Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006. In doing so, I will be arguing against any increase in the concentration of media ownership amongst Australia’s dominant media outlets.

The purpose of the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 is to dismantle cross-media ownership laws. It does so by allowing media owners to buy into other means of communication. The main purpose of this bill is to scrap restrictions that have guaranteed that the major metropolitan newspapers are not controlled by the same people who control the television stations or the comparatively few opinion-setting radio stations. How can the concentration of ownership of TV, daily newspapers and radio businesses within any one company do anything but decrease media diversity?

Analysts all over the country have identified the result of this bill—that is, a reduction in the number of media owners in Australia’s major media markets from 11 to five. As a result of this government’s assault on Australian journalism, we will see the largest players buying up media and making the notion of diversity within Australian journalistic media a global joke. There may be some countries with less media diversity than this government has planned for Australia. They are countries such as Cuba, North Korea, maybe Burma, and the old Soviet Union of the fifties through to the eighties. This is the company we, a free and open democracy, will be keeping with a minimal number of media outlets with a millennium of media dominance to play with.

This debate is taking place in a context of open warfare between this government and the ABC—the diminishing budgets, the accusations of bias, the threats of commercialism. Whether or not there is diversity of media ownership is of secondary interest to this government. Its absolute focus can be seen in this media bill’s Castroesque aversion to diversity of opinion and content.

Monopoly profits enjoyed by some proprietors are quite insignificant compared to the political effect of content control—opinion dominance and hence, as some would hope, something approximating social control and, ultimately, voter preference control. Australia being a democratic nation, let me ask this: who called for this bill? Who lobbied for it? Who supports it in the community, at the kitchen tables and in the lounge rooms and workplaces around the country? Where is the democratic push for the increased concentration of media ownership in this country which already has one of the most concentrated markets among comparable countries? Television stations have a guaranteed business and profitability; they do not need to buy into radio to be commercially viable.

There is a notion that this bill is necessary to enable regional radio stations to achieve greater economies of scale, thus enabling increased returns to be altruistically reinvested in the region through local news production. However, regional radio stations are doing fine. They are not going bust. They are able to cope with the demands of their markets. Where the market demands local content, they provide it. The proposed amendments are not necessary to save them from their own population bases.

In short, this government is out of control. We have seen this in its extreme industrial relations legislation. We have seen this in its delusional dismissal of global warming. We have seen this in its preference for cheaper, overseas workers taking jobs for which Australians should be receiving training. And we see it in this media ownership bill—how this supposedly modern government is delivering the nation’s media to media owners, shoring up the oligarchic industry.

Within my home state of South Australia, specifically Adelaide, we only have one newspaper and, apart from the ABC, only one radio station focused on opinion, news, the progression of ideas and the like—that is 5AA. The single newspaper, the single talkback radio station, the ABC and a few channels are not an awful lot of players to be going on with. But, if there is consolidation in the Adelaide market and even fewer players, it would be yet another indictment of this government’s disregard for the desires of the public and the needs of our nation.

Regarding the digital TV amendment, I want to make a few points on the provision of television services, which every household in my electorate would like to see improved. Whatever any government of the day decides is the best use of available spectrum, it is a finite resource and free-to-air television will always operate within constraints. Apart from any qualitative improvements inherent in digital television, the greater utilisation of spectrum made available to television stations and viewers is certainly in the interests of my constituents and I look forward to a day on which we see full multichannelling by each broadcaster. This day has been drawing nearer for six years. It could have been no later than 1 January 2009 but, unfortunately, it is apparent that the will is not there to make it so.

All free-to-air broadcasters have provided digital services in metropolitan areas since January 2001 and in regional areas since at least January 2004. In this implementation phase, analog programming has been simulcast in digital—same content, same viewing, same everything but perhaps noise or snow. By the end of 2005, ABC digital services reached over 96 per cent of the population and SBS have expected their roll-out to be completed by the end of 2006. Digital Broadcasting Australia have claimed that approximately 87 per cent of the Australian population had all free-to-air television services available to them in digital last year. Given this encouragement, the fact that digital TV had been adopted by something in the vicinity of only 13 per cent of households up to the end of 2005, with the anticipated analog switch-off in metropolitan areas being just three years later, has more than a deflationary effect; it is a ridiculously low figure.

So, digital TV is available to an overwhelming proportion of the Australian population right now, but people have not been sold on the idea of converting to digital. Expert advice is very simple, whether it be from the Seven or Ten network, any other provider or interested party—even the ACCC: give people a reason to invest in new technology. Give them access to something in addition to what they are currently getting or they have no incentive to take it up—no underlying personal gain, no invisible hand, no digital take-up.

Before being motivated to take up digital, you naturally need to know it exists. Two years after digital’s commencement, 21.8 per cent of Perth households had never even heard of digital TV. This is in 2003, with an analog cut-off in 2008. Wouldn’t it have been a different story if the government had put half of its Work Choices advertisements—just half of its $55 million worth of industrial relations propaganda—towards digital take-up, advertising analog’s switch-off date and the benefits of digital free-to-air television, and put something to people that they may have actually been able to learn something from, some accurate information for their benefit?

The government is obviously obsessed at this point in time with other things. Instead of advancing digital take-up, the minister decides to effectively drop it. Instead of pushing forward, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts retreated, admitting her preference to Senate estimates in May 2005 saying that the way the government was progressing the issue of a 2008 switch-off in metropolitan areas seemed unachievable. So maybe we will just leave the date hanging—to be determined maybe sooner or probably later. So, what is the situation now? Ask anyone in the street and they would not have the foggiest. So why would they feel inclined to spend their hard earned money on new technology?

Despite this government’s apparent lack of interest in advancing digital take-up, the inquiry into the uptake of digital television in Australia conducted by the House Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts recommended programming restrictions on multichannelling for national free-to-air networks as soon as possible and no later than 1 January 2007 and for commercial free-to-air networks on 1 January 2008, so that at least those who knew of digital could see some value in it. This bill lifts restrictions on the national broadcasters but only allows commercial free TV to provide a multichannel from January 2009. Restrictions on the number of multichannels a commercial free-to-air broadcaster can transmit will not be lifted until analog is switched off—whether that will be 2010 or 2012. But even with the limited gains regarding viewing choice over the next few years, one restriction remains: no broadcasting of anti-siphoning listed events on multichannels unless it is a repeat or simulcast—that is, no transmission by use of a multichannel that could work around standard programming on analog be played live on a multichannel and increase event viewing. I think this is particularly relevant given the proposed use it or lose it reaction.

We have had interested parties complaining about the proportion of listed events that are transmitted at game time. They complain that it is late, incomplete or omitted from programming. The idea in avoiding such scenarios is to make it inaccessible to anyone without access to a particular subscription service, probably worth $600 per year. So, in order to increase viewing, the suggestion is to take it off free to air and make it available to subscribers of a particular pay-for-view service. The government have wanted to minimise competition for the relatively new subscription TV industry, and their efforts have, I would expect, gone a long way to making subscription TV profitable at this time. But this deliberate and purposeful manipulation of the market to achieve subscription viability is not enough.

The government wants to continue the development of a pay TV skewed sport TV market: a market where free-to-air TV is hamstrung and purposefully prevented from using existing technology and capacity to program events—even certain games within overall events—on multichannel, giving sport fans nationwide an exceptionally good reason to convert to digital and keeping the event on the anti-siphoning list for a long time to come. In a few more years, we will all be digital and wanting to watch the event free to air. But, no, this government wants the anti-siphoning listed games taken off the list and sold to subscription TV: better to have people not be able to watch a game on pay TV than on digital free to air—this is the government’s view.

When the minister says that the antisiphoning list is for protecting events of national importance or cultural significance, I would like to ask her what she is thinking of. I cannot say I agree with every suggestion that has been made by the old Australian Broadcasting Authority on this matter, but even they have recommended, repeatedly, that all games involving Australia’s international soccer team, the Socceroos, should be included on the antisiphoning list. This is the advice that the Australia Broadcasting Authority gave to the minister for more than five years. Most international one-day cricket matches and tests Australia plays here are on the list, every international rugby test is on the list, but every international soccer game, other than the World Cup finals, is not. I would like to ask the minister why not.

Evidently, the ascension of the Socceroos to the world game, Australia’s standing within the international soccer community and the pride that Australians felt seeing the green and gold take it up to some of the best teams in the world—and in fact beat some of the best teams in the world—are not, in the minister’s view, of national importance or cultural significance. As I said earlier, I think two of the criteria for events going on that list are those of national importance and cultural significance. A question that has to be asked of the minister—and she must explain this to Australia’s soccer fans and other sports-loving fans—is why she thinks the Australian Socceroos on the international scale are not of national importance or cultural significance. Time and time again I have asked her to answer this question, but I have yet to hear any answers. It is ridiculous, narrow-minded and insulting to Australian soccer fans, as I have been hearing in the last few weeks since this issue was raised.

The effect of the minister’s view—a view which I must say is wrong—is the public’s loss of our Socceroos, the public’s loss of international games such as the Asian Cup and the loss by SBS and free-to-air to pay TV until 2013. Just at the time that Australia as a nation has witnessed our own team achieve success in the World Cup, just as it has seen young Australians mixing it with the best in the world, the Brazilians and the Italians, and just as the game is getting the attention it both deserves and has seriously lacked over many years—at this crucial point—the Socceroos are taken off the antisiphoning list and lost to free-to-air TV. People are very upset about this and, as I mentioned earlier, many people have contacted my office via email and phone calls about the Socceroos being taken off the free-to-air list and want it back on there at the earliest possible time.

This action of the Howard government shows its ignorance of what the Australian public demand, and it shows its incompetence in dismissing the Socceroos’ national significance. It also shows the Howard government is out of touch. When the Socceroos were playing in the World Cup we all saw the Prime Minister dressed up in his green and gold in front of his TV in his lounge room cheering the Socceroos on and jumping on board—in fact, everyone wanted to jump on board at that time—but where is the Prime Minister now when soccer fans really need his help to ensure that they can continue to see on free-to-air television the Socceroos play on the international stage? Where is he? Nowhere. This government does not value soccer, it does not value Australian soccer and it does not value the right of soccer-loving Australian families to watch our national team on the international stage.

Cricket and rugby lovers do comparatively better with the antisiphoning list and free-to-air guarantees, such as they are. Aussie Rules, on the other hand, is worth taking a look at. AFL games are on the antisiphoning list, so a free-to-air network gets preferential rights to air and Channels 7 and 10 have done a deal to secure those rights. But whether it was the Channel 7 and Channel 10 bid or the joint Channel 9 and Fox Sports bid, we will not see many more games played—live or delayed. Sporting competitions can be cherry-picked by the free-to-air networks and, because they cannot televise all games on their analog stations and are prohibited from televising on a multichannel, they attempt to effectively onsell the games to a subscription service.

Here we have another example of how the government’s restrictions on multichannelling are giving networks no choice but to deprive the viewing public of free-to-air sport. Again in this context, prohibiting sport on multichannels but threatening them with ‘use it or lose it’ penalties is forcing the free-to-air network to increasingly lose sporting competitions central to Australians’ social engagement to pay-for-view subscription services. I fear that AFL, cricket, rugby and soccer—the most popular sports in Australia—have all been targeted. Already many international cricket games have been lost to the antisiphoning list and free-to-air television. More international cricket is shown on subscription TV than on free-to-air TV. This is only because of the anti free TV motif of this government and its prohibition on multichannelling. This is a waste of available technology, a waste of available spectrum and a crime against all young sports fans who have enjoyed seeing their heroes on television and listening to commentaries from Ian Chappell and like greats who impart so much cricket wisdom to those willing to learn.

What we have seen with the Socceroos being lost from SBS to Fox Sports or to pay TV is going to continue with the ongoing restrictions on digital free-to-air multichannelling. Let this be a warning to the other codes, because what has happened to the Socceroos can happen to the AFL, to rugby and to cricket. It will be a devastating day when we cannot see our beloved AFL teams, our national cricket team or our national rugby teams on free-to-air. The sporting public demands more, and it is an indictment of this government that it has not advanced what is clearly in the best interests of the public and the sports. What is in their best interests is to be on free-to-air for all the public to be able to view them—for all the people who do not have the ability to pay the minimum $600 per year for pay TV or to attend sporting games. That is why football was on TV. It was for people who could not attend those games. Many pensioners cannot afford to go to the football and they cannot afford pay TV. Their only enjoyment, particularly in Adelaide, is to watch teams such as the Adelaide Crows or Port Power on a Sunday afternoon on TV. So it will be a sad day when we lose those sports from free-to-air.

These bills are not about the public’s best interests; they are about bleeding the public’s content for the good of a very few companies who are moguls in Australian media and still demand that the government gives them more. Our democracy is at stake on this issue. These bills are not in the best interests of the Australian public. The passage of these bills will reduce media ownership and media diversity. The new legislation will allow ownership of our media outlets to be in the hands of very few, stifling our democracy. We need to encourage media diversity, not constrain the media with fewer players. Australia’s media should not be seen as a commodity, which is what this government sees it as.

In my home city of Adelaide, with only one newspaper and two news radio stations, we will feel the impact greatly when these very few media outlets fall into the hands of the very few. Again, I ask: how can the concentration of ownership of TV and daily newspaper and radio businesses within any one company do anything but decrease media diversity? These bills pay lip-service to the regional areas of Australia. Therefore, I cannot support these bills and I encourage members to vote against them. (Time expired)

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The two bills before us today, the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006, will determine the character of the media in Australia for the next two decades and perhaps beyond. I have drawn heavily on my submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, because I believe in this matter passionately and I argued my case passionately before that committee. I am hell-bent on three things: competition, diversity and a return to localism. Overriding even those things are the notions of freedom of the press, of diversity of opinion and of an informed community, which are not some esoteric concepts. They are real and integral parts of the democratic process. People in regional Australia are just as entitled to engagement with the fourth estate as people in the capital cities are.

The proposed changes under the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill will bring competition and allow media companies to achieve better efficiency while still protecting the diversity of the Australian media. The bills will remove the broadcasting-specific restrictions on foreign investment in the Australian media sector, but they will retain the media’s standing as a ‘sensitive sector’ under the foreign investment policy as well as under the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement. That means that all direct media investment and all portfolio investment over five per cent will be required to be notified to and approved by the Treasurer.

The laissez-faire attitude that has developed under the current Broadcasting Services Act, administered initially by the ABA and, more recently—and, might I say, in a better form—by the Australian Communications and Media Authority has contributed to the deterioration in the quality and diversity of services as well as a concentration of radio ownership. Under the old regime of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, a prospective broadcaster had to convince the tribunal that he or she was a person of good character and repute, had financial capacity, had the skills and expertise to run a radio or television station and could demonstrate an engagement with the community that was to be served. Note that last one: they had to be able to engage with the community that they were to serve.

The auction system that has been introduced more recently has fuelled an unfulfilled commercial expectation, and in the process it has driven up to a ridiculous level the price of radio stations. This in turn has led to excessive networking, a reduction in services and the disingenuous argument from some proprietors that they really cannot afford to have local newsrooms. With regard to that latter point, after paying up to $15 million in a regional market or $105 million, as occurred once in a capital city market, it is farcical for broadcasters to turn around and cry poor about the provision of a newsroom. Even small country stations have changed hands for figures of around $2 million.

Those factors have led to a concentration of ownership of radio stations, not necessarily in individual markets, but rather generically across Australia in specific regional districts. That leads me to my basic premise. If we allow some form of concentration of ownership, what are the trade-offs? If a proprietor can afford to purchase an additional form of media in a market, there should be a requirement to re-establish a newsroom as a demonstration of a serious commitment to that market. How do we avoid the continuation of the current situation? Or should we see this as an opportunity for a renaissance of regional media, rather than a meaningless concentration?

Under the Broadcasting Services Act there was no real control on foreign ownership of radio stations. In fact, other than the two-station rule—that is, two stations in the market—there has been no brake on the number and concentration of radio services that can be held by one organisation. Section 67 of the act has not been used for emergent or unusual episodes but rather as a commercial facilitatory process. Perhaps more importantly, I believe that the ABA failed to uphold the key objectives of the act, which section 3 specifically states as being, in part:

... to encourage diversity in control of the more influential broadcasting services;

and:

... to encourage providers of commercial and community broadcasting services to be responsive to the need for a fair and accurate coverage of matters of public interest and for an appropriate coverage of matters of local significance.

Clearly, that has not been happening—certainly not in regional Australia. These two points are pivotal, in my view, in maintaining and protecting the diversity of opinion and guaranteeing a degree of localism in regional markets. This is particularly crucial in the radio sector.

Another reason for my keen focus on radio is that in the terms of the bill local markets are determined by the footprint of the radio station rather than those of the newspaper or the television station. So, if you like, the pivotal medium is radio. I fundamentally believe that the holding of a radio or TV licence is a privilege, and it carries with it responsibilities. Content must be more than generic, piped, network programming. It should be part of the culture of the region it serves, expressing its ambitions, its expectations and opinions, as well as interacting with the activities in the community and with the community itself—the community of which it is a part. Sadly, much has been lost over the last 15 years, and it is simply not acceptable that people in regional and rural centres should be subjected to a second-class engagement with the fourth estate.

I am pleased that the concept of local content plans has been adopted by the minister. I am also pleased that with those local content plans radio stations, as part of their annual reporting of their statistics and finances, will give a report to ACMA on how they serve their local market. Every three years they will be submitted to the parliament for review so that we can see whether there is localism and whether people are taking the treatment of country people seriously. I believe that these should be not prescriptive documents but simple statements of how the station will engage or has engaged with the community.

In the future, commercial television licensees in regional Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania will be required from 1 January 2008 to provide minimum levels of content on matters of local significance. Local content licence conditions and local content plans would also be required of regional commercial radio licensees where a commercial radio licence is transferred or becomes part of a merged media group, if the format of a commercial radio service is narrowed or where the minister directs ACMA to consider imposing local content provisions. Licensees will have to demonstrate via their local content plan how they intend to meet the local content licence condition and what resources they will have in place to achieve that requirement. Regional commercial radio licensees that have a local content plan in force, as I said before, will report annually. Every three years we will have the capacity to review that in the parliament. Obviously, ACMA will temper its intervention in accordance with the size and capacity of the market. ACMA will also assess compliance of regional radio licensees with licence conditions. That commitment, as I said before, will be reviewed every three years.

