newspapers like The Courier; quality small publications like the Ballarat Timesor The Ballarat News, the new online News Corp paper; and a range of community and local papers in other smaller towns that I could name. At the same time, we are lucky to have two local nightly television bulletins, a range of locally based commercial and public radio broadcasters and a strong local ABC that is focused on telling our stories.

Despite the success of our outlets, we're still facing job losses—most recently, as I said, with the closure of ACM printing in Ballarat and the loss of over 100 staff. We see that our news service from 3BA is mostly coming out of Geelong. We see that on WIN TV the broadcast news is mostly coming out of Wollongong. My thoughts are with many of the workers who have lost their jobs, particularly at ACM most recently and across the course of this pandemic. I fear that those won't be the last in regional media in our community.

Regional media across the country has been hit by a triple whammy of digital disruption, COVID-19 and, frankly, a government who couldn't care less. The crisis in Australia's media began long before the pandemic; indeed it is the many failures of the government when it comes to regional media that have left the sector so exposed to these sorts of shocks. These trends have been felt everywhere, but nowhere have they been felt more acutely than in our regions. Regional media in Australia has been pushed to the brink of market failure by this government's inaction, as the bill's own explanatory memorandum actually notes.

Data collection by the ACCC shows that, between 2008 and 2018, 106 local and regional newspaper titles closed across Australia, representing a net 15 per cent decrease in the number of those publications. These closures have left 21 local government areas previously covered by these titles without coverage from a single local newspaper in either print or online formats, including 16 local government areas in regional Australia. Since 2018 it has gotten even worse. According to the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, 200 titles have closed since January 2019. The number of contractions in the Australian public interest news landscape has grown to over 200 since January 2019, according to data from the Public Interest Journalism Initiative's Australian Newsroom Mapping Project. These 200 titles gave people jobs, kept their communities informed and kept local public figures honest. COVID has seen even more closures. Many of these papers are more than a century old. For over a century they've told the stories of their communities, but under the watch of the government they're closing, with many never to reopen.

Media is essential to our democracy, particularly in regional areas, but under this government that doesn't seem to matter. Media diversity in regional and remote areas is at or below the minimum number of voices in 68 per cent of licence areas, and multiple local television stations have closed their doors. On this government's watch, we have news deserts emerging, widespread closures of newspapers, closure and consolidation of multiple television news rooms and mass sackings of journalists. It's a devastating loss for many local communities and for our stories, culture and democracy.

For many regions, the ABC has historically provided a local trusted voice, but in the midst of this crisis the government is actively making things worse by repeatedly cutting ABC funding. Since 2014, around 800 ABC staff have lost their jobs; the Australia Network has been axed; short-wave radio has been shut down; and the number of hours of ABC factual programming has dropped by 60 per cent, drama has dropped by 20 per cent and documentary has dropped by 13.5 per cent. The final report of the ACCC's digital platforms inquiry examined ABC funding and found:

Further, the public broadcasters are not currently resourced to fully compensate for the decline in local reporting previously produced by traditional commercial publishers.

They recommended 'that stable and adequate funding be provided to the ABC and SBS'. The government needs to listen to that report.

Earlier this year the royal commission heard that the ABC saved lives over the summer of fires, but just a week later—a week later—the Morrison government was back with further cuts. These cuts hurt our regions more than anywhere else. The crisis requires a relief response. Labor welcomes the relief announced by the government, but it is inadequate and much more is needed.

While we are not opposing these bills, as I said, I do join with my colleagues in imploring the government to go further and to save regional media; to understand that it is regional voices that are important to be heard, whether it be in this place, in our national parliament, or whether it be in our own homes, to hear those local stories and to provide that opportunity for us to tell those stories to the nation and to the world.

I remember the Liberal government opened the ABC radio station here in Ballarat. It was a terrific day to actually have an expansion of ABC services into our community. To have an ABC regional radio presence in Ballarat was cause for much celebration. We love having it here. But one of the things that was also supposed to happen, and was to happen in regional communities across the country, was that we were, in fact, also going to have a small regional ABC TV studio being able to broadcast people who live in regions and country towns—such as that of even the Deputy Speaker, I suspect—to be able to go into that ABC studio and be able to broadcast our voices to the nation and to the world from our homes. As a direct result of the cuts of the government that work was immediately put on hold. So it's not just about the cuts that the government has given to the ABC and the cuts that we're seeing are shrinking the service, it's the loss of opportunity to expand those services and for the ABC to make up for the gaps—the news services deserts we're seeing because of the collapse in commercial media across the country.

The government does need to act to ensure that regional voices and regional diversity is maintained in this country. So far what we've seen from the government is, again, the tinkering around the edges: no reform, small amounts of work to try and fix problems as they come up, but no real sense about what is important here in ensuring that we continue to have regional voices and regional media across the country.

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