Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Wentworth proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The threat posed to free speech by the Government s proposed media reforms.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Our democracy depends on a free press as much as it depends on free elections. The work that journalists do, the work that newspapers, broadcasters and website bloggers do, is as important as the work that we do here as legislators. A key test of a democracy is the extent to which the press is free—not free from anything but free from government. Around the world the greatest threat to press freedom is governments—governments that seek to have the press tell them what they want. We know that every government feels it is being treated unfairly by the press, and I have to say that any government that read the press every day and was satisfied with the reports would have a press that was not doing its job. The job of the press is to make governments and the powerful uncomfortable. The job of journalists is to uncover wrongdoing. The job of journalists is to hold governments to account. I will come to some great examples of that in a moment.

When you have a government in a country such as ours which has never sought to regulate newspapers—to interfere with the content of newspapers in peacetime—take that step for government oversight of the content and the standards of newspapers, that is an incredibly big step. That is a momentous moment. It begins with a walk with the Public Interest Media Advocate and could end with a press that is virtually controlled by the government. Keeping government's hands off the press is fundamental; it is vital to our democracy. So, you would think that if a government, a competent government—were we to have one—were even to consider a step such as this, it would do so with the greatest of care, with the greatest consultation, with lengthy hearings, with extensive debate.

But, oh, no. These so-called media reforms are really a jumble of measures, each of which has virtually nothing to do with the others—some relate to licence fees, some to content, some to newspapers. They are a complete dog's breakfast of measures which have no coherent unity among them. They have been flung into the parliament by Senator Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, and the only question that his action has settled is this: he is without question the least competent minister in this most shambolic and inept of governments. Yesterday, when the Leader of the House was sitting opposite me, I asked him to nominate a more incompetent minister and he was unable to nominate one. So that title is without question.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the editor of the Australian?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Clearly, honourable members opposite have some other nominations for the most incompetent minister. I will put my case to you. Senator Conroy has been unable to persuade the proprietors of television stations, including Mr Kerry Stokes, that they should accept a media law package which includes a 50 per cent cut in their licence fees. Anyone who cannot sell a 50 per cent cut in licence fees to a television station proprietor must be the worst salesman of all time. I put it to you, Madam Speaker, Senator Conroy could not sell fresh fish to starving seals. This is a long cavalcade of incompetence. This is the same government that introduced a mining tax that generated little or no revenue. We should give credit where credit is due—the gentleman's name has been bandied around today, and the truth is that the only Labor politician so far that has succeeded in spreading the benefits of the mining boom is Mr Eddie Obeid. It is fair to say he has spread it fairly narrowly within his immediate family, but every single one of the profound defects in the way this government operates is on display here: a lack of consultation, even a lack of consultation within their own cabinet.

Yesterday we even had the chief executive of News Ltd, Kim Williams, say that he had not been engaged by the government in the preparation and the discussions relating to this legislation. Whether you are a fan of News Ltd or not, whether you are a fan of Kim Williams or not, they do employ 14,000 Australians. It is a large media company and, just as the government would have been well advised to consult the mining industry before they introduced that hopeless mining tax, so you should talk to the various stakeholders and interest groups within the media industry before you proceed. The reality is that this is a case of malicious, malevolent intent, revenge directed at the News Ltd newspaper group, coupled with that characteristic indelible, unmistakable Conrovian incompetence.

I say this to you, Madam Speaker: in terms of the importance of protecting freedom of speech and freedom of the press, remember this: I mentioned Mr Eddie Obeid a moment ago, and it was not a government agency or the New South Wales police or in fact ICAC that uncovered what appears to be the largest example of corruption in our lives—the scale of the corruption is colossal; it disgraces the Labor Party indelibly. Who uncovered that? Kate McClymont, one courageous journalist working for the Sydney Morning Herald. She was able to pursue that because of cooperation and collaboration with the ABC—cooperation between media outlets which this government is threatening to ban. Imagine that! Is it a payback against Kate McClymont as well?