The control provisions of the Broadcasting Services Act will be amended to include issues such as the sharing of production and transmission facilities, the sharing of staff, content agreements and financial relationships. I applaud the new emphasis which will be applied to content. That will be further bolstered by ACMA’s new powers. In extreme cases of noncompliance, ACMA will have the authority to issue a new licence. With a serial offender you can have that person fined $10,000 or $15,000 or $20,000 and, if it is a big organisation, it is one day’s embarrassment and a slap on the wrist. But if you end up with another radio station in a market then you may well affect the value of the other radio station by anything as much as $2 million, $3 million or $4 million. That is when people do need to take notice.

I believe it is reasonable that radio stations be required also to broadcast live and local for a set minimum number of hours per day. Before these arrangements come into effect, ACMA will investigate the current levels of local content in regional radio, the impact of the proposed minimum level on licensees and how different types of regional broadcasters will be affected by the requirement. I recognise that this may cause problems in some very small markets. Some of them have spoken to me and my colleagues. There are radio stations making less than $50,000 a year. Some of these new provisions may be difficult for them. As this review goes ahead I would be happy to support a lower threshold of compliance for those in small markets.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Might be too late then, Paul.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it would not. The whole idea of the review is to test how these limits will work. The review will give the minister the necessary background to adjust the levels and the requirement for differential usage across Australia, if it is deemed appropriate.

I think 4½ hours of a 24-hour broadcasting schedule is not unreasonable. That means coming in in the morning and broadcasting from 5.30 or six o’clock, perhaps through to nine or 10 o’clock, when you might put on John Laws, Charles Wooley or Hadley or one of the other network programs from Sydney, then perhaps broadcasting for an hour or two at midday. It is not a huge requirement; 4½ hours is barely one shift for one announcer. Again, I think some of the stations have been quite disingenuous to say, ‘That will force us to close our station.’ I find that very hard to take seriously, quite frankly, especially with one or two of the big networks. But let us say the requirement is 4½ hours.

The other requirement we wish to place on radio stations is to broadcast 12½ minutes a day of locally derived and presented news. That would be five bulletins of 2½ minutes or perhaps six bulletins of two minutes. You would find that most ABC regional stations do that without any trouble at all. On ABC radio in the country at six, seven, eight, nine and 10 o’clock every day you can get a local bulletin. In some of the bigger ABC stations you get them at drive time as well.

What would that mean? We have heard, ‘That will mean we’ve got to put two journalists in every station, and we’ve got to do this and we’ve got to do that.’ I know three stations where there is a part-time female journalist. She starts at about 5.30 in the morning; she does bulletins on the hour at six, seven, eight, nine, 10 and, I think 11 o’clock; and she probably puts one in the can for the midday news before she goes home. She probably does 5½ hours a day, five days a week. That is 27½ hours of a journalist. That is not a huge requirement by any standard, because 27½ hours of a journalist’s wage will not cripple any station—or very few. What it will do is to give people in some of those markets a chance to hear local news, not just to listen to endless piped music or news bulletins of, in many cases, doubtful significance to that community. We have seen some of that on programs like Media Watch in recent times where any sort of thing goes for the bush. The particular girl I was talking about does the news for three radio stations at about 27½ hours a week. So I think we are being handed up a lot of scare tactics.

We are also going to require that those news bulletins cannot be just endlessly repeated. There needs to be an effort to look for news stories around the town: what happened in court that day, what the city and shire councils are doing, what the police have been up to, what is the latest from the local hospital, what is happening in the rural and regional areas, what is happening in local sport and so on. There is no end of sources for local content if people are serious. The minister’s bill requires only five weather bulletins a week. I presume that means a larger bulletin where, if you are on the coast, you would get surf conditions, wind conditions, fishing conditions and all those sorts of things, and the weather and rainfall reports for the various regions in the district.

I would like to return briefly to a point that the member for Hindmarsh raised in his speech. I think that the nub of this legislation is the number of voices in any given media market. I think it would have been intolerable to allow any person in a regional market of six or seven voices to have control of the newspaper, the two radio stations—which constitute one voice—and the newspaper. That would have been, to me, oppressively wrong. It would have given an interventionist proprietor or a zealot editor a chance to really influence three forms of media. It would also have had implications for how diverse and competitive advertising rates are in a particular market. For that reason, I fought very hard right through this whole campaign for two out of three in the country. In other words, you could have any two of those mediums but not all three.

The government, through its party room and in its wisdom, decided to extend that to the capital cities, and I thought that was a great measure. While it will allow some concentration, it will not allow anyone to become a dominant player. Using the case of Adelaide, as the member for Hindmarsh did, there is the Adelaide Advertiser, the three TV stations, radio 5AA, one other news station and a number of music stations. It would have been intolerable for someone to own the Advertiser, the TV station and, say, the talk station or the other news station. Two out of three puts the brake on excesses in those markets—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in particular.

Diversity of sources of opinion on our airwaves, particularly in regional areas, is paramount. It is totally unacceptable for one proprietor to own the triple—as I talked about before—and to perhaps exchange news between the three mediums. Imagine what sort of two-dimensional biased media that could be if someone had control of it or if you had an interventionist proprietor. So I support the four voices view in country areas and five in the capital cities—but with that overriding three out of four rule.

Probity is the final issue. I believe that all companies and proprietors holding radio or television licences must be able to demonstrate a clear and transparent ownership structure. So I applaud the planned introduction of a register of controllers to be maintained by ACMA. The register will identify the controllers of commercial radio and television licences and associated newspapers in each licence area in the event of any ownership changes. It should not be possible for one company or proprietor to exercise, by way of financial or programming control, influence over another proprietor or company. I hope that those things which the minister will be taking on board after the Elmie case will lead to greater probity and will, in turn, ensure that we end up with competition, diversity and localism out of these bills. I commend these bills to the House.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I deliberately took the time to come into the House to listen to the contribution of the member for Hinkler, because I know that he is very genuine in his concerns about protecting diversity in the media, particularly in regional Australia—as I am. We are both from regional seats. I do not question his genuineness in that regard, but I do question his methods. I note that he puts enormous faith in the Australian Communications and Media Authority, but he does not seem to put a lot of faith in the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 per se. His speech was full of caveats, hanging big hopes on reviews. He is now an expert on local radio stations and whether or not a local radio station can afford an extra employee for so many hours a week. I am very pleased he has become so expert in that regard. But, with respect to the member for Hinkler, I do not have a lot of confidence in his expertise on these issues. Anyone who really knows anything about regional radio knows that, without question, local news is revenue negative for a radio station. So already they are behind the eight ball, and one dollar in additional cost puts enormous pressure on the viability of that local radio operation.

This just underscores the government’s approach to public policy and the dysfunctionality of the government at this point in time. You have Barnaby Joyce running off on one tangent and members like the member for Hinkler now fearful of their preselection and therefore muscling up to the government. What happens as a consequence? The government rolls. What happens when it rolls? We get extreme responses, like we have had in radio. No-one is more of a protector of local content in regional radio than I am, but there is a real question of the viability of the new local content obligations this government is placing on those radio stations.

We are talking about 200 radio stations competing in a market not much bigger than the size of Sydney. I think Sydney has 10 radio stations in aggregate. So it is a significant issue for them. Again, while we are already defenders of local content, this is the sort of knee-jerk reaction you get and it is going to put enormous pressure on those radio stations. The member for Hinkler is delighted there is going to be a review, but for some the review might come all too late. So I ask him to reflect on that and I ask his colleagues in the National Party to reflect on that also.

In my own area there is not any problem with local content. Local radio stations like KO FM already rack up about 24 minutes of local news on any given day, and 2HD racks up some 65 minutes. Of course, they are working in a pretty substantial market, the market known as the Hunter region. People in more far-flung areas of New South Wales would not have a market anywhere near that size and will struggle to meet the obligations that the government has imposed as a knee-jerk reaction to the complaints of National Party members.

I intend to devote most of my time in this debate to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006. The bill broadly proposes four things. The first is to permit cross-media merges in any given licence area in this country—in other words, it will unravel the laws put in place by Paul Keating to maintain media diversity in this country. It purports to replace those restrictions with the so-called five-four rule, which, as the member for Hinkler indicated, requires a minimum of five voices, as the government likes to call them, in the four biggest capital cities and four voices in the remaining capital cities and country regions.

The first thing I have to say about that is that it will put a big question mark over the concept of what constitutes a voice. As has been borne out in the Senate committee inquiry, a voice can simply be a music-playing station or a racing station, stations that do not add to diversity in any given market. I will return to those points. The second is to remove specific foreign ownership restrictions in the Australian media sector. The opposition does not have any degree of concern about that concept and would be more than willing to accept that if it were put forward as a separate item in a separate bill rather than being tied to the abolition of the cross-media rules, which of course we oppose.

The bill also purports to put in place additional disclosure laws that are supposedly to add more transparency to media ownership in this country. Fourth, it purports to introduce so-called regional protections, which again is a reaction to the pressure the government has come under from its rural constituency and National Party members in this place. The explanatory memorandum is at pains to point out that all mergers post this law will remain subject to the considerations of the ACCC, and that is a point I want to return to later.

If I did a survey of this place and asked members what the most important public policy issue was for them, you would be pretty certain that they would rate health, education and matters economic—keeping the economy healthy and strong, providing a low interest rate environment, a low inflation rate environment and a high-growth environment for the country. They might nominate other things like specific rural and regional concerns, but if they gave it some thought they would nominate media law. They would nominate media law because, arguably, media law dictates everything that happens in this place. I thank the Prime Minister for reminding us recently about the importance of media diversity when he said:

The strength and vitality of Australian democracy rests on three great institutional pillars …

The first is:

… our parliament with its tradition of robust debate …

The second is:

… the rule of law upheld by an independent and admirably incorruptible judiciary …

And the third, of course, is:

… a free and sceptical press …

Sometimes we do not like to admit it publicly but just about everything that happens in this place is guided by what happens in the media. I can give you a few examples. Not long after the GST was introduced and petrol prices were spiralling upwards, it became apparent that the GST, a tax on a tax on fuel, was adding to the cost of fuel and the burden on Australian families. What did the government do? It now regularly boasts that it further reduced the excise and froze indexation.

Do you think the government would have done that if the Daily Telegraph or the Sun-Herald were not running regular front pages about the prices on bowsers? Of course it would not have. The government would have held fast. It would have dug in and ridden out what would have been a relatively smaller storm. More recently, we saw the so-called energy blueprint. There was this big idea that petrol prices could be held down by the introduction of an LPG scheme. We know how unsuccessful and inadequate that was, but would we have seen a fuels blueprint if petrol at $1.40, approaching $1.50, had not been on the front pages on a daily basis? Of course we would not have. The government would have ridden out the storm.

Even more recently, on the skills crisis, something we on this side have been talking about for many years, would we have seen a statement from the Prime Minister—again, as inadequate as it was—if the media had not played such a significant role in publicising to the Australian community the effect that skills crisis is having on the Australian economy? No, we would not have.

We all know that the role of the media in this place is absolutely critical. Flowing naturally from that, we all know that diversity in the media is absolutely critical. I heard one of my colleagues reminding us yesterday that one particular media organisation could fairly claim credit for both the election and the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government, and no-one in this place could deny that.

The fact is that Australia already has a very high concentration of media ownership. We already have one of the greatest concentrations of media ownership of any country that calls itself a democracy. News Ltd and Fairfax currently control over 80 per cent of Australia’s metropolitan newspapers. Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, owner of Channel 9, currently has television coverage reaching 52 per cent of Australia’s population and has a 40 per cent market share of Australia’s top-selling magazines. This of course is not to mention News Ltd’s and Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd’s 25 per cent each share in Australia’s monopoly pay TV network, Foxtel, and a 33 per cent share in Sky News as well as an interest in Australian Associated Press.

I am grateful to the member for Lowe, whom you can rely upon for research on this issue—because, as we all know, the member for Lowe is quite passionate about media law and its direction in this place—for his analysis of what the passage of this particular bill could mean to media diversity. He says—and I am sure he is absolutely accurate—that the passage of this bill will allow News Ltd and PBL:

... to own every major metropolitan newspaper … most suburban newspapers; virtually every magazine; Channel 9 and Channel 10; Sky News; Australian Associated Press; monopoly pay television Foxtel; and more than 70 per cent of the news and information sites on the internet ...

I note that the second reading speech—and I am sure it was the same speech in both houses—starts by saying:

The communications environment, in Australia and across the world, is experiencing a period of rapid and accelerating change. New platforms are emerging, along with new forms of content and greater levels of interactivity. Media content is now available in multiple forms, on-demand, and to fixed or mobile receivers, providing Australians with an unprecedented level of choice and control in their media usage.

Who really believes any of that? How many people in this country rely on the internet, let alone their mobile phone, as their key source of news information? Very few. And, in any case, as the member for Lowe has pointed out, more than 70 per cent of the news and information sites on the internet will be owned by the two major players. So it is a furphy. It does make the point that the industry has moved on since the introduction of the cross-media laws, but it does not justify, by any stretch of the imagination, putting in place law that allows the low level of diversity we can expect as a result of the passage of this legislation.

In my region, we have seven players in the media now—and the floor is four. Of course, no shortage of experts have predicted a race to that floor. The government is introducing this as a minimum, and there will be a race to that floor. That is what we can expect in the Hunter in the not too distant future—and that is of course bad for media diversity. Since the passage of this legislation in the Senate the CEO of Rural Press has expressed a public interest in both the Newcastle Herald and the Illawarra Mercuryand I welcome the member for Throsby who is walking into the House now, as she has a strong interest in the Illawarra Mercury.

The Newcastle Herald and the Illawarra Mercury are, of course, part of the Fairfax stable—and we all know the emotional attachment between JB Fairfax of Rural Press and the former family empire. It is worth pointing out to the House and acknowledging—in fact, conceding—that there is nothing in current laws that would prevent Rural Pressfrom making a play for the Newcastle Herald. But it is interesting that they have been emboldened since the passage of this legislation through the Senate and the inevitability, unfortunately, of the passage of this legislation through this place.

What would be the scenario be in my region after reducing from, say, seven to five? What would happen, for example, in Maitland, the largest city in my electorate, which now enjoys two daily newspapers—the Newcastle Herald, which is Fairfax owned, and the Maitland Mercury, which is owned by Rural Press? Potentially, there could be a merger and less diversity in news sheet news in the Maitland area. Of course, another potential consequence of that could be the loss of a significant number of jobs. I think the Newcastle Herald employs about 300 people and I suspect that the Maitland Mercury would be fast approaching 100 people. I should say that the Maitland Mercury is the oldest regional newspaper in New South Wales—if not the country. It would be a great shame if that masthead ever disappeared.

I return to my point that the explanatory memorandum is at great pains to remind us that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission remains in this game. How much confidence can we have in that? How much confidence can we have that section 50 of the Trade Practices Act will prove sufficiently effective to stop mergers that lead to too low a level of diversity in this country? I do not think we can have any confidence at all. It was interesting to note that the Chairman of the ACCC, Graeme Samuel, I think on Saturday, came out—muscling up—to remind the media barons that he is still there on guard. But why would he feel the need to warn the media barons that he is on guard? If he has any confidence in the new laws being introduced by the government, why would he feel the need to come out and say that? If he was confident that the test being put in place by the government was going to be sufficient to protect media diversity, he would not have felt the need to do that.

We have seen the difficulty that the ACCC has in determining definitions. What is a ‘market’? What is a ‘substantial lessening of competition in any given market’? It is very difficult. We have additional concerns now and those concerns are contained within the Dawson bill, which is currently in the Senate. It was subject to media publicity today over some apparent deal that the Treasurer is trying to stitch up with certain sections of the business community.

What the Dawson bill proposes is a watering down of the merger provisions that we have in this country. It does so in two ways. Firstly, it intends to get rid of the informal process for clearance under section 50, which is a competition test. Currently, the applicant goes to the ACCC and informally seeks immunity from prosecution for an arrangement that could be seen to reduce competition. If he gets that immunity, he goes off and operates. The government’s proposal is to have a formal clearance process which will, of course, give the applicant something to appeal. The appeal goes to the Australian Competition Tribunal, a body which I could argue—given that the Treasurer has now had 10 years to appoint and reappoint every member of the committee—does not instil great confidence in the community regarding its willingness to protect competition.

Secondly, the government is proposing a new authorisation test. Authorisation is the path you go down if the ACCC decides that you do not clear the hurdle of the competition test under section 50. You make your application on the basis that it is in the public interest to allow the merger to go ahead in any case. The government, under the Dawson bill, intends to do away with the ACCC in that process and allow the applicant to go straight to the Australian Competition Tribunal—a body that I am not too confident is going to give the sort of defence of competition in this country that we would like to see it provide. The Dawson bill has become very important. Now that we have a weaker media law, it is very important to ensure that, if we do not have a stronger Trade Practices Act, we do not allow ourselves to be in a position where we have a weaker Trade Practices Act.

There has been a lot of debate in the papers this week about what Labor might do in response to these laws upon coming to office. There is one thing that is very clear and unequivocal: we will not sit by and allow the sort of lack of diversity in this country that we fear as a result of these bills. We will not stand by and allow a couple of media moguls to monopolise media and news comment in this country. We are prepared to use all of the mechanisms available to us—legislative and otherwise—to restore that diversity if our predictions come true and diversity of media ownership in this country falls to below acceptable standards. Diversity of media goes to the very heart of our democracy. That is why I began by suggesting to members of this place that this is more important than health, education or the economy. If we do not get the media providing fair comment on these issues, we will not have the power to do anything about them in this place.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to participate in this cognate debate on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006. As a member of parliament, I am really surprised that I am debating a bill where the rationale for the changes that have been introduced, particularly in the media ownership bill, has not come to this parliament based on any clamour by the community nor on any empirical evidence which would suggest that the carriage of this legislation would be in the national interest. It seems to me that no-one—other than a handful of media owners—has asked for the changes that we are debating. There is no remotely discernible demand from the Australian people—nor from the people whom I represent—for this parliament to now be debating a change to the existing cross-media rules, nor is there any independent evidence to show that the passage of this legislation is in our national interest. It is quite to the contrary. In the comments I make tonight, I want to show precisely why these changes are not in our national interest.

