Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Community radio is an essential element in the jigsaw that makes up our media landscape, offering diversity through a range of voices at a time when there has been disturbing concentration in the mainstream media. As the minister has noted, more than five million people, one-fifth of the population, tune in to the more than 450 community owned and operated radio stations around Australia every week. The details are even more impressive. Close to 700,000 community radio consumers listen to nothing else—not commercial radio, not the ABC, not SBS. The sector argues, therefore—with ample justification I believe—that it provides a voice for communities that are underserved by mainstream media. Notably and importantly this includes communities in rural and regional Australia, Indigenous communities, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, the LGBTIQA+ communities and people with a disability. Thirty per cent of community broadcasters are Indigenous stations.

Community broadcasters were also among the unsung heroes of the pandemic and the Black Summer of 2019-20. They provided essential information targeted at local communities throughout the worst of COVID, helping connect people most isolated throughout the lockdowns. During that awful bushfire summer more than 80 community radio stations offered emergency broadcasts specific to the communities they served. They may well have saved lives.

I've said before that I'm deeply concerned about the impact on our democracy of the reduction of media diversity in our country. In my own electorate of Goldstein there are now no community newspapers, for example. Community radio station Southern FM does a great job keeping the community informed and entertained. I have regularly appeared on its programs to keep the Goldstein community informed of the actions that I am taking in this place.

Having so few local outlets though raises concerns. What we see in Goldstein is repeated across the country. Many local government areas, especially in the country, are effectively news deserts, with no local outlets at all. Community radio strives to fill that void. An in-depth study by PEN USA found that, as communities lost their local news outlets, local corruption increased and the quality of spending decisions by local government was eroded. I doubt that it's a different story in our own communities here in Australia.

According to the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, more than 250 media outlets across the country closed between the beginning of 2019 and March this year—nearly 70 per cent of them were in regional Australia. The transfer of the ownership of APN to News Corp led to more than 100 local print newspapers being shut down. At the national level, News Corp has a 59 per cent share of the metropolitan and national print media market by readership, Nine newspapers have 23 per cent and, in WA, Seven West Media has a print monopoly.

Our metropolitan media outlets no longer have the staff or the corporate knowledge to enable them to effectively report on a regular basis on local councils and their decision-making. Local reporting from reporters with experience and with local knowledge is I think an antidote to dodgy decisions by local authorities. The fact that they're being observed and their decisions are being scrutinised is often enough to stop them thinking they can get away with it.

We should not, therefore, underestimate the value of community radio as an incubator and a launching pad, nurturing the arts and journalism. Here's just the most recent example. Allison Langdon, who is taking over the helm of A Current Affair, began her career as a teenage volunteer presenting programs on 2WAY FM on the New South Wales North Coast. As a matter of fact my story is much the same. I began as a uni student producing and presenting news on 5UV, the University of Adelaide's community radio station, and ended up Washington bureau chief for the ABC. Without that experience and opportunity I wonder whether I would have ever gone on to a three-decade career in journalism.

Community radio has also been critical in the blossoming of Australian music over the decades. Gotye, Courtney Barnett and Dan Sultan are just a handful of the most recent examples. It's highly unlikely that they would have gone on to national, let alone international, success without the support of community radio. Dealing as it does with regulation and licensing, the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Community Radio) Bill 2022 may seem like a niche piece of legislation, but it has important implications for the security, diversity and expansion of community radio, and therefore for the diversity of our media landscape. I commend the bill to the House.

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