The coalition is profoundly opposed to any measures which restrict freedom of the press. We know that if we are fortunate enough to be returned to government, we will grind our teeth at the injustices meted out to us by the newspapers of the day. We will rant and rage against the unfair broadcasts and criticisms of us. We know all that, but we know that that is vital to our democracy and we would never seek to restrict that freedom.

The government has tried to suggest that the Public Interest Media Advocate is just a sort of teddy bear and is not going to involve any serious restriction on the newspaper industry. Senator Conroy told the ABC AM program:

The public interest advocate when it comes to the Press Council functions is simply a registration function, that the Press Council itself is upholding its own positions.

What Australians want to see is the media be accountable through the Australian Press Council. The Government or the advocate are not changing a single standard that the Press Council currently has.

Yet, as we know from the language of the bill itself, the Public Interest Media Advocate will judge the extent to which standards formulated under the news media self-regulation scheme, the Press Council, deal with privacy, fairness, accuracy and all other matters relating to the professional conduct of journalism. If the Public Interest Media Advocate comes to the conclusion that the Press Council is not doing its job and deregisters the Press Council, then all of its members will lose the exemptions under the privacy law without which they are not able to conduct their business. If a newspaper or media group that is covered decides it does not want to join the Press Council, as the West Australian has decided—and that should be its perfect right—it will not have the protection of the exemptions under the Privacy Act. This is getting the government, through this bureaucrap, absolutely, directly involved in the standards that affect journalism.

There is an even more sinister element here. We have many laws that deal or relate to media industry acquisitions. In terms of diversity and competition, the competition regulator, the ACCC, has extensive powers under its act and, of course, has recently used them to ensure that Kerry Stokes did not buy a larger share in Fox. So, there is protection there already. This new regulator will be able to approve or prevent media acquisitions if they fail a public interest test. What does that mean? It is a completely vague concept which is utterly unworkable in any practical sense and meaningless because it has no other purpose than to protect not the public interest but political interest. Every media acquisition will require extensive consultation with the government. It will be the government that will determine who can buy what newspaper.

Of course governments will make those decisions on political grounds, just as the Labor Party government did in 1986 when it allowed Rupert Murdoch to buy the Herald and Weekly Times group. That is a very important point to bear in mind, because it was not the coalition. We are accused of being lickspittles of the media moguls. Let me tell you: I have been involved with media moguls most of my life. I have never seen anything as sycophantic as a Labor politician in the presence of a billionaire. Remember this: they rant and rave about media concentration but they allowed Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd to buy the Herald and Weekly Times in 1986, and that is what gave Murdoch the domination of the metropolitan daily newspaper market. In the nearly 30 years that has intervened, Murdoch still has the same domination in the metropolitan dailies, but the slice of the overall news and information pie represented by newspapers gets smaller every day because we have never had such a diversity of voices, courtesy of the technology of the internet, that we have available today. We have access to more news, more views, more opinion and more sources of factual information than ever before.

Social media alone gives every individual their own little megaphone, which, if aggregated with others, can be an enormous megaphone. It means that politicians such as any of us do not have to suck up to an editor or a producer to get our views out into the public domain. We can post them via social media on our own sites on Twitter or on Facebook and we can be heard. We have a more diverse media world than we have ever had. Yet this is the moment, a time when diversity is greater than ever and a time when it is actually increasing and not diminishing, when the Labor Party—the architects of the largest media acquisition in our country's history, the one that created the dominance of metropolitan newspapers that they rail against today—say we must regulate the media.

We know that their motives have nothing to do with diversity. They have nothing to do with protecting a diversity of voices. What they want to do is pay back News Ltd. They want to send a message to Kim Williams and his editors that says: 'If you don't play nice, there will be a stick waiting for you. If you don't play nice, next time you want to buy something, next time you want to buy a business like Alan Kohler's Business Spectator and the Eureka Report, you're going to have to pass the Public Interest Media Advocate's public interest test. That's going to be, of course, whether we think you pass our political interest test.'