The government and the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts have failed to advance any convincing justification for why they are pursuing these changes, save to satisfy the interests of some of our noted media moguls. I have heard two arguments advanced in support of the changes. The minister argues that the media ownership bill is designed to allow media companies to realise economies of scale. One might ask: to whose benefit would that be? The media sector in this country, as we know, is highly profitable and it certainly does not require mergers to remain viable. The only result that you could contemplate from these economies of scale, in my view, is a loss of journalists’ jobs in the industry and putting localism at risk.

The other argument that I have heard is that our current cross-media regulation is anachronistic; we are told that the so-called ‘new media’ is rapidly assuming dominance over old media forms. This argument is absolute rubbish. The arrival of websites, the internet and blogs are minute blips on the information radar compared with the influence of traditional media outlets. Labor is not opposing these bills for the sake of opposition. There have been changes in media form and content in this country, but if we were genuine about media reform I think there would be principles that would underpin the changes that we would bring to the parliament rather than just a pandering to the media moguls.

There are several principles that would guide our view of media reform, and I will outline those which I think would be important. First of all, Labor, as a government, would want to promote and protect diversity of opinion by preventing an excessive concentration of ownership. Secondly, we would want to enhance consumer choice and competition in media services. Very importantly, into the future, we would want to provide the industry with a platform to grow and with the capacity to deliver the full benefits of digital technology to Australian consumers across the board.

In all respects, the bills before us fail these fundamental tests of principle. The government argues that diversity is being driven by the proliferation of new media sources and it is using this as a justification for weakening our existing cross-media laws. The concept of diversity, as we have known it in our community, has been refashioned by the government. Traditionally, diversity has been seen in terms of structural regulation of media ownership through cross-media rules, but the government now argues that the concentration of ownership argument is of lesser concern because news and information are more freely available. It is true that media information and news are available more freely elsewhere, and certainly the younger generation, unlike me, avail themselves of these new forms of communication and information gathering. However, that is not to suggest that we should be conflating the issue of content choice with the diversity of viewpoints available to the community at large.

I think a lot of this current debate is really about the refashioning of the use of the word ‘diversity’. I found a quote, which I think sums up the debate we are having on this bill quite effectively. It states:

Some argue for mechanisms to increase content diversity as a trade-off for more relaxed media ownership regulation. In recent debate, this definition of diversity based on content choice has been conflated with the more traditional understanding of diversity based on ensuring a range of opinions and viewpoints in media output. There is certainly a need for mechanisms that promote a diversity of cultural content ... however this is a different policy objective from the promotion of diversity in news, views and opinion through a plurality of ownership and control of the more influential media forms.

In my view, and in the view of those who have participated in the debate already in this House, the issue of Australia’s media concentration is well known. We know for a fact that Australia has one of the highest levels of media concentration among comparable developed democratic countries. The importance of our current cross-media rules is in the number of media outlets which have the power to influence the public debate. The substantial ‘media of influence’ in our country remain the daily newspapers, which set the news agenda, publish editorials, run campaigns and are highly influential in our communities, together with a handful of TV current affairs and radio talkback programs. Any reduction in the number of owners of these important outlets will of course concentrate power in even fewer hands. In November last year a poll conducted by Roy Morgan found that, in the Australian community, 48 per cent of Australians use television as their main source of information, 22 per cent use newspapers, 19 per cent use radio and only eight per cent get information from the internet—so much for the argument that the new forms of media are making our existing cross-media laws redundant.

I am particularly concerned about the impact of these changes on the community that I represent, the Illawarra. We know also from the evidence that regional media in Australia is already highly concentrated. In mid-2005, four companies controlled all but seven of our 36 regional daily newspapers, three regional TV networks held all but four of the 39 non-metropolitan commercial TV licences, and three networks accounted for 61 per cent of our regional commercial radio licences. That is the situation today, where in regions like mine we already have very high levels of concentration.

The bill before us abolishes the existing cross-media rules and replaces them with new tests. But, unfortunately, these tests would allow an even further concentration of ownership. The tests are commonly referred to as the five-four and the two out of three rules. Let us take the first rule—the diversity of voices test. We are told that this will protect diversity by establishing that at least five media groups in the capital cities and four in the regional centres can operate and that no media group, under the two out of three rule, will be able to own more than two out of the three platforms. But it is a very simplistic test which will inevitably restrict diversity and impact on localism in regions like mine.

Let us look at the nature and the effects of these possible mergers under these new tests. I take two hypothetical scenarios. In Sydney, for example, a merger of Channel 9 and the Sydney Morning Herald, while still meeting the five-four voices test, would be given exactly the same weight as a voice as the owners holding the licence for radio station 2KY. You do not have to be a genius to know which merger and which owner would have the decided influence in shaping public opinion, especially political opinion. In my own region, for example, a merger between WIN TV—the only existing television station that produces a nightly news report—and our daily newspaper, the Illawarra Mercury, would hypothetically have the same weight as the radio station, WAVE FM, that operates in our region.

So you can see—and I am really surprised that the Nationals have fallen for this—that these tests will not protect diversity. In fact, they will see a greater concentration that will restrict the variety of opinions and voices we hear locally. They will have a significant impact on the way that the media operates and they will no doubt lead to a reduction in quality journalism. The greatest limitation of the new diversity test, the five-four rule, is that it gives no weighting to the relative influence of various media players. I think that just in those two hypothetical examples you can see that a simplistic five-four rule does not deal with the real issue of diversity.

On top of that, we are told by the minister and the government that the ACCC can act as an additional safeguard against excessive concentration. I have to say that that is open to debate and conjecture and, as we know from earlier proceedings, decisions in the Federal Court. From what I understand of the tests that apply, the relevant market has traditionally been defined as print and TV operating in separate markets. Under the Trade Practices Act, the ACCC is tasked with protecting competition. The commission has no responsibility today for the protection of diversity in media markets. It is not able to take public interest consideration into account in assessing the impact of mergers under section 50 of the Trade Practices Act. This point has been made previously by the inquiry conducted by the Productivity Commission, and I think it has been commented on in much greater detail in earlier contributions both by the member for Hotham and by the member for Hunter.

I am opposed to the weakening of cross-media rules. I do not believe, as the Prime Minister has said, that somehow it is a second order issue. I think it is a vital issue to the functioning of an open and vibrant market for ideas, which underpins a healthy democratic system. The function of media ownership regulation has until now been the promotion of free expression of a diverse range of views. Let me quote the words of the Australian Press Council, which in its submission to the Senate said:

For the effective functioning of Australian democracy, there must be sufficient and sufficiently diverse sources of news and comment to ensure that members of the public are always promptly and well enough informed to make their own judgements about governance, regulation, sport, entertainment or other matters.

The great danger of the bills before us is that the government’s changes to cross-media rules will have the potential to give even more power to some of the most powerful people in Australia. Media diversity is too important to be left to chance. We believe that preservation of media diversity should remain the responsibility of the parliament and its elected members, rather than living in hope that somehow the ACCC or the courts will define that problem for us. People want and need a variety of views and opinions—and the public understand the importance of this issue. In all the surveys I have read, Australians oppose further concentration of media ownership. The owners of the most influential media in our country are in a very unique position to influence public debate and even election outcomes by controlling what people see, hear and watch. These bills are not in the national interest. It is simply not possible to maintain a healthy democratic system without a vibrant, diverse and competitive media sector.

Let me now deal with the argument that the existing laws are anachronistic. I acknowledge that there has been a huge change in modes of communication in this sector but, even so, we know the traditional media forms remain the most significant source of local and national news and political commentary. Today, for example, more than one million people will read the Daily Telegraph and more than 800,000 of them will watch the news on Channel 7 or Channel 9 tonight.

The same companies that control TV and newspapers also dominate the major internet websites. The internet is overwhelmingly a way to source news from known and trusted media companies, so it is not surprising to find that of those who have used the internet 57 per cent visited ninemsn.com, 51 per cent went to the Sydney Morning Herald website, 31 per cent used a News Ltd site and only two per cent visited new media sites like Crikey or Google for their news. So the justification for relaxing existing cross-media rules on the basis that these new media forms are providing the diversity is shown to be a sham by all the evidence before us.

In the time I have left, I want to make a few points about the transition to digital TV. One of the most disappointing aspects of these so-called reforms is the deferring of the difficult digital decisions—postponing the switch-off of analog broadcasting from the end of 2008 until 2010-12. Achieving analog switch-off is a very important public policy issue that has not been given the priority it deserves. One might say that, in all the changes proposed, it seems that the major winners have been the proprietors of the free-to-air programs, who will be able to sit on their spectrum waiting for the analog switch-off, which, on some estimates, might not occur until 2015. They are absolutely terrified of the possibility that new free-to-air players might enter the market.

Australia has made very disappointing progress towards digital conversion, because consumers have not been provided with significant incentives in terms of additional content. The decision to lift the restrictions on ABC and SBS digital channels is very welcome, but we all know that the ABC and SBS both need greater investment of resources and funding so that they can create new content and do what the BBC has managed to do in the UK, where the government has given it the task of building digital Britain. Extra channels and interactive services offered by the BBC in Britain have made an important contribution in generating consumer demand for digital services.

Unfortunately, the new rules contained in this bill continue to limit consumer choice and stifle the development of new digital services. It is a very disappointing and tardy response. Unfortunately, the networks, too, have shown little interest in showcasing the benefits of digital by offering interactive services. These services have largely been quarantined to pay TV. The blow-out in the time frame for achieving analog switch-off provides the existing free-to-air players with the opportunity to rest on their laurels and to have protection from the possibility of a new free-to-air service player.

Relaxing the media ownership laws in the way proposed by the bill not only will have the effect of increasing concentration of ownership but will also lead to a sharp concentration in the ownership of the most influential news and opinion content accessed by Australians in terms of the old media and on the new media platforms. This will harm our democracy. The removal of our existing cross-media rules will result in fewer owners of the media that determine and set the national agenda.

By consolidating political and societal power in the hands of a tiny number of individuals, this bill will see public debate in this country curtailed, thus making our country less democratic. The laws will create an unprecedented threat to the fabric of serious journalism, and the role of the media as the scrutineer of government will also be weakened in this process.

It is for these reasons that I have come to the conclusions that the legislation is not in the national interest and should be opposed. And I urge the government, and particularly the members of the National Party, to reconsider their position and to think seriously about the implications of this legislation, and hopefully support the opposition move to oppose the legislation.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the comments made by the member for Throsby, and oppose the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 and accompanying bill because the government has not outlined a cogent case for change. Again we see the parliament filled with opposition members explaining to the people, via this chamber, why the government has not explained sufficiently the reason for changing the cross-media ownership laws in this country.

In fact, if you were to look at the list of speakers for these particular bills you would see that there are more than 20 opposition members compared with four government members, none of whom are frontbenchers of the government. So, you see, the government is not interested in debating the change. I have to explain to Tories in this place—I have to explain to the conservatives—that if they want to radically alter the laws of this country, their job is to explain why.

If they want to maintain the laws of this country, they may get away with not explaining themselves to the people of Australia, but when they want to radically alter very important laws that regulate media ownership in this country it is incumbent upon them to explain why. They have chosen not to come into this place long enough to do so. That is, in itself, an indictment of this government—a government that is arrogant and has no regard for this place or for the people of Australia—because, as the member for Throsby clearly indicated, this legislation does not arise from a groundswell of concern amongst community members who are suggesting we need to respond to the technological change in media. That is not the reason for the change that has been sought by the government.

This is the third occasion that I have spoken on cross-media ownership laws since being elected to this place. In 2002 and 2003 I rose in this chamber and explained why I did not support the changes that were sought by the government. Of course, the fundamental difference between then and now is that the government has a majority, with the support of Senator Fielding, in the Senate. It has managed to secure that majority and, as a result, it is seeking to ram these extreme laws through both houses of parliament. It is, unfortunately, a travesty.

I agree with all of the comments made by the members on this side of the chamber so far in this debate, but I think it is important to note that, whilst not one member of the executive government wants to enter into the debate on this, there have been comments by ministers in the past about these laws. I would like to make some reference to a couple of comments made by the member for Moreton—now a minister of this government—who is on the record as saying:

My concern is simple. I think people are best served by a diverse range of choices in the media. Diversity is not something that is guaranteed in a deregulated environment because a natural consequence of free enterprise is acquisition. My fear is that if you bring it down to two or three proprietors, you could find the next stage is two proprietors and then the next stage is one.

That was clearly a view held by the member for Moreton when he was a backbencher. We have not heard from him with respect to this bill on this occasion, and we certainly have not heard from him about why he would now hold a different view. I would also like to refer to some comments made by the Minister for Defence. When he was a backbencher, he made a number of comments with respect to these particular laws and his concerns about the concentration of media ownership. He said:

I have no concern at all about Mr Packer gaining control of Fairfax. My concern is that if he does that, without relinquishing some of his other media assets. The average Australian feels uncomfortable with the concentration of media ownership.

That was what the Minister for Defence was willing to say on the record. And he has not chosen to distance himself from those comments and tell us why there is a need for him to vote for these bills. He also said, in a column in his local newspaper the North Shore Times:

A proprietor with a considerable domestic political agenda controlling a television station and a newspaper in both Sydney and Melbourne, not to mention all the outlets for credible business commentary, is not a legacy we should wish to leave our children.

That is what the now Minister for Defence said with respect to these laws. In fact, if these laws are enacted that is exactly what could happen. A proprietor will be able to own, effectively, a newspaper in Melbourne and/or Sydney and a television station. Therefore, clearly, if the minister was correct, it would be something that we would be bequeathing future generations and it is something we should not be proud of. But, of course, we have not heard from the Minister for Defence or any of the other ministers who have been on the record opposing the concentration of the media, to explain why they will come into this place sometime soon and support the bills that we are currently debating.

It would be remiss of me if I did not mention the efforts of Senator Fielding, because Senator Fielding, unfortunately, chose to support the legislation last Wednesday. At noon on Wednesday, Senator Fielding came into the Senate chamber to justify why he would support this legislation. I would like to quote some of the comments made by Senator Fielding, because I find his reasoning questionable at best.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s bizarre, isn’t it?

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Prospect said ‘bizarre’. I think it is a fair construction to suggest that there were certainly some bizarre comments in his contribution on that day. One I would like to refer to is this:

You see, ordinary Australians are busy getting on with their lives. They are working hard to get the mortgages paid, struggling to keep on top of the bills and doing their best to raise their kids and put them through school.

I have no problems with the comments made by the senator there. He goes on to say:

Debates in parliament about who owns what in the media simply do not feature in the day-to-day lives of the Australians we represent.

He goes on to conclude that, because the bulk of the Australian population are too busy, too distracted looking after their children and with the daily requirements of ordinary life, somehow we should not be so concerned. In fact, we represent those people to look after their interests, and just because they are not in a position on occasion to focus on the consequences of legislation in this place it does not remove our obligations to consider the consequences ourselves as their representatives in this place or the other place. Senator Fielding’s reasoning—that somehow because people’s lives are so inundated with the pressures of paying the bills, of looking after the kids and indeed of paying higher interest rates or of being concerned about the extreme industrial relations laws that they cannot consider the consequences of these laws—shows he has no understanding of his obligations as a senator of Victoria to represent their interests.

Which families are beneficiaries of these laws? I can only think of two. Two come to mind at the moment. There might be some others, but the fact remains that Senator Fielding has no understanding of his obligations as a senator if he cannot understand that it is not the job of ordinary Australians to be debating fully the public policies of this country. It is their expectation, however, that we actually look after their interests in this place and the other place. I have to say, Senator Fielding’s reasoning is certainly wanting with respect to that particular matter. He also went on to say:

Are we concerned about greater media concentration because it will boost profits of media barons?

That is not my main concern, but there is an issue there. He goes on:

The concern about ownership is based on the assumption that ownership is the dominant factor which determines content and editorial priorities.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. Those who own the media outlets, if they wish, can have a very strong and very influential effect upon what is determined both in copy and in editorials of print and electronic media. I think for Senator Fielding not to understand the causal link between ownership and output of media outlets shows at best a naivety on his part. Deregulating the market ensures that one media proprietor can have, for example, the Age in Melbourne, the Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney and Channel 9, and for him not to understand that that is going to cause problems for this country shows his lack of understanding. Therefore, it is a travesty that he, in the end, was one of the reasons why these bills will pass the houses of parliament.

I would also like to take up the argument that he makes further in his contribution, where he says:

Another point that is important to make is that, increasingly, news is becoming entertaining. Our talk show hosts and columnists are as much there to entertain as to run any editorial line imposed from above. As I said earlier, the media industry is driven by dollars. This is all commerce.

‘This is all commerce,’ he says. I would have to again disagree with the senator. This is not all commerce. The fact is that there is a big difference between some other businesses and the media. That is why we have laws specifically regulating their interests. I quote the member for Lowe’s comments, because I think he responded very well to the senator’s assertion that it is all about commerce. He said:

Australia’s media should not merely be seen as a commodity that can simply be bought and sold for the purposes of reaching economies of scale or economies of scope. We are not just talking about any commodity but something that strikes at the heart of our democracy.

I think the member for Lowe understands the issue of the concentration of media ownership in a way which Senator Fielding unfortunately does not.

It is very unfortunate that at noon on Wednesday last week the senator representing Family First chose to support the big end of town against the little person in the street. That is the reality that occurred on Wednesday. After some deliberation, I am told, the senator went into the Senate and gave what I think are quite illogical reasons for voting for the bills. The fact is, if I could use a cinematic metaphor, it was high noon. It was High Noon but, unfortunately, unlike the main character in that great classic film, he chose not to stand up to the bandit that returned to town. The bandit, of course, will now be those media proprietors that have the wherewithal to purchase those businesses that will be up for sale. He chose not to stand up for the little person. He chose instead to support the ranchers and the bandits. Unfortunately, he cannot depict himself, I believe, as the representative of the ordinary person in the street, because instead of defending their interests he chose to support the views and intentions of the large media proprietors.

We know that Senator Fielding has sought to cultivate his image since arriving in this place. Senator Fielding would like you to believe that somehow he is there to listen to the arguments purely on their merits, that he will determine them without doing deals. I have to say that there are many questions being asked about why Senator Fielding chose to support the government of the day. There are concerns that some arrangements have been made with respect to his own electoral support, with either media proprietors or the government.

Can I say this on Senator Fielding’s efforts to put himself in a position where he is somehow—to use another cinematic metaphor—‘Mr Smith goes to Washington’: if he thinks he will be depicted as ‘Senator Fielding goes to Canberra’, looking after the little person, then I think, after his display last Wednesday, it is all over. It is all over because, when he was put in a position to determine whether we were going to maintain a set of regulations that would provide diversity in this country, both in the city and in the country, he chose to support the big moguls instead of the citizens of this land. That is the choice he made in turning up in the Senate last Wednesday and voting with the government in order to allow for further control by large proprietors of our media.

