Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

It is with some anticipation that I have been waiting to speak on this bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020. Indeed, it is with some anticipation that I have been waiting to see the government's amendments to this bill, which have been hotly sought by stakeholders throughout both the media and the technology sectors.

The bill before the House today establishes a mandatory code of conduct to address bargaining power imbalances between digital platform services and Australian news businesses. It's a significant bill that grapples with big issues. It's a high-stakes bill.

A strong, high-quality and diverse news media sector is essential to a healthy democracy in Australia, and we are all familiar with the challenges that, with the rise of the internet, have arisen for existing media entities and organisations. We've seen a disintermediation caused by the emergence of the internet in print journalism and broadcast journalism. What this has done is it has unbundled the journalistic model that we've relied on for our democracy, really since the mid-19th century. An independent mass media in Western democracies has only been possible because it has been supported by classified advertising and broadsheet advertising in these media outlets. That has been the model. Before that, there was a mass media—in the United Kingdom, interestingly enough—but it was a partisan mass media. It was a mass media that was directly funded by partisan interests: by capital interests on one side and largely by the trade union movement on the other side. That was the dominant model through the 19th century, until we got to this emergence of advertising-funded media. It was the advertising that gave the editorial independence that created the media that we rely on as a trusted part of our democracy.

Now, I am a geek. I love my technology. There's not a new gadget that comes on the market that I'm not at the front of the queue to purchase. But unfortunately what has happened when the internet has hit the media sector is that it has unbundled those revenue sources from the journalism. In the past, when you were trying to buy a second-hand car, you might pick up the classifieds of The Age; now you go to carsales.com. If you're looking for a new property, you don't so much go to the broadsheet advertising or the property insert of the newspaper; you might go to realestate.com.

So there are these disintermediated, unbundled services that have been providing advertising in the past. Increasingly, you see social media platforms providing these advertising services as well—direct advertising through Google Search, for example, or on Facebook. It has totally disrupted the business model that the media we rely on in our democracy has used to produce the independent media that we need. This bill attempts to redress that. Some of the solutions that it proposes, I concede, are not elegant; they're heavily contested, but the upshot is that this code is intended to direct revenue from these new media platforms to the independent journalism, the public interest journalism, that we rely on in a democratic country.

I've seen some people in the technology sector object to this. There's a bit of a trope going around that this bill reflects something along the lines of horse carriage manufacturers seeking to tax automobile manufacturers in order to protect their business. I just really want to emphasise, as one geek to another, that that's not what this bill is about. This is not about one product of the past trying to hold back the onset of a new product replacing it. Unfortunately, while the internet and while these social media platforms have obliterated the historic business models of an independent media, they haven't replaced the public interest journalism that we desperately need in our democracy, and it is entirely appropriate for government to intervene in order to ensure that public interest journalism, independent editorial journalism, remains. Similarly, it is entirely appropriate that government intervenes when we have services that have emerged that have a dominant market power. I used to be a trade practice lawyer; I used to be a competition lawyer. It's entirely normal for government to intervene in these situations.

This bill, similarly, raised a very significant point that we've seen in the discussion leading up to this bill about democratic sovereignty. As the member for Wentworth was discussing earlier in his contribution, these social media platforms—Facebook, Google—are so dominant that they are reshaping our society, not just business models, not just the way things are bought and sold in our world but really the way we engage with each other. They're reshaping our society, and it's crucial, given the influence of these platforms, that the rules on these platforms are set by democratic governments, not by unaccountable corporations, which, sadly, from our position in Australia, are generally based in other jurisdictions. We've seen the kinds of harms that these platforms enabled. I want to emphasise that these are not neutral platforms; these are not platforms that simply exist to convey information neutrally. These platforms exist to make money for their founders. Good luck to them, but democratic countries, democratic societies, are going to have a say in that process. If the algorithms on these platforms are destructive to democracy, governments are going to have a say. If they facilitate foreign interference, governments are going to have a say. If they facilitate violent extremism and hate speech, governments are going to have a say. And, if they destabilise an incredibly important institution of our democracy and independent media, governments are going to have a say.

We've seen some standoffs between social media platforms and the government during the process of this debate, and I don't want to go into the details of the differences there, but I do want to say that, as a fundamental principle, the Australian democratically elected governments will govern and make rules for the way social media platforms operate in Australia regardless of where they are based. Social media platforms are not bigger than democratic governments. That is an important principle for all of us. This being said, I certainly have no desire for these standoffs to reach the point where we have technology platforms exiting Australia. That is not a good outcome—it's not a good outcome for the Australian technology sector and it's not a good outcome for Australians that use and enjoy these services. So, my view, Labor's view, throughout this process is that it's on the government to strike a balance between these interests and to deliver a workable code, a code that ensures revenue recompense is provided by social media platforms to news media in exchange for the value that they provide, while also ensuring the continued operation of those platforms in Australia.