I say this to you, Madam Speaker, if by some mischance this shambolic set of reforms manages to get through this parliament, if we are returned to government after the election, we will repeal them. If this Labor Party, this Labor government, gives to future governments the tools to manipulate the media, we will disown them and abandon them, and we will return Australia's media to the state it has today of being free.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let us take a considered and careful look at the record on free speech, since that is the way in which this has been put by the member for Wentworth. Let us compare the hysterical rhetoric that we have just heard from the member for Wentworth, and the hysterical rhetoric from a whole range of people on the other side of this chamber, with what has actually happened in terms of historical facts.

The Labor Party has always been the party which stands up for freedom of speech and democracy in this country. It is the Labor Party which has for over a century now fought for the protection of democratic values. It is the Labor Party which has fought for legal protections which allow all Australians—all Australians—to exercise their right to speak freely and engage in democracy, not just those with the most vitriolic views.

The ability of citizens to speak freely and to openly debate the issues of the day is a hallmark of a robust democracy, and I suspect that the member for Wentworth might be able to agree with that statement. The right of all citizens to speak freely is one of our most highly valued and fiercely protected rights. Freedom of association is another right which is valued and fiercely protected. Voting rights are another key part of democracy—so is giving the right to all our citizens to enjoy fully the benefits of our democracy. Without those rights, freedom of speech becomes meaningless in practice, and that is why Labor has fought not only for freedom of speech but also for all those other rights.

Australia's first racial discrimination act was passed under Prime Minister Whitlam. The establishment of the Human Rights Commission occurred under Prime Minister Hawke. The Sex Discrimination Act gave new rights to more than half our population. I could mention the introduction by the Hawke government of section 327 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, which prohibits a person interfering with the free exercise of any political right in relation to an election. Native title and, with it, the fundamental recognition of the rights of first Australians was introduced of course under Prime Minister Keating. It was Labor that created section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1995, ensuring that hate speech and racial vilification has no place in Australia and that vulnerable groups in our community enjoy to the full the right to be an Australian citizen and the right to enjoy the benefits of our community—that is a provision which this Liberal Party has pledged to repeal. Or I could mention the Disability Discrimination Act, giving rights to some of our most vulnerable Australians; it too was passed by Labor. Once again, today, we are passing landmark legislation to create a National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Our government has appointed a new Children's Commissioner—one of the first acts I was able to take as the new Attorney-General—to represent and speak out for those who have a smaller voice in Australian society. And it was our government that repealed Work Choices, which of course limited Australians' right to freedom of association. Australians in 2007, with their vote, overwhelmingly rejected the restriction on their liberty and on their right to organise that were bound up in that Work Choices legislation. It is our government that has asked an independent monitor to consider national security assessments of irregular maritime arrivals; established a parliamentary human rights scrutiny committee; and required all ministers to report on compliance of laws with human rights principles.

It was our government that introduced the most significant pro-disclosure reforms to the Freedom of Information Act since the act was first passed. We have removed application fees, we have abolished the conclusive certificates that were so beloved by the Howard government and we have introduced free decision-making time for journalists. We have established the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. It is the Labor Party that has always been, and will continue to be, the champion of individual liberties, enshrining these protections in law.

By contrast, we have seen a lot of empty posturing about free speech from the Liberal and National parties. The member for Wentworth took it to perhaps the heights of the overblown rhetoric we have seen on this subject when he said yesterday—and I will quote him, because the level of bluster and rhetoric he reached was so startling:

Freedom is at stake, liberty is at stake, democracy is at stake …

The member for Wentworth's credibility is at stake if he thinks that those comments are appropriate to this legislation that has been proposed. The Liberal Party's credibility is at stake if they seriously think democracy is at stake because of these reforms.