The fact remains that Australia will have one of the highest concentrations of media ownership compared with other comparable nations. That is the reality. Senator Fielding certainly managed to assist in that regard by coming into the Senate last Wednesday and determining effectively that the bills will now pass both houses. I think he should hang his head in shame. He has shown no respect for the people he represents. I think that about four or five per cent of the constituents of Gorton voted for Family First, and you would have to say that was a pretty good effort in getting that vote in their first election. And I know quite a few of them—I have spoken with them. I have to say that they gave Senator Fielding the benefit of the doubt. I think that is a fair enough thing. I can understand why, on occasion, people might not want to vote for the major political parties, or choose the Greens or other smaller parties—but I have to say, he has really trashed his brand. He has really trashed the Family First brand by supporting the government with respect to these particular bills.

Senator Fielding is not alone, of course. I know I have given him a bit of stick over the last five or 10 minutes, because I think he has been let off the hook too many times to date. But I think it is also important to note that The Nationals have again shown that they will abandon the bush, that they will abandon the concerns that people have across Australia when the pressure is on. We know what occurred on that fateful day last Wednesday. We know that, yes, Senator Joyce decided to stick with the opposition—and, for that, I will applaud his strength and resilience in maintaining a principled position on media regulation—but where were his colleagues? Where was Senator Boswell when Senator Joyce was quite rightly defending the diversity of media ownership in this country? Senator Boswell was being carpeted by the Prime Minister. Senator Boswell was being dragged into the Prime Minister’s office and effectively was told to vote this bill up. And of course, in the end, for all the talk we get from Senator Boswell at every doorstop he does, we know that he will buckle, as he did. He buckled like every other Nationals senator chose to do on that day—including, of course, Senator Nash, who sought to make a name for herself, making some comments that somehow she was involved in providing some amendments that in some way mitigated the adverse effects of these particular bills—but, of course, in the end, she had a negligible effect on the outcome of this proposed legislation. Indeed, she buckled and sold out the bush, like the rest of them.

In the end, along with the Liberal Party, The Nationals have chosen to support the big end of town. They have not even bothered to come into this place to explain the reasons why change is required, to properly articulate the cogent arguments that are required, I would argue, if you want to radically alter national laws in this land. They have not even bothered to do that. I think that says it all. This government is arrogant and aloof. It is out of touch. It does not understand that, if you want to radically alter the country’s laws, you should come into this place and explain yourself. The fact is that not one member of the executive government has chosen to do so.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not one of them!

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not one of them has chosen to do so. There are four government members on the speakers list to more than 20 from the opposition. You just watch them: the reality is that debate on these bills will be gagged by the government. They will not allow it and they will ram these bills through this House. But, in the end, the Australian people will not forget this—like they will not forget the IR laws, those extreme laws that are affecting the working people of this country. I think the government will pay in the end, as they should, come election time.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I oppose the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 because they reduce media diversity in this country for no good reason and because they have very serious ramifications. The honourable member for Gorton referred to the appalling process that this government has undertaken in the House. I support those remarks and I want to spend a few minutes on them. I also want to spend a few minutes on the appalling process that the government undertook in the other place.

These bills are being rushed through with minimum opportunity for members of the public to make a contribution. They were referred to a Senate committee. That Senate committee was a complete farce. I read in the Hansard that a Liberal senator, Senator Ian Macdonald, agreed that the Senate committee process was rushed. He said that senators on the government side got 90 seconds of questions. I know that Senator Macdonald has recently been relieved of ministerial office, and probably no longer feels restrained to support the government line.

Is it any wonder that you find Liberal senators agreeing that the process was rushed and that the length of questioning was inappropriate when you find that the minister gave the committee just three weeks to conduct its inquiry into these very important bills? Members of the public were given one week to make a submission. This has been in discussion with media proprietors for 12 months, and I do not have a quarrel with that but, if it has been in discussion with media proprietors for 12 months, I would have thought that members of the public, academics, interest groups and think tanks who might be interested in this area of public policy could be given more than a week to make their contribution to the public policy debate.

The committee heard from 30 witnesses in two days. All of us have been to committee hearings. All of us know how long it takes to give a witness a proper hearing. All of us know that a witness should be invited to make a substantial contribution and then have substantial questioning. You cannot do that when you have 30 witnesses going through the process in just two days.

I mention this because it is symptomatic of this government’s approach. This government, having been in office now for more than 10 years, finds it convenient to rush legislation through the parliament with hardly any reference to public debate. I went back and had a look at the last very significant changes that were made to media ownership laws, which were piloted through this House by then Minister Duffy. In 1985 Minister Duffy announced that his department would conduct a study into media ownership laws. In 1986 that report was tabled in the parliament. It was not until 1987 that it was debated and went through the House—a very different process from this government rushing its laws through the Senate committee process and, indeed, not finalising the bills until during the committee’s process. So for part of the committee’s hearings they did not even know the details of the legislation they were meant to be examining.

I have been looking through the government’s arguments to find a coherent rationale for these changes, and I have been searching in vain. Two reasons have been put up by the government to abolish the cross-media ownership laws. The first one is that technology has improved since 1987, that is true, and that people can now access their news through a variety of mechanisms—not only television, newspaper and radio but also the internet, mobile phones and any number of other platforms—and therefore the cross-media ownership laws are anachronistic and no longer required. It is true that the technology has improved but the vast majority of people still access their news through the more traditional mechanisms—television, radio and newspapers.

Last year Roy Morgan Research examined the primary source of news for the Australian population. Forty-eight per cent said television, 22 per cent said newspapers, 19 per cent said radio and eight per cent said the internet. I do not say that the internet is not important and I do not say that it is not a growing mechanism for people to get their news and information from, but nobody would suggest that it has yet rivalled television, newspapers and radio as the day-to-day source of news and information for the Australian people.

But even looking at this internet platform, it is a fallacy to say that people are now getting their news and media from different sources. They are getting it through a different mechanism, not from different sources. The same Roy Morgan survey found that the most popular news internet site was Fairfax, which of course is the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and other important newspapers. Second was the News Ltd site, the publisher of the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, the Australian and others. Next was Ninemsn, which we all know. Fourth was abc.net.au, with 785,000 hits. Then there is daylight. Then comes Yahoo! News, which is run in conjunction with Channel 7, at 290,000 hits. In sixth place comes crikey.com—the only, if you like, new media outlet to have any substantial impact on people getting news and information from the internet. So as important as Crikey, Mumble and other innovative news and political commentary sites are, I do not think even they would suggest that they would rival the likes of Channel 9, PBL and News Ltd as sources of news and information for the vast majority of people.

This is not just my view. Graeme Samuel, the Chairman of the ACCC—one of the few witnesses who actually got to make a contribution to the inquiry—said:

We think the internet is simply a distribution channel. It has not shown any significant signs at this point in time of providing a greater diversity of credible information and news and commentary.

I agree with him. The internet has not shown any signs of that. While it is a growing source, it does not provide the rationale for the abolition of the cross-media ownership laws. I agree with that respected commentator Mr Brian Toohey, who said that news collection and distribution is an expensive and labour intensive process, and that no internet provider in the foreseeable future is likely to have the resources to effectively challenge the existing major media proprietors.

I then searched for other reasons that the government put up to support this legislation. I saw that Minister Coonan argued in the other place that this would enable economies of scale to be realised and that media proprietors would be able to make their operations more efficient. That may be true but at what cost? If two media providers merge and amalgamate their newsrooms, that would no doubt be more efficient, but what does that do for diversity in this country? What does it do for the sources of news and information in regional areas if you have a newspaper and a radio station, for example, having a common newsroom and having common journalists—not having independent thought and analysis but having one set of information given to the public?

What would the impact of this bill be on that diversity? Of course we have the famous voices test. Now there must be five voices in metropolitan areas and four in regional areas. But as other honourable members have commented, this test is absurd. Channel 9 is given the same weight as, for example, the racing station in Sydney, 2KY. They are both regarded as equal voices. What a ridiculous proposition. At the moment in Sydney we have 12 voices, in Melbourne we have 11, in Brisbane we have 10, in Perth we have eight and in Adelaide we have seven. All will be able to be reduced to five under this legislation. In 19 major regional cities and centres throughout Australia, there are six or seven voices. All could be reduced to four under this legislation.

What is the reason for doing this? Do we have a particularly diverse media? Do we have a plethora of outlets and owners? Again I looked at the debate relating to the 1987 changes. Many of us in this House are interested in political history, so I read the Hansard of that debate and came across the views of a small ‘l’ liberal, which are very hard to find these days; you have to look in the history books to find them. Twenty years ago, Ian Macphee, the former member for Goldstein, said:

Now we have the greatest concentration of media ownership of any country in the world—certainly any country that calls itself a democracy.

That was 20 years ago when media diversity was greater in this country than it is now. We had a member of the other side, then in opposition, complaining that we had the greatest concentration of media ownership of any country in the world. He went on to say:

Certainly, we need cross-media laws, of course ... trade practice laws and cross-media laws are necessary to safeguard the freedom of speech.

He went on to cite the example of Kerry Packer owning the Bulletin, a TV station and a radio station, where the views expressed were all identical. Of course, that would be perfectly allowable under this government’s proposed law.

The honourable member for Gorton dealt with Senator Fielding, and he did so very eloquently, so I will not dwell on the matter. But I do want to deal with a particular argument that Senator Fielding put up to justify his support for this bill. He raised what I would consider the furphy that media proprietors do not determine the editorial content in their media, that the Packer family does not determine the editorial views of Channel 9, that Rupert Murdoch does not determine the editorial views of his range of newspapers and other media outlets—for example, Fox News. It is a very courageous view to suggest that the channel that Rupert Murdoch established, Fox News, to particularly push his point of view on political matters of the day does not reflect his views. It is a bizarre view for Senator Fielding to put.

A reality check—a survey by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance—found that 50 per cent of journalists have been required to report in line with their proprietor’s point of view. Other surveys have shown that journalists, even if they are not specifically required, feel some sort of obligation or requirement, even if it is not explicitly expressed, to support their proprietor’s point of view. That might be a political point of view or it might relate to the other businesses owned by the proprietor, where conflicts of interest arise and perhaps a full and fierce exposition of that individual’s business activities is not undertaken by a particular media outlet because it would not be considered to be in line with the boss’s wishes.

Of course, one of the best reference points for this debate comes from the Productivity Commission—a free-market oriented body that traditionally supports less government regulation rather than more. The Productivity Commission looked at this matter in the year 2000. They undertook a very substantial hearing process—they heard from many witnesses and had 300 submissions—and came to the conclusion that cross-media laws should not be abolished unless and until three things happened: one, the removal of regulatory barriers to entry in broadcasting; two, the abolition of foreign interest controls; and, three, the amendment of the Trade Practices Act to provide for media-specific public interest tests to apply to mergers and acquisitions. How many of those things have happened? One out of the three has happened in this bill: the foreign interest controls are removed. The other two have not moved at all. So the Productivity Commission looked at this matter in detail and recommended those three things happen and the government has arrogantly ignored their recommendations.

This brings me to a point about the ACCC. We have heard—not from many people in this House but in the other place—government members argue: ‘It’s okay, the ACCC will be there to protect against inappropriate mergers. The ACCC are the appropriate body to work out who should be allowed to merge and who should not—not this parliament.’ That is what the government say. But, of course, the ACCC have no power to do so. The ACCC can only impose an economic test. They have no public interest test. The ACCC are not authorised to examine diversity in any meaningful manner which takes into account the health of our democracy and the health of the diversity of the media market. They can only examine the matter on a pure economic test. They have to apply a pricing test to say how likely it is that people will convert from newspapers and radio to television et cetera. If you read through Mr Samuel’s evidence, I would suggest that any objective reading of that evidence would bring you to the conclusion that even the ACCC believe that they have no meaningful power to deal with media mergers in any way which takes into account public interest—only that strict economic test. That is why the Productivity Commission recommended that a specific media public interest test be placed in the bill, which this government have not adopted.

In the couple of minutes remaining to me, I want to deal with some related matters in this bill which are not specifically related to cross-media ownership. The first of those is the antisiphoning provisions. I must say that, in my electorate, this is the matter on which I have received more correspondence than any other. Many members of the public are concerned about the government’s attempts to transfer major sporting events from free television to pay television.

There actually would be a way forward on this, I would suggest, that all members could agree on. In fairness, I hope and would like to think that all members in this House would agree that, where possible, major sporting events should be on free-to-air TV. If free to air refuses to show those programs live or close to live then there should be a capacity for pay TV to show them. That is a principle which most of us would agree with, I would suggest.

But the government have indicated that they will be changing the law without reference to this parliament—they do not need to bring it to this parliament—and in a manner which lacks transparency. The minister has refused to indicate what would meet the ‘use it or lose it’ test and has refused to report to this House or the other house on what criteria will be put into place. There is a complete lack of transparency about which programs will stay on the free-to-air list and which ones will be allowed to move to pay TV.

No wonder I have received something like 40 emails from my constituents in the last two days about this. They are very concerned and they have a right to be concerned, because this government and this minister have been less than open and transparent about how this will work. I remain concerned. While I strongly agree with the principle that, if a free-to-air station refuses to show a major sporting event live or close to live and if they buy up the rights just to stop somebody else showing it, of course that should be made available to pay television to try to pressure the free-to-air station into showing it. But we need to be clear and open about how that is occurring. The minister has failed miserably in that test.

There are two other matters I want to refer to. The first is the removal of the restrictions on the ABC’s multichannelling operation. I think that is a welcome thing. This is something that could encourage more people to move to digital television—and that is something in which progress has been very disappointing. The government’s targets have not been met. I think that, if the ABC and SBS were allowed to show more programs on the second station through digital television, that could be something which could encourage more people to move to digital television.

There are very real public benefits in moving to digital television. It opens up more spectrum. It provides savings, and it provides opportunities for other media to come in and use that spectrum. That is something we should welcome and it is something that this government should be encouraging. They have failed to do so. The evidence from the United Kingdom, where the BBC is allowed to broadcast a wide range of programs on its second channel, is that it has played a role in encouraging the move to digital television.

The second matter I want to refer to very briefly is the capacity for commercial stations to go into multichannelling. I fail to understand why that has been restricted to high definition only. All of the evidence is that free-to-air stations would be very interested in multichannelling with standard definition, but the economies of scale do not justify broadcasting in high definition. The government have not justified their restrictions in this regard. I oppose this bill, as we on this side of the House do. It is bad for democracy and it cannot be supported. (Time expired)

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government attempts to sell these laws as reform. I have to say that they are nothing of the sort. Reform is the last thing that the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 should be described as. These bills before us today reduce media diversity, competition and choice. They simply cannot be described as good public policy.

It is often said that variety is the spice of life. I have to say in that case that, if these bills are passed in the House, life will become considerably less spicy with the passage of these bills. These bills will reduce media diversity. Diversity, quite frankly, is essential for the proper functioning of Australian democracy.

When considering the impact of the provisions of these bills, I considered the changes that have taken place in the delivery of media in the decades since the introduction of Australia’s cross-media laws. Since that time, certainly the internet has gone from strength to strength and mobile phones can now receive television programs. Who knows where technology is going to take us next? Also, I think we should have some regard for the speed at which innovation and ideas are now coming to the market and being adopted.

The development of alternative platforms since the days when there was only television, radio and print begs the question: has diversity increased? While many would argue that it has, I certainly do not believe that the addition of new platforms in itself amounts to diversity. Sure, the means by which you consume the media—the platform on which it is delivered—has certainly changed. The diversity increase simply has not occurred just because you can now watch Neighbours on your TV or your mobile phone, or you can access it over the net on your computer. The fact is that the program remains the same—it is only the delivery mechanism that has changed.

The member for Prospect referred to the ACCC’s chairman, Graeme Samuel, who addressed the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. I too would like to quote Graeme Samuel in this regard. He said:

We think the internet is simply a distribution channel. It has not shown any significant signs at this point in time of providing a greater diversity of credible information and news and commentary.

This is further borne out when considering the share of news and advertising on our websites. The top four sites in Australia account for 84 per cent of news and information hits. Fairfax receives about one-third, News Ltd receives just under one-quarter, the ABC receives about 14 per cent and PBL receives nearly 13 per cent of the hits. So the suggestion that the internet provides diversity simply does not stack up. While this may change through time, the question must be asked: will the provisions of these bills effectively create too high a barrier to entry for prospective new media entrants into the Australian media market? Will those entrants actually be curtailed forever? I hope that members opposite bear this in mind when they vote on these bills.

I consider it very fortunate that in the communities of the Liverpool and Macarthur areas we are served by a number of media outlets. In addition to the newspaper, radio and television stations that serve the greater Sydney and suburban areas, the electorate of Werriwa is served by the Macarthur Chronicle, the Campbelltown-Macarthur Advertiser, the Liverpool City Champion, the Liverpool Leader and the Southwest Rural Advertiser, together with radio stations C91.3, 2MCR and 2GLF. These are important sources of local news for communities in the Liverpool and Macarthur areas. It is my view that they do an excellent job of providing high-quality local content. All these media outlets have a very strong and longstanding commitment to their readerships and listenerships. They have become more than the local paper or radio station. They are active in their sponsorship of local charities and local sporting activities. They make sure that local events are certainly given the highest priority as they are reported to the local community.

I raise the case of these local media outlets because I am concerned for their future following the passage of these bills. Much like the prospects of the larger media organisations, it is difficult to predict with any accuracy what might happen over the next few years. But I am concerned that there is a real danger that the newsrooms for local papers, such as these throughout the metropolitan area of Sydney and possibly some throughout New South Wales—or anywhere else for that matter—will go through a process of mergers simply to cut costs. Newsroom mergers have two main implications: the loss of jobs and the loss of local reporting. I have to say, I am concerned about both. I am concerned that there is a possibility that in suburban areas the consolidation of outlets could conceivably result in what once was an excellent local newspaper or local radio station being systematically downgraded until it becomes nothing more than a masthead or station name with little local content at all. These bills could result in, for instance, the Campbelltown-Macarthur Advertiser having nothing more than a front page covering local issues, with the rest of the paper being mass-produced material consisting primarily of advertising. I do not like that sort of possibility, and I am sure that when it comes to this issue local readerships and listenerships would also be similarly disgusted with a downgrade of our media services and support, if that were ever to occur.