That's why Labor has always been clear to say that we would support a workable code. Indeed, we've recognised the need for government to intervene to address a bargaining power imbalance between news media businesses and the platforms for, frankly, longer than the government has. We called for the ACCC review and the reform to the media landscape that led to this code well before they were initiated by the government and established. We've offered our in-principle support to the government throughout this process.

The code before the House now is a key recommendation of the ACCC, following the 18-month-long Digital Platforms Inquiry. Labor has offered not just in-principle support but constructive support for a workable code since the government announced its intention to introduce a mandatory code in April 2020. Let's be frank here: I think the government overestimated its abilities somewhat and underestimated the complexity of balancing the various equities being dealt with in this bill. The government said that it would have the mandatory code implemented shortly after the draft code was released in July 2020. Well, it's only now before the parliament for debate, eight months later.

Labor is disappointed with this delay, and with the uncertainty that has accompanied it—for media operators, for the social media platforms and for all Australians who rely on those services. This delay, not to put too fine a point on it, has delayed the delivery of much-needed revenue to public interest journalism in Australia, and that's not good for anyone. That's not a welcome outcome for anyone.

Labor broadly supports the provisions of this bill, although we will have some questions in the consideration-in-detail process. We want to get some answers. I just want to make one point here. The bill establishes a framework, the mandatory code, that empowers a minister to designate certain digital platforms or services, the ones with significant bargaining power, and empower regulators to register certain news media businesses in order to bring those parties within a negotiate-arbitrate model. This model allows the parties to bargain in good faith, reach binding agreements or, if this fails, access an independent arbitrator to determine remuneration under final-offer arbitration should the parties be unable to reach an agreement. Tragically, for my sins, I was a telecommunications lawyer in a previous life and I have very significant experience with access-arbitrate models and access regulation. It's not fun and it's not efficient. It is notable that this bill enables parties to reach commercial deals outside the code and that these will be respected by the code. The shadow of the code encourages parties to do that to avoid the pain and suffering of that negotiate-arbitrate model, which, frankly, I don't think any party enjoys being a part of.

It's been encouraging this week to see deals start to be struck between Google and its Showcase product and Seven and Nine. This is a good thing. This is the intended operation of the code. When Labor said that we would support a workable code, these are the kinds of outcomes that we wanted to see—parties getting together and agreeing commercial agreements. The terms of these agreements aren't public, but no doubt the things that they emphasise will differ from party to party. They'll put a different weighting on different benefits and certain non-price terms, and that's the way we want things to work.

We have seen these agreements between the commercial broadcasters and Google. Hopefully we'll start seeing some deals with Facebook as well. But I am particularly waiting to see deals with the ABC. Through this process, Labor has made it clear that if the objective of this code is to support public interest journalism and the crucial role that it plays in our society then this should be something that the ABC is a part of as well. As these arrangements are being negotiated, I do want to see the ABC getting value—and when we say the ABC, that is the taxpayer—for the public interest journalism that it distributes on these platforms. I'm sure that it's coming, that it's in the mail, that they are negotiating, but Labor put down markers very early on in the process. I recognise that the government has agreed with those suggestions and incorporated the potential for the public broadcaster's involvement—and not just the ABC but SBS as well. I am looking forward to those commercial negotiations being made because frankly that's what this bill is about; it's about the future of our democracy, and it's something that I'm really concerned about at the moment.

Australia's information system, the system that we use to distribute information that informs our democracy, is really sick at the moment. Every MP in this chamber will have the personal experience of engaging on social media platforms as a public figure. It is not Habermas's public sphere. It is not an Austrian coffee shop where people are debating matters of high principle. It's not serving our democracy well, the status quo, and any solution for improving the quality of our information system relies on a healthy independent media; they're foundational. They drive us mad in this chamber, and I could spend the whole of my speech at this dispatch box picking nits and criticising journalists for the way they do their job, but jeez we need them not just as politicians but as citizens. Recent events in the United States have reminded all of us that we need to treat our democracy better because there are always consequences when we neglect it and when we undermine it. Eventually a bill comes due. Bills like this make a positive contribution, and I welcome it.

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