Let us look at a few more historical facts here. Democracy can be said to have been truly at stake when the Liberal Party, the same Liberal Party that sits opposite us now, tried to outlaw a political party in 1950. That is what Liberal Prime Minister Menzies did—tried to outlaw a political party, which of course the Australian people resoundingly rejected at a referendum. We can go further back in time and point to the same Menzies, not as Prime Minister but as a minister, trying to prevent Czech socialist Egon Kisch, a famous case, from even entering Australia because of his political views. In contrast, Labor did not seek to prevent the right-wing extremist Geert Wilders from entering Australia this year. We can point to other examples of such conduct by this Liberal Party while in government, such as Sir Robert Menzies repeatedly suppressing damaging media stories with D-notices or, indeed—to bring it a bit more up to date—the conduct of the Howard government, which repeatedly used conclusive certificates to prevent freedom-of-information releases, and those, of course, as I have mentioned, are provisions which the Labor Party has repealed in government.

You could say that democracy was truly at stake when the Liberal Party, under the leadership of former Prime Minister Howard, wanted to and did impose gag orders on churches and charities in exchange for funding. Labor has lifted that ban. If we are going to talk about freedom of speech and freedom to participate in political debate in this country, let us remember it is Labor that lifted that ban, allowing charities to speak freely and to participate in political debate, and made sure that there will be no such bans in the future. But this Liberal Party, in its Liberal National Party manifestation in Queensland, has not given up on gagging charities and churches or anyone else who has an opposing view. The Queensland LNP government has not only imposed gag orders on churches and charities but has removed funding from organisations which speak out against that government. Now, that is democracy at stake, not the imagined and overblown, rhetorical opposition that has been raised to these media reforms. And it is not surprising—it is not something that should surprise any Australian, given the history of the conservative parties in Queensland. It was of course the Bjelke-Petersen government that dispatched secret police to keep records on individuals and on Indigenous activists; it was the Bjelke-Petersen government that banned street marches and locked up individuals for protesting. That is the attitude of the conservative parties in this country to free speech.

It was under the Howard Liberal government that two journalists faced jail for contempt. If we are going to talk about freedom of the press we should remind ourselves of what was the actual conduct of the Liberal Party while in government: to stand by and do nothing when two journalists were faced with jail for contempt of court for refusing to reveal their sources. By contrast, this Labor government has introduced journalist shield laws to make sure that that situation cannot occur again, to protect the freedom of the press to do their work, to protect freedom of speech in this country.

Democracy was truly at stake when the Howard government restricted voting rights by passing laws that cut off the rolls as soon as an election was announced, bringing it forward by nearly a month, to make sure that thousands of young Australians and other people who had not got on the roll were disenfranchised. That is something that puts democracy at stake, not these media reforms.

We could point to the Liberal Party's hero Peter Costello fighting all the way to the High Court to resist giving News Ltd journalist Michael McKinnon Treasury information under the Freedom of Information Act. Labor has removed gag clauses. Labor is allowing charities and churches once again to speak freely and contribute to robust democratic debate in Australia. Labor has improved journalist shield laws. Labor is developing whistleblower legislation.

It is not a stretch to say that the party of which the member for Wentworth is a part is now much closer to the American Tea Party than it has ever been before. It is a party that is focused on selfishness. It is a party that is focused on unregulated big business more than ever before. It is ridiculous to think that liberalism has anything to do with the dries that are now occupying the benches on the other side of this chamber. We see through the Liberal Party's sanctimonious posturing in relation to media reform. It is, as usual, simply backing self-interest and jumping on the bandwagon.

Let us take a brief, considered look at this current free-speech debate that has been put forward in response to the media reforms. Journalists occupy an extremely privileged position in our democracy—they have access to information that no other business, no government nor the average man or woman on the street can access. The onus is on journalists to protect and keep the confidentiality of their sources. The reform that we are talking about does not force journalists to reveal their sources; what it does is to focus attention on Australians' personal information. It is a package of reforms that will enhance privacy for Australians. It will ensure that the media deals with photographs and personal data in an appropriate and entirely responsible fashion, and it will be modelled on self-regulation.