The passage of these bills through the Senate has resulted in much speculation about the advent of mergers and takeovers in the media sector and the prospect of anticompetitive behaviour. I have spoken about these aspects on many occasions in this place, but speculation was rife in the media over the weekend about what might happen, who might buy what and so forth. Only today, Mr Deputy Speaker Haase, as you no doubt appreciate from your own reading of the papers, there is speculation about one significant media player and the prospects of the sale of its particular media interests.

At this stage, no-one can reasonably predict the exact outcome in terms of ownership of Australian media assets. However, it is clear that these changes will result in the greater concentration of media ownership both in metropolitan and in regional areas. Australia already has a relatively concentrated media market, certainly by international comparisons. With the passage of these bills it is only set to get worse. In Sydney and Melbourne, the number of owners could, quite frankly, halve and in many parts of regional Australia they could fall by one-third. As I outlined earlier, central to the operation of a fully-functioning democracy is a free and diverse media. These bills are a body blow to diversity and, as such, they are a body blow to Australian democracy.

Australia has had a sound set of media ownership laws for many years now. Australia has not been alone in this. When you look at many other democracies, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Korea and the Netherlands, you see that all have cross-media ownership laws. The removal of these laws will mean that the Australian public, and Australian democracy for that matter, will become dependent on the protection of the ACCC. Speaking personally, I have little faith in this approach to the protection of media diversity. I have little faith in the abuse of market power that will not occur in the media markets, and I do not think the ACCC has the appropriate level of power to prevent this from occurring. We have all just seen, not all that long ago, that the federal government would not allow the ACCC to have additional powers for policing or, at least, conducting an advanced state of monitoring of petrol prices, particularly when petrol prices are rocketing. We have also seen that the changes for small businesses included in the Dawson bill have not found their way into the powers of the ACCC. One wonders whether this government will ever give the ACCC the powers that it might require in the future to protect the Australian economy from abuses of market power and to protect our democracy, particularly as it will now stand under the terms of these proposed laws and as the vanguard of protecting diversity.

Put simply, the ACCC should not be the organisation tasked with protecting Australian democracy. We would not be relying on it for the future if these laws had not been proposed—because, presumably, they will be passed—by this government. Quite frankly, this media ownership bill is an active display of this government very forcefully abrogating its responsibility with respect to media ownership. Senator Fielding described these changes as moving to a ‘different system of regulation’. I agree it is a different system but, far from being a good system, it could only be described as a fundamentally bad approach.

One of the greatest concerns that residents of my electorate have when it comes to the changes to media laws—in addition to their concern about real local content which I spoke about a little earlier—is the antisiphoning list. Ever since the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts announced her intention to prune the antisiphoning list and introduce the ‘use it or lose it’ regime for free-to-air television, a great number of constituents have contacted me to express their concern over the potential loss of major sporting events from free-to-air television. They are concerned that the minister’s pruning of the list may mean that they will be forced to subscribe to pay television in order to continue to watch their football team or cricket team, or any iconic sporting event.

The minister has yet to provide the details of her plan, and I have to say that does ring alarm bells. When members of this government refuse to give details, you have got to be wary, because this is not the first time they have brought down legislation without the full detail in it, basically saying, ‘Trust us; we will deliver.’ In the past, that has not proven to be the case with many of the other pieces of legislation that have come before us in this place. When we are told that the details will be worked out later, we do have something to fear.

On behalf of the constituents who have contacted me and my office—and, by the way, those who have not but are concerned about the prospect of a wholesale transfer of sporting events to pay television—I would like to indicate to the minister that it is absolutely essential that the ‘use it or lose it’ mechanism does not become the backdoor means of slashing the antisiphoning list. As I have indicated, many people in my electorate, and no doubt across the country, do not have a desire to subscribe to pay television or cannot afford it. They basically rely on the antisiphoning list to be able to continue to watch a range of major sporting events.

Senator Fielding said in his contribution to the Senate debate on these bills last week:

More and more families are not reading newspapers and cannot afford them.

While many of the views that he expressed seem entirely at odds with his eventual support of these bills, his point about the affordability of media and entertainment should not be lost: if Australians cannot read newspapers because they cannot afford them, then what hope do they have of being able to afford pay TV to view their preferred sporting events?

To date, the minister has refused to give a guarantee that her plan will not see Australian families having to pay hundreds of dollars a year to watch sporting events that are currently televised on free-to-air TV. I call on the minister to give such a guarantee and to make sure the ‘use it or lose it’ approach to the antisiphoning list will protect the rights of Australians to see major sporting events on free-to-air television. I also call on the minister to make any changes to the regulations subject to disallowance by the parliament. I do not want to see a situation emerge where the antisiphoning list is slashed, possibly back to nothing, with no recourse for the public.

While the negative implications of the changes to the cross-media ownership laws are significant, there are some positive elements, particularly in relation to digital television. I was a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts that was involved in the inquiry into digital television in Australia, during which we considered the means available to encourage the take-up of digital television. Digital TV transmission began in Australia in 2001 and, despite 95 per cent of households now being able to access digital services, depending on their geographic location, the take-up has been extraordinarily slow. The provisions of this bill change the current switch-off date for the analog television system to between 2010 and 2012.

In addition, I welcome the provisions of the bill that free up the genre restrictions on the ABC and the SBS multichannels, something the committee also recommended. But it is a disappointment, to me at least, that in the medium term restrictions will remain on televising sport on the antisiphoning list unless it has already been shown on the main ABC or SBS channel, or is being shown simultaneously on the main channels.

The bill has other aspects that are positive for consumers, but it also reflects some compromises designed to appease powerful commercial interests. I am not convinced that the provisions of this bill will dramatically lift the take-up of digital television before commercial broadcasters are able to commence standard definition multichannelling somewhere in the vicinity of 2009.

National Party members seriously believe that they have protected regional media by selling out for a few minutes of local news content. They were also under the mistaken impression that they had protected regional Australia from the ravages of the sale of Telstra and, similarly, that they had gained great concessions on industrial relations. All have proved to be worth nought. Why then should anyone believe that what they have achieved here is any different? If National Party members value diversity, local content and regional media outlets then they should do what their conscience dictates on this; they should join with Labor members and oppose this bill.

I believe in diversity and a vibrant media. I do not believe that the minister should be able to use the review of the antisiphoning list to exclude people from watching major sporting events on television, and I am concerned about the future of suburban media outlets and the role that they play in our local communities. The content of these bills is a threat to Australia’s democracy and culture. I agree that media laws cannot remain static, particularly if technology continues to advance at its current pace. While media laws, like any other laws, need to evolve, I do not believe that the time has come that the Australian media is diverse enough to justify the provisions we have before us. For those reasons, I oppose the bill.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006. This bill would remove the current rules which prevent the common ownership of newspapers, radio and television stations in the same media market. People listening to this debate might wonder: what on earth is all the fuss about; why is Labor so adamantly opposed to changes to the cross-media ownership laws? Any change to media ownership in this country, any concentration of media ownership in this country, changes what happens and what is said in our media. It changes editorial opinion, it changes views and it concentrates views and opinions in our media. The less media opinion, the fewer voices you have speaking to the Australian public and the less opportunity for the Australian public to participate in our democracy and learn about what is happening within this parliament. If you only have the concentration of a few voices and a few editorial opinions, you do not necessarily get the full picture of what is happening across a number of issues.

This bill tries to impose a five voices in metropolitan media test and a four voices in regional centres test for media mergers. Media mergers will be allowed as long as five commercial media voices remain in mainland state capital markets or four voices in regional markets. But the definition of what constitutes a voice is extremely broad. It includes a television licensee, a radio licensee, a newspaper associated with that radio licence area or a company that includes any combination of those assets. The practicality of this in some areas is that a voice could include, for example, a racing broadcaster—that is all that particular licensee does—a sports broadcaster or they could just have a licence for a music station.

Whilst I support the need for race calls for people in the electorate of Ballarat, as someone who supports and likes the racing industry, it is hardly a diverse source of news or current affairs. The government’s two out of three rule coupled with the idea that racing broadcasters constitute a current affairs or news voice mean that a media owner could theoretically own the only general news media in a community by merging the newspaper and a television station.

In exchange for this weakening of diversity, the Howard government is proposing new licensee conditions that relate to local content. The National Party, whose support has been bought for this bill, have agreed to these new conditions, and, quite frankly, have been sold a pup. The government has tried to sell them a pup on the issue of local content to get them to support this bill.

This bill also seeks to abolish the foreign ownership provisions in the current Broadcasting Services Act. There are five main reasons why I oppose this bill and its radical changes to Australia’s media industry. Firstly, the bill is not about media diversity. Despite the government’s rhetoric about diversity, this bill does nothing to protect media diversity; it is more about cosying up to the big media interests and getting them on side before the next election. Secondly, the bill will, in fact, reduce diversity. That anyone could possibly argue that going from 12 to six owners in Sydney, or six to four in the case of my own electorate of Ballarat, would increase diversity is a disgraceful misrepresentation of reality. That reduction in our diversity is bad for our democracy.

Thirdly, under this bill we will see a reduction of local content. While schedule 2 imposes obligations on regional radio broadcasters to broadcast minimum levels of local news and other types of local content, the reality once again diverges from the rhetoric. Local content will suffer as fewer owners mean greater consolidation of newsrooms, fewer journalists and less competition in local markets. Fourthly, this bill is bad for regional areas. It will have a significant impact on media diversity in regional areas. A reduction in media owners will see newsrooms close—and the associated advertising and employment that it generates will be reduced—radio stations potentially merged and newspapers slashing both their administrative and their journalistic staff. These are highly specialised and well paid jobs and they are not easily replaced in regional communities.

Finally, I stand against this bill in the hope that it may encourage some of the members of the National Party who claim to represent regional Australia to develop a backbone for once. The electors in rural and regional Australia deserve better representation in this House than what they have got from the Nationals currently, who have done nothing for regional Australia by supporting this bill in the Senate.

To return to my first point, this bill is not about increasing or even protecting diversity in the Australian media market. We should remember that this is not the first time that we have debated this bill in this place. It is not the first time that the Howard government has tried to change the cross-media ownership laws. It is in fact not even the second time. For many of us who have spoken in this debate previously, it feels a little like groundhog day yet again. The first two times that we debated this sort of bill in this place, the Senate saw through the government’s smokescreen and ended the Howard government’s attempts to consolidate the Australian media market in the hands of two main operators. The Senate proposed significant amendments to the legislation and it did not get through.

The difference this time is that the Howard government has managed to buy off the support of the National Party and the so-called independent Family First senator Stephen Fielding. Senator Fielding’s naive belief that media ownership and editorial opinion have no relationship to one another is touching in its absolute innocence. If this were not such a serious issue it would be touching to think that Senator Fielding actually believes that media ownership and editorial opinion are two different things. I wish the world was like that, Senator Fielding, but it is not. The National Party has decided to sell out regional Australians to keep grasping at what little power it can within the coalition, and Senator Fielding is simply continuing down his chosen path of kowtowing to the Liberal Party.

The government should be honest about what they are trying to achieve with this bill. Rather than trying to fool the Australian people into believing that they have the best interests of media diversity at heart, they should come out and tell people that their big business mates do not like having to share the advertising revenue pie with smaller players in the market. Where competition for the advertising dollar is fierce, this bill is really about reducing the number of owners in a market and consolidating advertising revenue in the hands of a few large companies.

The real purpose of this bill is to water down the cross-media ownership rules. It is aimed at providing the two big media players in Australia with an opportunity to tighten their stranglehold on Australia’s media outlets—a stranglehold that continues to use its influence in making and shaping opinion in the way that we as a community view aspects of local, national and world events. The government changes will lead to a massive concentration of media ownership in regional and metropolitan markets. The government’s five-four test does not protect diversity, and the number of owners could essentially be halved in Sydney and reduced by a third in my own electorate of Ballarat.

This brings me to my second point. This bill reduces the diversity of media in Australia. These changes are not in the public’s interest. There is no case to be made that reducing the number of owners of media in Australia will improve the range of views and opinions that Australians have access to. This bill in fact does completely the opposite. Media diversity is an essential part of our democracy. It makes sure that a wide range of views and opinions are put before the Australian public. Currently in my own electorate of Ballarat we have a diverse range of commercial media outlets, including the Ballarat Courier, owned by Rural Press; 3BA and Power FM, owned by Grant Broadcasters, one of a few independent broadcasters left in this country; WIN TV; Southern Cross TV; and 3BT, a sport broadcaster owned by a Sydney based company. Prime TV continues to have a small presence.

If the Howard government gets its way, there will be a reduction of outlets in the media market in my electorate. The largest will survive and the smallest will simply be merged. The provisions of this bill, under schedule 1, would allow, for example, Rural Press to buy a TV or radio station in Ballarat. This would be an unhealthy consolidation of media power in my electorate. The morning newspaper could be running exactly the same news and editorial opinion as the evening TV bulletin. When you consider that talkback radio is already dominated locally by issues that are run in the local newspapers and on TV news, a clear picture emerges of just how dominant these single players could possibly be. I understand that Rural Press support these changes, and it is no wonder that they support these changes. Rural Press are very keen to get their hands on as much advertising revenue as they possibly can. I understand that it is in their interest to do so. It is not in the interests of Australian democracy that they do so.

By world standards we already have a highly concentrated media market. What the Prime Minister has done with these laws is concentrate even more power in the hands of some of the most powerful people in this country, and that cannot be good for Australia’s democracy. The Howard government has claimed that the internet allows for diversity of opinion to exist regardless of these changes. The reality is that the research just does not support this proposition. Recent figures showed that big established media players dominate the internet media market. In terms of internet use and advertising, they have 70 per cent of the total market, with Fairfax at 33 per cent, News Ltd at 24 per cent and PBL at 13 per cent. The ACCC Chairman, Graeme Samuel, has told the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts:

The internet is simply a distribution channel. It has not shown any significant signs at this point in time of providing a greater diversity of credible information, news and commentary.

Normally we, in this House, would look to the Senate to provide an in-depth inquiry into such large-scale reforms so that their impact could be truly tested. However, those National senators, not keen on having the truth about their position exposed to the cold light of day, helped the Howard government to severely limit the inquiry into this bill. As Senator Wortley pointed out in the other place:

The issue of time was raised by a number of witnesses, including the Screen Producers Association of Australia, Premier Media Group, Commercial Radio Australia, the ACCC and the Communications Law Centre. We provided reasons why two days were not long enough to hear and question the witnesses, but again the government’s arrogance won the day.

The limited inquiry did hear from Private Media Partners, who said:

We do not believe there is any justification on public policy grounds for the government to abolish or amend the current cross-media restrictions.

Such a change, in our view, could result in a dangerous increase in the power of existing media companies to influence Australia’s public and political agenda.

Mr Beecher said in his submission to the inquiry:

The new laws are constructed for industry consolidation, which is likely to result in acquisitions by existing media owners of existing Australian media assets.

We have already seen the speculation in the media of this being exactly the case. The bill has not even passed this parliament, the ink is not even dry on the Governor-General’s signature, and speculation about those major consolidations is already out there in the media.

So there is strong evidence to suggest that diversity will be weakened rather than improved by this bill. The National Party’s support for limiting the time available to the Senate inquiry speaks volumes about the third reason why I am opposed to this bill. As Mr Beecher told the Senate inquiry:

Removing or weakening the cross-media rules will result in fewer journalists and diminished journalism.

Fewer journalists in regional areas mean job losses. Highly skilled and highly specialised jobs will be stripped out of regional communities with no hope of being replaced. In an attempt to placate the communities who have cried out against these changes the government has included mandated local content. The provisions of this bill on mandated local content are an absolute fraud. They are subject to an inquiry which was agreed to by the government as a sop to the National Party to get this bill up. If the National Party honestly think they will get a fair dinkum inquiry on local content from this government then they are bigger mugs than I thought they were. The government is already going around behind the scenes saying that it will ditch the local content rules.

This knee-jerk reaction has occurred without industry consultation and is already leading to confusion. Alison O’Neill, a director of Grant Broadcasters, the owners of 3BA in my electorate, told us that they were of the belief that they would need to broadcast at least four hours of matters of local importance everyday. The intention is to try and keep local radio in local areas, not to simply fill the airwaves. To quote Ms O’Neill, ‘We won’t be able to play music because it’s hardly a matter of local importance.’ This potentially will make them commercially unappealing to advertisers. This local content law does not compensate for the concentration of media owners, which is what the government appears to have tried to do. There is apprehension in local media outlets about what the future will be when this bill comes into law. Which outlets will close and which will remain open is a major concern that hangs over the regional media companies, like Grant Broadcasters, and their staff. For the sake of a law that is confusing and poorly conceived, local communities stand to lose valuable local jobs and important local voices.

Local people’s involvement in media provides a valuable way for our communities to get involved in policy debate and our democracy more widely. The differences of opinion expressed in the Ballarat Courier, on 3BA radio and on our TV stations help to stimulate the lively debates we have on politics in Ballarat. Letters to the editor on issues as diverse as water and skills shortages are often debated on talkback radio and then discussed on local television. We have already seen a reduction in local content. People from my electorate who travel around this country will be somewhat bemused by the fact that, on one TV media outlet, their local newsreader in Ballarat, who basically reads out press releases—sometimes the ones I send in, which is a great thing—is also the local newsreader here in Canberra. I am pretty sure she is the local newsreader in pretty much every other regional, country and metropolitan town across the country. She is a very mobile newsreader. I do not know how she does it; she gets around a fair bit. These laws will only further serve to reduce local content.

My final point relates to the cowardice shown by the members of the National Party in not rejecting this bill and in not standing up to the Howard government on this bill in the Senate. The bill is bad for regional Australia, it is bad for regional communities and it is bad for regional democracy. Yet the National Party, the self-proclaimed defenders of regional Australia, have pledged to support this bill. National Party senators could have torpedoed this bill by doing the honourable thing and standing with Labor Party senators when the bill was voted on in the Senate. Instead, they went weak at the knees and caved in when the government offered them a sop on local content and media ownership which will not protect regional media from the big media players. The National Party has yet again failed to provide regional Australians with the representation they deserve. The Nationals have failed to protect regional media outlets, they have failed to protect regional voices and they have failed to protect regional jobs.

