Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

This bill amends the Broadcasting Services Act and the Australian Communications and Media Authority Act with a series of regulatory changes for television and radio stations in regional Australia. These changes ease some of the compliance measures for local content without lowering the overall content requirements. As my colleague said, we won't be opposing the bill, although we have some concerns about it.

I wanted to speak tonight about the value of local media organisations to their communities—to regional communities, to country areas, but also in suburban areas. Having a local lens on news and current affairs, on what's happening in the local community, is so important and so valuable, and we really do have to protect it.

In the almost six years that I was Deputy Leader of the Labor Party I travelled all over Australia, pretty much five or six or seven days a week, and on those travels I spoke to many, many fine local journalists, people who could have worked anywhere in Australia. They would have been at home here in the press gallery, they would have been at home in a major metropolitan newsroom, but they chose to stay in their communities because they were so deeply committed to their communities, proud of their communities, part of their communities. So tonight I really wanted to give a shout-out to them, to the phenomenally valuable role that they play in our media universe here in Australia. It is one of the most important things in a democracy like ours to have a strong, vibrant, free and fair media, and so much of that is done at the local level. If we don't have local media, we don't have scrutiny of decision-making at a grassroots level and we don't have that focus of communication, that centre of communication that spreads out throughout our communities and holds those communities together.

Yesterday I spoke to Murray Jones from 4CA radio in Cairns. Murray has interviewed me many times over the years. He is a tough interviewer but he is fair. I think it's great to have people who have that perspective on their local community. I always loved speaking to Martin Agatyn, at 7AD in Devonport, on those trips across Northern and north-west Tasmania, or Brian Carlton. I know Brian is not in Launceston anymore; he has moved to Hobart. There was no fiercer advocate for people who lived in Launceston than Brian. I always enjoyed sparring with him. There was also 101.5 FM in Caboolture and 4RO in Rockhampton. I've got favourites that I've met along the way. What unites them is not that they gave me an easy time, or that it was an easy interview or that they agreed with me; it is that they were so passionately committed to their local communities. You could hear it in the questions they asked and the arguments they made.

When you look at the scale of the crisis that is impacting on regional media at the moment, you can see how very important it is that we do what we can to protect and preserve the diversity of voices that we have in this country. In May, News Corp announced massive changes to its roster of community and regional newspapers. Sadly, 125 newspapers are either being closed or becoming digital only, with hundreds of jobs being lost in the process. This is not a criticism of News Corp; this is what's happening in our media environment in Australia at the moment. Advertising revenue is gone, and it's very difficult. If people aren't prepared to pay for good journalism, they will lose good journalism. This is a tragedy for every one of these towns—towns that will no longer record there own story. They will know longer have a physical memory of their history. Some are losing a particularly long heritage. The Rockhampton Morning Bulletin has been in print since 1860, the Daily Mercury in Mackay has been in print since 1867 and The Northern Star in Lismore has been in print since 1876. No longer will these newspapers, older than Federation itself, be sold by local newsagents—and it's a tragedy.

In total, Australia has lost more than 200 mastheads over the past year, by closure, by merger or by the end of print editions. We almost lost AAP, which is the lifeblood of our media; it means smaller publications can report on events that they can't physically attend or can't physically photograph. In June we learnt that the ABC had been forced to cut another 250 jobs across news, entertainment and regional divisions. Since 2013, after Tony Abbott famously said there'd be no cuts to the ABC or the SBS, funding cuts to the ABC have caused the loss of around 800 jobs from that organisation and reduced the number of hours of factual reporting by about 60 per cent. Funding the ABC is one of the most direct and important ways that the government can help regional media.

It's disappointing to see the speakers list tonight. I would've hoped there would be a list of Nationals talking about protecting the ABC, their local mastheads, local radio stations and local TV content. Sadly, the Nationals have let us down again with characteristic silence when it comes to standing up for the bush.

The crisis in our news media is hurting everyone, from small towns to local papers in our cities. In my own electorate, in the heart of the busiest city in the country, papers like The South Sydney Herald, Star Observer and City Hub are all feeling these financial pressures as well. What I'd like to see is the power of local government, in this instance, supporting these vital local news outlets. Councils, for instance, are among the biggest advertisers in local papers. And yet, in Sydney, the papers I've just named—The South Sydney Herald, Star Observer andCity Hubhave barely benefited at all from the City of Sydney Council's $1.76 million advertising budget. Can you imagine how disappointing that would be if you were running these fantastic local papers, some of them almost entirely run by volunteers, like The South Sydney Herald, for example, which is almost entirely run and distributed by volunteers? You really would think, given how widely read these papers are, that the City of Sydney Council would help them and support them through a mutually beneficial arrangement where the council gets good-value advertising in these local papers. But no.

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance are doing all they can to help people affected by these cuts. Their members are really facing a very strong tide. Our media environment has changed fundamentally in recent years. We all need to do our bit to be better here. The Commonwealth government, of course, should be doing everything it can to ensure that we protect the diversity of media voices in this country. That means radio and television in regional areas. It means local newspapers in regional areas. But we shouldn't confine ourselves to only thinking about regional areas, because your average suburban newspaper is also under phenomenal pressure in an environment where advertising revenue has shrunk dramatically and the big social media companies are trying to make sure that they get away with not paying for news media content.

What's left? What's left is an impoverished public debate and an impoverished record of the history of our nation, because we're not prepared to invest in it. If we lose local media, we will be losing a service that is essential to the functioning of democracy in Australia. Community newspapers record births and deaths. They scrutinise local elections and council budgets. They report on sporting premierships and school awards nights. They investigate development decisions and the people who make them. They look at what we need to do to protect local amenity and local environment. No democracy can survive without this crucial witness. Democracy depends on a flourishing news media with the staffing and resources it needs to do its job properly. The world might be becoming more connected and we might all be more plugged into national and global politics, but so much of our lives is still lived locally. If we don't act decisively, with legislation more serious than this, we won't have anyone left to cover our local communities, and I'm sure we would all regret that.

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