No-one representing a regional area should be supporting this bill. I cannot support this bill because it is not about preserving media diversity; it is about reducing it. It is about the Howard government concentrating media ownership in the hands of a small number of media owners. This bill reduces the number of outlets that the community has in which to debate ideas and opinions and to form views. That can only be bad for our democracy. Despite the attempts to protect local content, this bill will see a reduction in genuine local content and no number of government inquiries will prevent this. There has been no consultation with the media industry and the proposed regulations on local content are vague at best while being counterproductive at worst for some media outlets.

The National Party’s complete failure to stand up for regional Australia has once again meant that they have put the interests of their political masters in the Liberal Party ahead of the interests of regional Australians. It is a disgrace and all members of the National Party should be ashamed for thinking that, by accepting the amendments that the government has sold them, they are doing anything other than selling out our regional communities. In a country where we have such great thinkers, speakers and ideas, the Howard government is asking us to support a bill that will limit the ability of people to have those ideas disseminated and expressed. I oppose this bill and encourage other members of this place to do the same.

Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today as well to speak on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006. Like my colleagues, I am strongly opposed to the legislation which will repeal the current cross-media ownership rules. Currently, companies can only control a newspaper, a commercial television licence or a radio licence in any one market. The media ownership bill will repeal these rules. This will most likely lead to a massive concentration of media ownership in both the metropolitan and the regional areas of Australia.

Before I go to the reasons for opposing these particular changes, I would like to raise the question as to why the Howard government has introduced them. I ask: does the concentration of media ownership benefit the public in any way? Does it improve our democracy in any way? The answer to these questions has to be no. These changes are not in any public interest. So what arguments has the government used to justify the introduction of these changes? It argues that the current media rules are too prescriptive and that they create an inflexible regulatory framework which does not account for changes in the media industry, such as the emergence of new media on the market. It also argues that lifting restrictions on cross-media ownership will allow companies to be more efficient and will help them compete in the rise of the new media. Clearly, the changes are not going to benefit the general public at all. They are going to benefit large media corporations and they are, in my opinion, the antithesis of good democracy.

Australia already has a concentrated media market by world standards. News Ltd and Fairfax currently control over 80 per cent of Australia’s metropolitan newspapers. Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, PBL, which currently own Channel 9—as of this evening; the news broadcaster is telling us something may be changing—have television coverage of 52 per cent of Australia’s population and a 40 per cent market share of Australia’s top selling magazines; again, as of now. We are not quite sure what will happen in that area tomorrow. As the previous speaker, the member for Ballarat, said, it is already starting to happen. These are just a few examples. Now our media market will become even more concentrated. It is outrageous, in my opinion, that the Prime Minister is planning to give even more power to some of the most powerful people in our country. These changes have the potential to halve the number of owners of the major media in our bigger cities and reduce the numbers of owners by one-third in many regional areas—for example, the current number of media owners in Sydney can go from 12 to six; in Brisbane, from 10 to five; and in Newcastle, from seven to four.

Let us look at some hypotheticals that have been outlined by previous speakers in this debate. I fear that not many of these are really hypothetical. PBL and News Ltd would, for example, be able to own every major metropolitan newspaper under this legislation; most suburban newspapers; virtually every magazine; Channel 9 and Channel 10; Sky News; Australian Associated Press, AAP; monopoly pay television Foxtel; and more than 70 per cent of the news and information sites on the internet. Thanks to the Prime Minister, we will be living in a brave new world, perhaps a little like that described by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four. I would love to get his opinion right now on what he would see as our democratic processes.

I have no doubt that these changes are a major threat to our basic democracy and freedom. It is only logical that, if there is a higher concentration of media ownership, free and open speech will be limited accordingly. The government is treating our media like a standard business without taking into account its vital role in influencing the information flow in our society and, therefore, public opinion. In their book, Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman state the following:

The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.

Having a concentrated media market makes systematic propaganda so much easier. True democracy requires true media diversity.

Those who argue in support of these changes say that people can access their information from a whole range of sources in today’s high-tech society. So, they argue, concentration of media ownership does not threaten free speech at all. They argue that it does not threaten diversity of information in our society. I have some major problems with this argument. First of all, the ‘new media’, which are supposed to provide diversity of sources and opinion, are controlled by the traditional media. For example, the only significant new Australian news service provided by pay television is Sky News Australia, which is owned by the networks Seven and Nine and British Sky Broadcasting.

Research by Roy Morgan shows that the most popular internet news sites are controlled by existing media operators, including Fairfax, News Ltd, Channel 9 and the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The reality is that most people are busy getting on with their lives, trying to manage their jobs, paying off their mortgages and looking after their children. They do not generally use the new media or alternative news sources as their major information source. Some may do so but, in general terms, most do not. A Morgan poll has shown that, for information about general events in Australia, 56 per cent of people use free-to-air television, 18 per cent turn to the radio and 11 per cent rely on newspapers. That is a total of 85 per cent. In relation to political news and analysis, 41 per cent turn to free-to-air television, 27 per cent turn to newspapers and 13 per cent rely on the radio. That is a total of 81 per cent. An ACNielsen poll shows that the top four most used internet news and advertising sites account for 85 per cent of hits. What are they? They are: Fairfax, 33 per cent; News Ltd, 24 per cent; ABC, 14 per cent; and PBL, 13 per cent.

Clearly most people turn to traditional media sources for current affairs information and analysis. Many do not have the time or the resources to find those alternative information sources. I note very carefully that it has been very easy for some commentators to claim that the internet or these other sources of news can provide a diversity of views. In other words, why get hot under the collar about these changes, because there are other alternatives? I have two problems with this argument. Firstly, not everyone has the luxury of access to a computer in their home or at work—many do, but not everyone does. Those who are disadvantaged and who should have access to objective analytical information are least likely to have it. Secondly, information on the internet is not always credible, so it cannot always be relied on to provide accurate information.

I want to refer briefly to something that happened a few years ago nationally when there were changes to the way some of the networks were deciding to provide local news. From memory, it was early in 2002 when the ABA held a series of inquiries around the country, seeking the views of the public as to how they felt about local news content and the diversity of that local news content and availability within their own communities. It had become evident that in certain areas of the country—and they did it here in Canberra—some of the major TV networks were going to close down their local news broadcasts and rely on taking up their news from Sydney. There was a series of public inquiries held here in Canberra, which I went to. I listened very carefully to the very high number of people who represented themselves at those public hearings—in some cases, there were small sporting clubs and community organisations. What was very clear was the degree of value these members of the community put on the local content of news, the local content of sporting news and the diversity of being able to go to more than one source to get the news. The people were very anxious and very upset to see a major television broadcaster remove that local news service from their community. They did not like it at all, and they were not at all enamoured of the fact that this was going to be the brave new world of news. That happened in 2002. The local news services I am referring to were removed but I was impressed by the very broad number of people from the community who took the trouble to go to those hearings and make their views known. It was a very high number.

I wonder how they are going to feel about these particular changes. How are those same people, and more, going to feel about not having diversity and access to a wide range of news broadcasts and solid, strong information available to them? Some people obviously are going to say that we are acting like Chicken Little, running around and saying that the sky is going to fall. The sky may not fall tomorrow, but this legislation is certainly going to have a dramatic effect on the dissemination of information in this country. It is going to change dramatically the way information and news is available to people.

People rely on television news, radio news and the newspapers, and there are those who are able to access the internet, but at the end of the day it is going to be owned by a small number of very powerful owners. As I said, half an hour ago I was watching a news broadcast on the television in my office here. We do not quite know what PBL is up to but if the predictions on the news wires tonight are true, they are going to make an enormous amount of money before the bill has even gone through this place.

The previous speaker mentioned—and I agree with her—that we have not even passed the legislation and yet dramatic shifts and changes are already occurring in the media landscape of this country. I worry about that. I take our free, wide expression of speech, information and news in this country very seriously and I worry very much about exactly what is going to happen in the future.

The member for Ballarat also made reference to Senator Fielding, and I want to endorse what she said. My understanding also is that he naively believes that maybe there is a bit of a stretch of distance between ownership of broad media in this country and content within the media. I fear for his naivety because that is not quite how it always works. One of the most important things that we should value and hold onto in this country is that breadth of diversity and opinion. I am seriously concerned for what is going to happen in the future as a result of this legislation.

I also object very strongly to these bills. Obviously, on numbers, they are going to be passed in this House but it is incumbent on people on this side of the chamber to make the views of those who hold another opinion very widely known in relation to these bills. I am not hesitating at all to do that here this evening. I object very strongly to this legislation and I would like to see, by some miracle, a change to it.

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 represent one of the most disgraceful cave-ins of any Australian government in recent memory to the commercial interests of media barons in this country. Under the guise of media reform the Howard government, in pandering to those interests, has struck an enormous blow to media diversity in this country, and to Australian democracy in the process. As this hypocritical government lectures the rest of the world, particularly countries in the Middle East, on the virtues of democracy, it brings into this parliament a piece of legislation that seeks to diminish democracy in this country.

There is nothing more nauseating, in a political sense, than this Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs ranting about  our noble purpose in Iraq and their quest to bring democracy to the Middle East region, and then seeing this sort of legislation being brought into the Australian parliament. What is even more nauseating is that they are prepared to send Australians to die in that conflict on the basis of a political lie, while they undermine democratic practice in this country.

Diversity is the lifeblood of our democracy. Because we live in a stable, advanced democracy we ought to have put before us legislation that enhances and strengthens that diversity, not legislation that concentrates more media power in fewer hands. As my colleague the member for Perth so eloquently put in his speech in the second reading debate:

The government’s media ownership bill will reduce media diversity, reduce competition and reduce consumer choice.

Labor introduced the cross-media laws in this country to protect diversity in the Australian media. It is a policy that has stood the test of time in the face of a virtual revolution in mass communications in this country and around the globe. It is a policy that major democracies around the world—and I include the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France and a whole list of others—have in place to achieve and maintain media diversity in their own countries. They do it simply because there is a fundamental belief that media diversity is one of the cornerstones of a working democracy.

This is not the first time the Prime Minister has grovelled before the media magnates of this country by putting up legislation that enhances their interests at the expense of the Australian people and their great democracy. It is the third time in a decade that this Prime Minister has attempted to attack media diversity and pander to sectional commercial interests in the media. I think it is reasonable to ask whether the Prime Minister and members of the government have any real commitment to an Australian democracy at all.

It has always historically been the case that the greatest assault on democratic practice in this country has come from the Liberal and National parties, and this media ownership bill is but one example of that assault on democratic values, processes and institutions in this country. Witness the abandonment of any standards of ministerial conduct as members of the government lie their way through issue after issue: children overboard and Iraq are just two. Witness the concentration of political power by the executive over the processes of this parliament and the massive assault on parliamentary scrutiny as the government reduces the capacity of the Senate committee system to provide an appropriate check and balance to the abuse of power by members of the executive. Witness the assault of this government on the right of its citizens to freedom of information. Witness the stripping away of the fundamental rights of citizens of this country all in the name of the war on terror. Witness the attack by this government on individual judges and the independence of the judiciary. Witness the politicisation of our great Public Service. Witness the relative ease by which ministers have been able to insulate themselves from political accountability in issues such as the wheat for weapons AWB scandal. It is not a pleasant political landscape as far as our great Australian democracy is concerned. And now we have a remaining assault on the integrity of the regulatory regime governing the concentration of power in the fourth estate.

Given the contentious nature of this legislation, I am absolutely appalled that it is being rammed through the parliament with limited debate and scrutiny. This whole area of public policy is a complex one. For the citizens of this country who are not familiar with its complexity and the potential political impacts on their democracy, finding their way through these complexities to a reasonable understanding of the legislation’s import is very difficult indeed. For members of parliament it can be daunting and difficult also. It is through the democratic process of parliamentary debate and public discussion that information is obtained, views are challenged, understandings developed and appropriate positions formed by people in this parliament and outside of it.

For the public record, the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts was only given three weeks to conduct its inquiry into these bills. The general public, I am informed by my Senate colleagues, only had one week to make submissions. The committee had only two days of public hearings to consider these bills and the time of the opposition to question witnesses was severely limited. It is an extraordinary perversion of democratic practice on such an important matter of public policy, but when you examine this bill you can understand why.

Let us deal first with the issue of cross-media ownership. Under the current legislative provisions, companies can only control a newspaper or a radio licence or a commercial TV licence in any one market. The government’s legislation will now permit mergers between commercial TV, commercial radio and associated newspaper businesses operating in the same market. Distilled down to its basics, this is a bill that allows further concentration of media ownership in this country. Under the government’s five-four rule, it is allowing greater concentration of media assets and power, particularly in regional areas.

There is a grave doubt that the ACCC will have the necessary power to prevent mergers that it might consider to be anticompetitive, and that view is based on recent Federal Court judgements that limit the potential of the ACCC to exercise its powers around mergers it considers to be anticompetitive. In addition, the Productivity Commission in its broadcasting report had this to say:

It is clear that the Trade Practices Act as it stands would be unable to prevent many cross-media mergers or acquisitions which may reduce diversity. It is also clear that the adoption by the ACCC of a broader definition of the media market would not adequately address the social dimensions of the policy problem, and would be open to legal challenge.

I would not have thought that the Productivity Commission was one of the most left wing of organisations in this society, but we in this place do rely from time to time on the views expressed by a commission that stands at arms-length from the government and opposition of the day and conducts its inquiries into these matters in what it perceives under its charter to be the public interest. Part of that public interest, as far as the Productivity Commission’s charter is concerned, is to engender a competitive regime in the commercial marketplace. Here is the Productivity Commission sounding a very significant warning that the Trade Practices Act may not be able to prevent the sorts of mergers and acquisitions that will see enormous concentration of media power in this country.

The impacts of this legislation will be far reaching on journalists, on local content programming, on the diversity of the news and information available to the public, on the diversity of regional media and on the health of our democracy. In my own electorate, the great regional centre of Geelong exists in the media footprint of Melbourne. In contrast to Ballarat and Bendigo, where at least there is an electronic TV outlet that is able to focus on local news and events, we do not have that particular facility in Geelong at all. Even recently we had an attempt by certain media interests to take over some independent media outlets that were providing an alternative source of information and news to the people of Geelong.

Whilst we might have some degree of diversity in our radio programming, I think it is fair to say that Geelong is not particularly well serviced by a diverse media market, in a local sense. One of my concerns is that this particular legislation will allow an even greater concentration of media ownership in the Geelong region, down from six to four. That is not in the healthy interests of the local community in Geelong. It is certainly not in the interests of good democratic practice in my electorate and locality.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Baldwin interjecting

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have recently gone through some really interesting public debate on the ground in Geelong on matters relating to the functions and operations of the City of Greater Geelong. It would horrify the member for Paterson to know that, in my electorate, there has been an unholy alliance between some Liberal interests and the right wing of the Labor Party. I will say no more about that. But I would have thought a regional member like the member for Paterson, who is here with me in the chamber tonight, would have an interest in broader media diversity in his region. Obviously, he does not. We know he is an incumbent, rushing like a lemming to the cliff on the back of the Prime Minister’s Work Choices legislation. Indeed, the member for Paterson will follow his Prime Minister into political oblivion at the next election. Part of that will be because of his slavish adherence to the dictates of his Prime Minister, who cannot go to bed without sucking the toes of the media barons of this country. He is a lickspittle and a toe-sucker from way back. The media legislation we are debating here tonight in this parliament is ample evidence of this.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Baldwin interjecting

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find it extraordinary that the member for Paterson can sit here with a smile on his face when he has to negotiate on this particular piece of legislation with his coalition partners, the National Party. We know of the great love within the coalition for the National Party. I know of this great enduring love because all the rural Liberals tell me about how they want to do in members of the National Party out in the sticks. I have to say that I am happy to join them in that pursuit. I am happy to go hunting, simply because you would not get a greater bunch of Judases in the Australian political system than the members of the National Party.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Baldwin interjecting

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am surprised that the member for Paterson continually prostrates himself before the National Party, the junior member of the coalition, over these sorts of issues. I said that the members of the National Party are probably the greatest bunch of Judases this parliament has seen, as far as defending the interests of country people are concerned. We have seen the betrayal on Telstra.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Baldwin interjecting

Alex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Paterson will cease interjecting.

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have seen the betrayal of the National Party on the United States free trade agreement, when the National Party and the Liberal Party dumped the sugar producers of this nation. We have seen the betrayal on the mandatory retail grocery code of conduct. We have seen the betrayal of working people in regional and country areas, farmers included, in the government’s draconian Work Choices legislation. We have seen the betrayal of country people and wheat growers over the AWB scandal, which is now rocking rural industry in this country. And now we have this. Now we have this shoddy piece of legislation, as the lickspittlers and the toe-suckers in the coalition mosey on up to the media barons of this country, leaving behind the great democratic traditions and practices that we have enjoyed in over a century of Federation.

In conclusion, I must say that I am absolutely staggered by the position of the Family First senator on this legislation. What a bitter disappointment this senator has been on this particular piece of legislation. I have watched Senator Fielding and his attitude on many issues. I have to say that I was encouraged by the views that he was taking and his independence on a whole range of social issues, where he was looking coolly at the propositions before him and was being suitably horrified at their import as far as their implications for the people of Australia were concerned. I think the key question for Senator Fielding is: why have you caved in as a Family First senator on a piece of legislation that the families of Australia certainly cannot rely on to maintain media diversity in this country? I am bitterly disappointed, and so will be the Family First members and people in the Geelong region who have supported the philosophies of Senator Fielding in this place.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Baldwin interjecting

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say one thing for the member for Paterson. He has had a chequered history in this place. He has been in and out of this place, and he is now on the way out again.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Baldwin interjecting

Alex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Paterson!

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again he is following the Prime Minister, like a lemming over the political cliff. The fate of the member for Paterson will be political oblivion. Let me tell you this, member for Paterson; I will just leave you with this parting thought: while you slip over that political cliff, I will still be here, mark my words.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Baldwin interjecting

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will still be here in this place. While you support this sort of legislation in this place, you have only one political destiny: your political demise. (Time expired)

Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That certainly was a colourful contribution to the debate, plus some sort of insinuation of plans beyond the Labor Party perhaps. The past few weeks have seen much activity by the National Party to win concessions on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006. I commend the member for Hinkler for his commitment to regional broadcasting matters over many years and his driving of whatever amendments have been achieved. However, the cynic in me sees this exercise as a relevance re-establishment program for the National Party to allow them to reclaim some of their lost claim, indeed, to represent the interests of rural Australia—interests that have been betrayed on so many fronts, as the former speaker, the member for Corio, so colourfully portrayed.

The minister’s first effort to try to allow media operators to own as many licences as they liked was never going to get up. It was the ambit claim, if you like. In fact, the two out of three media in one market was the preferred option of the government in earlier manifestations of this legislation. So there was nothing new in this outcome—these bills—except the urgency to restore some relevance to the Nationals.

Let me begin with the foreign ownership provisions of the legislation. Item 4 of schedule 2 repeals division 4 of part 5 of the current legislation, which limits foreign ownership of Australian media. Under existing laws, no one foreign person can hold a controlling share in a commercial television licence, and two or more foreign persons must not have company interests in a commercial television broadcasting licence exceeding 20 per cent. The removal of this legislated limitation and transfer of determination of foreign investment to the Treasurer is completely contrary to the public interest. In all this debate over the media, it must be stressed—as I have done consistently in this place over a decade—that a broadcasting licence is a privilege, not a commercial right, and, at the very least, levels of foreign investment should be enshrined in legislation determined by the parliament, not a minister.

Apart from this, these provisions to remove legislated restrictions on foreign ownership of Australian broadcast media will inevitably have a negative impact on the production and broadcasting of Australian current affairs and ultimately impact on the independence of that very news and current affairs. We already have the situation, before this bill is fully debated, where plans are well underway for PBL to exploit the new legislation. Reports suggest that they are preparing to sell around 60 per cent of the Nine Network, the ACP magazines and Ninemsn to an American private equity group. The rush, indeed, has started before the Governor-General’s signature is on the legislation, let alone the ink being dry.

Could it be that a favourable outcome was sought from some senators through heavy lobbying in recent weeks? That is not a crime yet, as we know, but it would be immoral. It should be illegal if election donations in multiples of up to just short of $10,000 appear on the returns—in fact, they will not appear on the returns if they are under $10,000—if indeed they are simply made at the next election, completely hidden from public gaze. If ever there were a need for a cap on campaign spending by individual candidates—as I moved unsuccessfully during the debate on that bill—it may be because lobbying of this nature underlines the impression and the perception that our democratic processes are available for negotiation by way of promises of donations up to the point where they are not discernible by any other party if they are under the threshold that has been built into legislation in recent times. I think the so-called electoral integrity laws passed by this parliament earlier this year are an indictment on our democratic processes. The perception, if not the reality, of the sorts of processes that can be put in place to achieve crucial votes in crucial situations to benefit the business sector and others in our community is demonstrated by the perception that can be built around circumstances such as these.

The existing cross-media ownership restrictions have guaranteed a separation of editorial and commercial control and diversity of ownership for the past 14 years. They have also, importantly, removed the temptation for the sort of lobbying that could occur—it may not have occurred to this point but it can and will occur—to further allow the concentration of the media ownership in this country. The irony in all of this is that the former one licence per region for television and one AM radio licence prior to the 1990s delivered more local content and hundreds more jobs than does the aggregated, so-called more choice regional media post 1990. The irony is that, under benign local ownership with local management and local loyalties, the former benign monopoly ownership of pre-aggregation days ensured a far richer line-up of local programs than we have seen since or are likely to see in the future.

Aggregation of regional television in 1988 saw the shrinking of local content on the incumbent local station to the bare half-hour news and little else, from a base of news, current affairs, agriculture, children’s programs and many more community service announcements. Aggregation provided more choice, that is true, but more choice of the often mediocre fare on offer from the three networks. So much for choice and diversity. It can be what governments want to spin it to mean. The existing cross-media ownership laws have not guaranteed local content, especially in radio, but they have guaranteed separate control of broadcast and print in each market, and that is the basic foundation on which a government should build localism requirements.

Let me turn to the submission of my former employer Prime Television to the Senate inquiry on this legislation. Supporting the legislation, Prime said:

If the proposed legislation were passed, and Prime was allowed to acquire a radio station in Bunbury (in addition to Prime’s television station that covers the Bunbury area), local radio news for Bunbury could be sourced from Prime’s Bunbury newsroom ...

Herein lies the very weakness of these cross-media relaxations. While Prime’s submission rightly argues that currently the Bunbury radio station gets so-called local news from Queensland based syndication services, the alternative Prime suggests is just as flawed.

It is true that the threat of a national television satellite footprint delivering network programs prompted the regional stations to significantly ramp up their localism after a decade or more of living on network material alone throughout the seventies. The rebirth of localism in regional TV in the eighties, driven by local owners with local loyalties, was an outstanding example of what a local broadcast licence holder can and should do to service the expectations of its market. There were current affairs shows, 30 minutes of local TV news, children’s shows, weekend magazine programs, outside sporting broadcasts and numerous news specials. From memory, at the height of the renaissance of regional television in the eighties, there were something like 120 employees at a complex in Orange. You could currently fit the workforce into a minivan.

Sadly, aggregation led to a severe diminishing of that local content, basically to little more than the five-day-a-week news, yet the government of the day argued that it provided more. More choice in broadcasting, with the issuing of many more licences, delivered less localism, not more, and the hubbing we have seen in recent years. So, if we are to now allow regional ownerships to merge, quite apart from the Clayton’s localism of hubbing, only the professionalism of individual journalists and editors who would stand up to management and refuse to use generic material stands between diversity of opinion and common editorial policy. I know which is likely to win out, with largely absentee owners looking at profits rather than public interest.

The Prime TV example is exactly what will occur. Radio and TV will not only see a crossover of material but also cross-promotion and cross-media sales deals that will offer economies of scale, with radio and TV commercials sold by the same person at the same time and with bulk deals that will make it extremely hard for any solo medium operation in that market. Apart from that, common news will be just that—common. When an advertiser wants a special deal, including editorial coverage, that will inevitably creep into the equation as well. If pressure is applied to drop an embarrassing story, not one outlet but both radio and TV journalists will potentially be compromised.

Prime TV is right when it says in its submission that a wide range of media access is available across regional Australia and is likely to improve with advances in broadband technology, with online publishing, community radio, pay TV, ABC services and the like thrown in. However, free-to-air television, radio and mass circulation daily or biweekly newspapers remain the dominant sources of local news and commercial advertising.

Back in 2003, when we were debating the media ownership bill mark II, when the government did not have the carte blanche of Senate control and was frustrated in passing legislation like this, I quoted Dr Kim Jackson’s work from the Parliamentary Library. With cross-media ownership relaxation provisions exactly the same as those in these new bills, she said then:

The impact of these relaxed cross-media ... owners in places like Bathurst, Orange and Tamworth and major regional centres, which is a forty per cent reduction in minimum possible ownership, diversity of control and possible opinion, further exacerbated by the likely converging of editorial management and content under such reduced ownership.

That is exactly the case now. Whether it is one of all three media initially proposed by the minister, and opposed so heroically by The Nationals, or whether it is two of three, now the outcome will be basically the same.

Orange, with six commercial operators, two radio owners, three television operators and a newspaper, will now be able to have, say, Rural Press also controlling a TV licence, another TV licensee taking over the second radio operation, and the remaining TV owner taking control of the second radio licence. That is the potential. Only the vague four voices rule in this legislation stands in the way of a contraction to three players in the Orange market. How long will it be before the clamour for three, not four, voices is heard from regional markets, because the third and fourth solo voices in such a market will be at a severe disadvantage in competing against the big two? From six to four, and likely three, the strongest morning radio station and newspaper will be powerful players in that market, while potentially two other mergers allow for common news production, common advertising schemes and so on—concentration of control, reduction of diversity. The same applies to two out of three in city markets.

Former Senator Brian Harradine introduced the famous Packer-Murdoch amendments to similar legislation in 2003 which effectively stymied the bill. It flushed out the intent of those bills which was to hand more free media control to the media moguls. Harradine moved an amendment to preclude newspaper owners from operating a television station in the same capital city. This legislation, of course, will allow that. Senator Harradine rightly said that his key amendment was ‘to protect against media proprietors having undue influence’, particularly in a city, by owning both a TV licence and a newspaper in that city. Hey, here we are, back exactly at that point.

I said back in December 2003 that the lessons of the sixties, seventies and eighties are clear. Those lessons were learnt through the common ownership of TV, radio and newspaper by the Packer, Fairfax and Murdoch media empires, where I had personal experience with hands-on influence on the content of news bulletins, cross-media newsrooms and common editorial policies when it suited the political imperatives or, indeed, the commercial imperatives of the owners.

We can look back to things like the famous soap inquiry of the seventies. Also, throughout the 1972 election campaign, there was a tightly constructed editorial process put in place to coordinate the positions of three media in markets right around Australia, deliberately designed to achieve a political outcome. This could impact on anyone and any government at any time if we have concentrated media determining that that is the position they will take at any particular time.

We have in recent years also seen the moves—thankfully dumped after public outcry—by 2UE and 2GB for colocated radio news services servicing competing radio stations. That was suggested under existing legislation. Nothing in this legislation suggests that similar moves as those which occur in radio news syndication for regional radio will not simply flourish. It is absolutely essential to require editorial separation for commonly owned media operations in a licence area in order to maintain editorial and news separation. I notice the Macquarie Regional Radio Works network complaining about the onerous nature of these legislative changes. It will cost them money to establish independent news services. So it should! Perhaps some of the petty cash allowances of its super funded executives could pay for it.

The 12½ minutes of local news daily per station and the 4½ hours of live and local broadcasting for radio seem impressive. But I know how such provisions can be circumvented. Generic stories on general topics such as sunscreen application in summer, as important as it is, can be easily syndicated across many stations. There are numerous examples of the sort of material that can be said to be local when in fact it is churned out of a news sausage factory somewhere in a market and delivered to the complying editor at the point of use.

However, the minimum content requirements for local radio are at least an advance on what we have had to date, with hubbing of programming far too popular an option for network operators more concerned with profit than the public; more concerned with loot than local. In the absence of local owners living and thinking locally, there will always be a commercial imperative to cut costs to a bare minimum. The maximising of technology and hubbing of programs, commercial production and news production, are the way things will go in the absence of specific regulation.

If new section 43A requires licensing conditions on TV stations to ensure a minimum level of material of local significance then surely the new division 5C, which requires minimum local news, information, community and emergency announcements in addition to news and weather, is nothing onerous for radio operators. In fact, it should be essential in any market claiming to represent and broadcast to its local audience. However, section 43A provides only that ACMA determines the specifics of the local content licence conditions for television broadcasters. Such conditions should be included for both radio and television in legislation, and thus be subject to regulation and amendment under the Broadcasting Services Act.

Let me quote briefly the words of Postmaster-General Mr Davidson in 1956, exactly 50 years ago, as television began in this country. He said:

Television stations—

and you could put in local radio and city radio as well—

are in a position to exercise a constant and cumulative effect on public taste and standards of conduct, because of the influence they can bring to bear on the community, the business interests of licensees must at all times be subordinated to the overriding principle that the possession of a licence is a ... public trust for the benefit of all members of our society.

I would suggest that this legislation is completely contrary to the tenor of those remarks of Mr Davidson 50 years ago. He, a member of a conservative government, would have been appalled at this move to deliver up to media owners the control of the media that, to this point, has been well served by the cross-media ownership restrictions.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 with a heavy heart. I believe that the legislation that we are considering in the parliament today is a retrograde step. I believe it has the ability to influence and impact on our democracy here in Australia. I also seriously believe that it will lead to less diversity and remove from media the role that I believe it has traditionally played. I believe that media is about informing the community and engendering debate and discussion. I believe that these laws have the potential to operate in the opposite way.

These bills are the centrepiece of the government’s so-called media reforms. They will implement the most significant changes to media laws in 20 years. The government would like the people of Australia to believe that the legislation is really all about media reform, but the government’s plan does not deserve that description. It is not about reform, as I have already indicated. It is definitely a retrograde step.

The legislation repeals the current cross-media rules, which prevent the common ownership of newspaper, radio and television assets in the same market. Media mergers will be subject to a requirement that at least six commercial media voices remain in Sydney and Melbourne, five in the other cities and four in regional Australia. Mergers will also be subject to the scrutiny of the ACCC—later in my contribution I will indicate that I have some concerns about the power of the ACCC to actually oversee this in a proper way.

In the region that I represent in this parliament, the Newcastle-Hunter region, the current number of owners is seven. Under the new media plan that can be reduced to four. Previously we had Prime Television working out of the Hunter. Since they stopped operating and broadcasting in the Hunter, I have noticed a significant change in the media in our local area. The media is not quite as vigilant as it previously was, because of the lack of competition. Prime has resumed a skeleton type of service in the Hunter, but I have noticed the difference with just that small change. I believe that the reduction from seven to four, which can happen without too much trouble at all, will not benefit the region that I represent and the people that live in my electorate.

The other part of my electorate is on the Central Coast. It is very difficult to really pinpoint the number of media owners that currently operate out of that area. One could say there are channels 7, 9 and 10 and radio stations CFM, which is Macquarie; Star FM; and 2GO. But it is not quite that simple. Channels 7, 9 and 10 operate out of Sydney, so I would be much more comfortable being conservative about it and saying that currently there are five media outlets and that that number will go to four. But the impact already of the Sydney market on the Central Coast is very apparent. The comparison between the local coverage that you get in the Hunter and the Central Coast is, I think, very stark. That example, to me, only reinforces the concerns that I have.

The legislation also abolishes foreign ownership and control provisions in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 relating to commercial television and subscription television. Foreign ownership will continue to be subject to the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 and the Treasurer will be able to block transactions not in the national interest. The bill seeks to address concerns about the loss of local content from regional television and radio by strengthening licensing conditions. The proposed changes have the potential to impact very significantly, as I have already indicated, on the media diversity in regional Australia.

We in this parliament owe some thanks to the National Party that there is now to be the two out of three limit placed on media ownership—although if that is all they can deliver, it does not say much for them. That would never have happened if it had been left to the government. They were quite happy to just go along with their original provisions; it concerns me greatly that the government were prepared to allow investment under such restrictions on the ownership of media. The cross-media rules that limit owners to newspaper, television and radio assets in one market are repealed by the bill, and that is where the two out of three limit comes into play.

The bill inserts new rules whereby media mergers, including cross-media mergers, will be permitted under the BSA as long as at least five voices remain in the mainland state capitals, four voices in regional areas and, as I mentioned, six in Melbourne and Sydney. The bill should be amended to delete the changes to cross-media ownership. They just do not quite work. It has the potential to halve the number of owners of the major media in our biggest cities and reduce the number of owners by a third in many regional areas. There is the likelihood that proprietors’ business and editorial interests will influence the content and opinion of their media outlets, which is of major significance in a democracy.

At the start of my comments in this debate, I said that one of my greatest concerns about this legislation is the way it may impact on how democracy operates in this country. A true democracy is not one where you hear just one side of the story or where what you hear is influenced by your relationship with a particular media owner or media magnate. Democracy is about presenting the true picture, the whole picture—not half a picture. True democracy is about putting the facts before the people and allowing them to make a decision based on all the facts, not just the facts that have been coloured by the influence of the media bosses, where restricted information is being given and there is editorial interference in the information being provided to the people of Australia.

The government’s media ownership bill will definitely reduce media diversity, reduce competition and reduce consumer choice. The abolition of the existing cross-media ownership laws has the potential to benefit media owners, but it offers nothing to the Australian people. All it offers the Australian people is less choice. Day after day, I sit in this parliament and I listen to the Prime Minister and members on the other side talk about choice. Well, where are they now? Why aren’t they standing up in this parliament and arguing for greater choice? They are not. They are silent when it comes to the cross-media laws because, I believe, they are quite beholden to some of the media bosses.

This is the third time that the Prime Minister has tried to ram these changes through the parliament, and I do not think that it does him any credit whatsoever. Australia does not need to sacrifice media diversity in order to benefit from the digital age, but that is going to happen. These laws will do absolutely nothing to ensure that we benefit in that way. The UK and the US are rapidly moving to embrace digital broadcasting, yet they have strong cross-media ownership laws to promote diversity of opinion. Why are the government scared of a diversity of opinion? Why won’t they embrace it and why won’t they ensure that people are able to access the information that they need to make an informed choice?

The Howard government maintain that the benefit of digital TV can be obtained only if the incumbent media players receive a quid pro quo in the form of a repeal of the cross-media ownership laws. I completely reject that. We on this side of the House completely reject that. I think the facts speak for themselves: there is absolutely nothing there to support that. The legislation is being rammed through this parliament so the government’s plans are subject to only minimal scrutiny and debate.

We on this side of the House are very used to that happening. Legislation is introduced here and pushed through the parliament, and quite often the debate is guillotined, although not in this case. The government does not like legislation to be scrutinised. It does not like to be accountable. It likes to just ram legislation through without debate. I think that the Australian people are beginning to recognise this for what it is: arrogance—blatant arrogance. The government is so determined to get a package that accommodates the industry’s interests that many amendments that would have been quite useful were not considered because debate was guillotined in the Senate, just as I mentioned a moment ago. This government guillotines debate on legislation all the time, preventing proper scrutiny.

The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 makes two key changes to the media ownership laws. First, it repeals the significant foreign ownership provision in the Broadcasting Services Act that relates to commercial and subscription television. In a democracy it is important, as I have already stated, to prevent a concentration in the power to influence public opinion. But this is what these laws will do; they will lead to a concentration of power. I am not naive enough to discount the possibility that this is one of the benefits the government seeks through this legislation. The proposal does nothing to protect diversity in the 17 regional markets.

There is no doubt what will happen if the government’s cross-media ownership laws are passed: a takeover frenzy will be unleashed and there will be a massive concentration in the ownership of the most influential media in Australia. It will make it harder for diverse voices to be heard, much harder. It will be harder for people to get the information that they need to form opinions. Fewer journalists will report on stories of local interest and hold members of parliament and industry to account—and that is the role of the media. The role of the media is to hold all of us in this parliament to account, as well as industry. But if they become the lap-dogs of the government then that is something that we as a nation will lose. There is absolutely no logical basis for the changes that the government has proposed. Even the explanatory memoranda to the bill plainly state that the benefits of cross-media ownership reform are ‘unclear’.

Australia’s democracy and freedom of speech are really at stake with this legislation. Diversity in news and current affairs, and in journalistic commentary, is critical to Australian people being aware of all the different opinions on a matter and being able to draw their own conclusions, to make their own judgements, as I have already said.

Second, this legislation allows for 4.5 hours per day of local content. On the face of it, that does not sound like a bad deal. But this local content provision will not apply until 2008. It is also going to be reviewed by ACMA, which could lead to them signing up for fewer hours. Following the review, ACMA could come back and say that 4.5 hours was excessive and recommend that maybe two hours is more appropriate.

This is an interesting aspect: the minister has the power to override the 4.5 hours of local content aspect of this legislation. It can be overwritten by regulation. There is no need whatsoever to bring it back to the parliament. It means that if there is a decision to lower the number of hours of local content it can be done at the minister’s behest without any debate in this House. I believe that the minister threw that in to placate the National Party and she feels that following the review, given that it is not due to be introduced until 2008, it is not something she has to deal with immediately.

I have real fears that if the government wins the next election—and that is something I hope, in the interests of the Australian people, that they do not do—that the 4.5 hours per day of local content will be reduced. So we have an election, ACMA completes its review, the 4.5 hours are not due to be implemented until 2008 and the government reneges by not even bringing it back to parliament—this is the way of the Howard government. The way of the Howard government is to arrogantly push its legislation through. The way of the Howard government is to disregard public comment, and this legislation will enable it to have more freedom to do this. It will cater to the media bosses. The Howard government will be subservient to them. They will have complete disregard for democracy, and everything will be about the Howard government’s agenda.

I believe the government are quite frightened of the media. One of the reasons I think that this legislation has been supported so readily and embraced by the government is their fear of the media. They want to embrace the media and get it on side so it will support them and say the right things about them and help the government in the lead-up to the next election. The government’s distortion of events and coloured vision of the world are the messages being put to the Australian people.

This is bad legislation. It is not reforming legislation; it is legislation that is about concentration of media ownership and restriction of information to the Australian people. It is about less democracy, not more democracy. I believe that the House should vote against this legislation, because it is not in the interests of the Australian people.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This legislation will have a major impact on those living in rural and regional Australia, and that is what I am going to be speaking about to tonight. No doubt right across Australia the impacts of it will be massive but it will certainly be very harshly felt for those people living in rural areas.

The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 repeals the current cross-media laws and inserts new provisions, which are described and claimed as diversity safeguards. That certainly is not true: these safeguards are very weak and ineffective. The real effect of these changes is that the government’s media ownership bill will reduce media diversity, competition and consumer choice. While the abolition of the cross-media laws may potentially benefit some media owners, it offers nothing for the general public and it is especially detrimental to rural and regional Australia.

In short, this is another metrocentric piece of legislation from this very metrocentric government. With this legislation we see how the National Party have failed to protect the interests of their constituents yet again. We have seen it before, whether it is rolling over on Telstra or industrial relations and, again, they have rolled over on this legislation. Let no person in rural or regional Australia be deceived: this legislation and all the effects and ramifications of it will be passed as a result of the National Party’s failure to stand up to their Liberal masters. They have rolled over, and that is why this deal was done. It is nothing more than a shonky deal and the National Party have allowed it to happen. They got this legislation through the Senate with the deal that they did which ultimately will sell out those people from regional and rural Australia.

This legislation is this government’s way of buying positive media from the media moguls. Mark my words: it will be at the expense of independent media in this country and, again, it will be at the expense of those people in rural and regional Australia, and those media outlets. Tonight the National Party are proudly responsible for the eventual demise of local content in our community media because the deal they did will offer absolutely no protection at all.

In the regulation impact statement, the government acknowledges the removal of cross-media ownership restrictions may reduce local content, yet only regional radio licensees that change ownership will have any additional requirements placed on them, and those requirements are deliberately and blatantly vague. The arrangements in respect of local media content are very weak and the provisions of schedule 2 relate to material of local significance. The proposal is for the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, to insert a condition into a television or radio broadcasting licence in relation to retaining a minimum level of material of local significance.

In terms of ACMA’s development of the definition of material of local significance, the proposed legislation says:

The definition of material of local significance must be broad enough to cover news that relates directly to the local area concerned.

It sounds rather vague and the legislation requires that the definition of material of local significance needs to be broad. In other words, there is very clear legislative intention for ACMA to provide a vague definition in their conditions. There are no guarantees that this will not be exploited, and the legislation borders on asking for exploitation by requiring this very vague definition. Also, in relation to radio, there is no comfort at all. The proposed legislation states:

... the licensee must maintain at least the existing level of local presence.

Who directs ACMA on the supposed protection in this section? It is the minister. ACMA must comply with the direction of the minister—a minister who has willingly and somewhat gleefully sold out the bush and will cause the death of diversity in rural and regional Australia with this legislation. As we have heard from previous speakers, the minister can review the local content provisions. These can be totally up in the air or reduced from what may have been in the initial legislation, which impacts on those people in regional areas.

All of this news about local content is definitely not comforting for those in regional Australia, many of whom are already concerned about the low levels of local content in their areas. In some areas, local content has been given over to bought packaged programs that are produced outside the local area. There is no requirement that local content be produced locally; it could be produced anywhere in the country. It is an absurd situation where we will see further centralisation of news and the end result will be that local journalists in those regional areas will lose their jobs.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Transport and the Arts drew attention to the decline of local radio programming back in 2001. One of the submissions in relation to local content being produced locally pointed out that computers could actually insert local content into the programming from anywhere. The submission also pointed out, quite importantly, what a distant computer cannot do:

It can’t answer the phone from the local sporting group informing us of a cancellation or a bus running late from a sporting function out of town. It can’t read the fax from the Weather Bureau informing of an approaching storm or from the City Council informing of a closed road or the local police searching for a motorist.

In 2003, the ABA imposed the additional licence condition on regional broadcasters that minimum amounts of local content were to be broadcast. In many rural and regional areas, people have been concerned that these arrangements have not provided sufficient local content, just as the formalisation of this arrangement will not ensure sufficient ongoing local content. Many rural and regional communities remain concerned about the lack of local content on their televisions and radios. The passing of this legislation would only give them further concern about their current situation and how even that may decline.

In many areas, there is a vast array of local content. In my electorate at the moment there certainly is, and I will be speaking more about that in a minute. It is important to have local voices, particularly in times of tragedy. On 30 June 2005 in Northern Rivers, New South Wales, we had some major storms and flooding right throughout our area. It was very catastrophic and major towns were cut off. I would like to tell a story of a local radio announcer, Barry Coleman, who is the daily breakfast announcer from Radio 97 from six until nine. He came into work that morning at three o’clock, as he normally does, and torrential rain and flooding had started then. Between 3.30 and four, he was unable to leave the station. Later in the day, all of South Tweed Heads, where his office is based, was shut off.

He was in there and he did his radio show from six until nine, and he was able to take calls and broadcast information about closed roads and keep people informed. It was really important for locals to have that local voice there all the time. At the same time, the ABC in Lismore were able to broadcast quite a few concerns about the situations they had. But back to Barry Coleman: his program ran from six until nine, but he actually stayed on air until about five o’clock that afternoon. He could not leave because all of South Tweed was flooded but, as he said, he stayed there because it was important that local people heard local news about a local event that was impacting on them. It certainly was of great reassurance to so many people, because in an event like that—major flooding in regional areas—to have a local voice and to be able to phone up and perhaps help somebody out is really important. I know that in many areas this does not happen. Those people have real concern that this legislation is only going to make their situation worse.

I believe this legislation should really be renamed the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Death of Diversity) Bill 2006 because diversity of sources and opinion will totally disappear with the removal of existing media regulations. The reality is that these changes will have a significant impact on the quality and the content of local news, particularly in rural and regional Australia. Diversity in media is crucial to those regional areas. My electorate of Richmond is an incredibly diverse electorate and the issues that are important to locals in Byron Bay in the south of my electorate are often vastly different to the issues that are important to locals in Tweed Heads. This diversity is throughout the electorate.

In Richmond, we are very fortunate at the moment to have a great diversity of local media throughout the entire electorate. In a lot of cases, the content of local radio stations is driven by local interests, local concerns and local issues. If we have a homogenous media source, we will get homogenous content—that is all we will end up with. As I said, in my electorate of Richmond we certainly have diversity. I would like to explain just how diverse the media is in that area. In Tweed Heads, in the northern part of the electorate—which is, of course, on the border with Queensland—many people source their information from the Gold Coast. We have radio stations including ABC Gold and Tweed Coasts, Sea FM, Gold FM and Hot Tomato. We have the Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper, which a lot of people from the Tweed use to source their information. Within Tweed Heads itself, we have Radio 97, to which I referred before. At the moment, that has a large amount of local content and many locals listen to that station specifically for local information. We also have the Tweed Daily News, which is the only daily newspaper for the Tweed, Tweed Coast and Murwillumbah area, serving locals who want to be able to find out what is happening in their area.

We also have weekly papers in the Tweed area—the Border Mail and the Tweed Sunwhich are obviously, again, servicing the needs of locals and providing important local information. Further south in the electorate we have the Byron Bay area within Byron Shire. There are some great papers down there. There is the Byron Echo, which is a weekly paper. It certainly is a great local paper in its content and views. There is also the Byron Shire News, another weekly paper. There is also a fantastic community radio station, Bay FM. It is run wholly by volunteers. They are in there all the time talking about a huge range of diverse issues, whether they be local, state, national, international and how any of those issues impact on them locally in the Byron area. Further south, there are a number of media outlets based in Lismore, which is just south of the Richmond electorate but a lot of people within Richmond listen to ABC Lismore. There is 2LM Radio as well.

Newspaper wise, there is the Northern Star and the Northern Rivers Echo. Again, they are very specific local media outlets that service a need in their area. Throughout the electorate there are a lot of smaller publications as well. There is the Banora Point Newsletter, the Lennox Wave, Better Business and the Tweed Weekly. Then, if we move onto some of the regional television stations in the electorate of Richmond, there is NBN, Prime, and Gold Coast Channel 9. That is a long list of diverse local media outlets and they really are specific to certain areas. There is a huge amount there because people in those areas want to hear about the issues that are important to them in their local area. For all that to be destroyed would be catastrophic because local issues are important. As I say, it may be national or international issues and how they impact on them locally. That is what our local media do. We need to have diverse media to represent diverse views and local issues as well.

What is some of the spin we have heard from the government about the justification for killing off diversity? They say that it is because of the rise in internet media. The internet is not a replacement for real local content or genuine local media diversity. There is no evidence to suggest that the internet is increasing the diversity of news. Around 84 per cent of hits on news sites occur on the websites of the major media players. Roy Morgan Research also indicates that the most popular internet news sites are controlled by existing media operators, including Fairfax, News Ltd, Channel 9 and the ABC. The existing major media players completely dominate the market for online news.

But what is really important in this argument about the rise in internet media is: what about all those Australians who still cannot access the internet? What about those in rural and regional Australia who cannot access broadband? The latest OECD broadband statistics show Australia’s ranking in the use of broadband remains at 17 out of 37 surveyed countries in the developed world. That is unchanged from the previous year. Richmond is certainly not the most remote of electorates, yet, as an example, there are constituents who live in Bray Park, only a 20-minute drive from Tweed Heads, who cannot access broadband. There are people who live in certain areas of Tweed Heads who cannot access broadband. If the rise of media on the internet is to be bandied about as the saving grace of media diversity, then what do you say to all those people who cannot access it? It is a double whammy for those people in regional areas when we hear these arguments put forward.

Any threat to media diversity is a clear and direct threat to democracy. The Productivity Commission’s broadcasting inquiry concluded that the business and editorial interests of media proprietors may influence the content and opinion of their media outlets. In the 2000 report it said:

The likelihood that a proprietor’s business and editorial interests will influence the content and opinion of their media outlets is of major significance.

Locals turn to media for information. If that information is skewed by the beliefs of media moguls then people are not able to make informed decisions, especially in the political sphere. A concentration of power in the hands of a few media owners can potentially limit not only diversity of opinion but also free speech. It is a basic tenet of democracy that a diverse range of views be aired. Labor adheres to the principle that regulation promotes the free expression of a diverse range of views.

Of course, the government claims that its package has safeguards to prevent excessive concentration. In truth, these safeguards are completely inadequate. The first alleged safeguard is the five-four voices test. Under this test, a media merger will not be allowed to occur unless there will remain a minimum of five media voices in metropolitan markets and four in regional Australia. The two out of three rule will prevent proprietors from owning newspaper, radio and television assets in the same market. The proposal does nothing to protect diversity in the 17 regional markets where there are only five commercial voices. The revised test will still take no account of the relative influence of different voices.

The other alleged safeguard in the package is the ACCC’s power to examine cross-media mergers to see if they substantially lessen competition. Section 50 of the Trade Practices Act cannot be relied upon as a substitute for the current cross-media laws. The ACCC is a competition regulator; it has no responsibility for protecting diversity. It is not able to take public interest considerations into account in assessing mergers under section 50. In its report on broadcasting, the Productivity Commission stated:

It is clear that the Trade Practices Act as it stands would be unable to prevent many cross media mergers or acquisitions which may reduce diversity.

While the National Party is running around saying that this is a great concession, in reality it offers little additional protection for media diversity. In both metropolitan and regional markets a person in control of a newspaper and a television station would still be able to exercise an unhealthy degree of influence.

One more thing that merits mention is the way in which the government has rammed this legislation through. The bills before the House were the subject of more than 12 months consultation by the minister with the media. The public had just one week to make a submission on the four bills in this package. The Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee was given just three weeks to conduct its inquiry into the legislation, and the government’s rush job on this package continued last week until debate in the Senate was gagged last Thursday. This is indicative of how little the government cares for the opinions of all those people out there or for any constructive debate on this matter. I will certainly answer one question that should have been posed when considering media reform, and that is: what benefit is this legislation to the people of rural and regional Australia? The answer is none. That is all—absolutely none.

This House should be in no doubt about what will happen if the government’s cross-media ownership laws are passed. The end result will be a massive concentration in the ownership of the most influential media in Australia, and it will become harder for diverse voices to be heard. There will be fewer journalists to report on stories of local interest, and that will have a huge impact upon local regional areas.

Again, these bills are destroying the interests of rural and regional Australia. Again, it is left to this side of the House to put forward all the arguments on behalf of rural and regional Australians. We are not hearing those arguments from the other side of the House. Instead, we are hearing time and time again how the government are selling out the people of regional areas. These bills will have a catastrophic effect on the people in regional areas. Within the electorate of Richmond is a vast diversity of local voices, which is one of the many reasons people in my electorate are able to express their opinions in a whole variety of forums right across the board. To see all that disappear and how that will impact upon locals will be devastating, not to mention the impact upon the jobs of locals if we are going to outsource a lot of the news and pull in local content from all over Australia. It will have a huge impact upon those people. (Time expired)

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to support the comments made by my colleague the member for Richmond and other members who have spoken in this every important debate on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006 and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006. As we speak about the diversity of opinions and views in the parliament, we cannot help but notice the lack of government voices on this issue. I must say that I am astonished that we have a very one-sided speakers list on a piece of legislation as significant as this. Perhaps that reflects the complacency that comes with incumbency. Perhaps that reflects the fault line in the different ideologies and approaches of the Liberal-National Party and us when it comes to the question of the public interest.

Without any shadow of a doubt the media is important to us in this place as politicians, whether in opposition or in government. In government, media management would be one of the most important tools a modern political party could have. Ministerial offices in this building are full of media advisers. We sit and read our media clippings, sometimes without much joy; nevertheless, we concentrate on the media very strongly, because we recognise its signal importance in the lifeblood of the democracy and in our prospects of securing government or otherwise. Very simply, media serves as a conduit of ideas, a conduit sometimes of policies. It is one of the main means by which the country engages in a conversation about itself and about what is going on in the world around it. So I am particularly disappointed that so few government members have seen fit to stand up and defend these changes and to take on and respond to some of the arguments that have been made by Labor members speaking on the legislation.

There is no doubt that the media landscape is changing rapidly. The technology driving media is digital in origination and in delivery through the web, through the possible, and definitely coming, different sets of delivery devices for information. This means that the media landscape we look at now will be vastly different in the future, and these changes will happen very quickly. So the challenge to the parliament when it comes to considering legislation of this kind, and to the minister when it comes to drafting it, is not only to secure what it sees to be the best position at this time for guaranteeing diversity and competition in the media but also to try to get some sense of the shape of where the media will be in years to come. There is no doubt that by the test of the public interest or by the test of exploring what the situation is now and identifying any deficiencies that it may or may not have and, finally, by the test of trying to ascertain where we are going to be in 10 or 15 years time in relation to media, this legislation fails on all counts of having considered that seriously.

But we still cannot underestimate the significance of what has been described as the ‘media reform package’. It was rushed through the Senate last week, and I think it represents the most significant alteration to the media landscape that we have seen in the last two decades and its ramifications will undoubtedly be profound. The government says that the changes or reforms will help to strengthen the industry and improve service delivery to the public. But we argue very strongly here that in fact it is the community and the public that will be the losers, not the beneficiaries, because on the issue of diversity of choice there is no doubt whatsoever that this legislation delivers not only a reduction in diversity of choice but also a reduction in diversity of opinion.

The centrepiece of the government’s media laws is the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006, which repeals the cross-media laws that have been in place since the late 1980s and abolishes foreign ownership and control provisions. Labor believe that a liberalisation of the foreign ownership rules has the potential to increase media diversity. We accept that there is the prospect for an increase in diversity if you allow other than Australian entities to have an ownership role in the media. But by removing the cross-media rules—those rules which limit owners to one newspaper, radio station or television licence in any one market—the government is doing something altogether different. It is threatening the very diversity it wants to encourage. It is nothing less than an insult to the intelligence of the Australian people for the government to say that it wants to achieve real reform by getting rid of both the foreign ownership laws and the cross-media laws at once, thereby tying the two together in some kind of sell-off which can really only satisfy larger media interests—and we have already seen significant activity on the share register of PBL in anticipation of this legislation passing through the parliament.

The members who have spoken previously, including the member for Richmond and the member for Lowe, have remarked that by allowing only three weeks for the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts to conduct its inquiry into these proposed changes; by allowing only about a one-week window of opportunity for the public to make submissions, with two days for public hearings and very little time for questions from opposition senators; and by having the final coup de grace, the gag applied last Thursday in the Senate, the guillotine—all wheeled out on cue—on the very issue we are here to discuss in the most thorough and robust way we can, the issue about the expression of ideas, media diversity and an examination of legislation of this kind, the Senate process has been truncated and brought to a close prematurely. I think that is a very great pity.

Debate interrupted.