I want to mention a perhaps-overlooked fact in this debate: the provision that we are seeking to amend, section 7B(4) of the Privacy Act, was placed there by the Liberal government in 2000. It was placed there when the Privacy Act was extended from its previous form, which just dealt with government, to the whole of the private sector. That is the provision we are dealing with—the provision which says, in simple terms, that journalists are exempt from the provisions of the Privacy Act provided they work for a recognised organisation that signs up to a code that says there will be an observance of privacy protections. All that is occurring with this proposed amendment is the use of the same provision, one that was put there by the Liberal Party in government. I would like to note what Senator Ian Campbell said in the second reading speech in 2000 on this very provision. He said in the Senate:

The media in Australia have a unique and important role in keeping the Australian public informed.

In developing the Bill the Government—

that is, the Liberal government—

has sought to achieve a balance between the public interest in allowing a free flow of information to the public through the media and the individual's right to privacy.

In order to achieve this balance, the Bill does not apply to acts and practices of media organisations in the course of journalism—

and this is the important bit—

where the media organisation has publicly committed itself to observing published standards that deal with privacy in a media context.

The Liberal Party, too, expects the media to uphold these standards—and that is the context in which we should be seeing this. The Liberal Party in government put in place an exemption for journalists. That exemption will be continued. It was a conditional exemption when they legislated for it; it will be a conditional exemption under these reforms as well—and the condition is that the journalist is someone employed by an organisation that is going to observe privacy standards. It is not particularly complicated, nor is it some massive intrusion, as has been suggested here. We will be continuing to use self-regulation. The Press Council will continue to be in existence and it will develop the standards. It will not be the independent Public Interest Media Advocate who is developing the standards; it will be the self-regulating Press Council which is developing the standards. The Public Interest Media Advocate is going to consult with the federal Privacy Commissioner, Tim Pilgrim, who will take into account Australians' privacy protections in the media and decide whether or not the standards that are developed by the Press Council are appropriate.

We could take a look at the member for Wentworth's own record on free speech. Just yesterday he encouraged Senator Conroy to sue News Ltd—and it is not surprising, because the member for Wentworth is an expert on using defamation writs to silence his critics. He sued the Sydney Morning Herald over a piece involving an allegations about an ex-girlfriend's cat. He went after the Australian Financial Review because of an article calling him 'part polymath, part sociopath'. He has a long track record of using defamation writs to silence free speech. (Time expired)

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I would like to start by contrasting two quotes. The first is from Winston Churchill, who said:

A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny … Under dictatorship the press is bound to languish, and the loudspeaker and the film to become more important. But where free institutions are indigenous to the soil and men have the habit of liberty, the press will continue to be the Fourth Estate, the vigilant guardian of the rights of the ordinary citizen.

That is a very important quote. I would like to contrast that quote with another from a very famous person, Lenin. Back in 1920, Lenin said:

Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?

Well, this is a government that has made an art form of embarrassing itself. It does not even really need the assistance of a printing press to do that; it is doing it all by itself.

But I must say that it is a sad day for democracy in Australia, a sad day for the history of the Australian parliament, when the opposition has been forced to bring on a debate to defend the freedom of the press from a democratically elected government seeking to muzzle its influence. Make no mistake, the media reforms introduced into the parliament by the government this morning are nothing more than a full-frontal attack on the freedom of the press in this country. It should not be for the government to approve the standards by which the media outlets must conduct themselves.

This debate about free-press controls and the reform of the media industry provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the key parliamentary figures involved in this matter. On the government side, we have the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy. Senator Conroy is quite famous—for nothing particularly good, I might say, but he is quite famous. He is famous for bragging that he has unfettered power over the telecommunications industry in Australia and that he could make senior executives of Australia's major telecommunications companies 'wear red underpants on their head'. Would you like to hand control of what good media reporting is to a minister who has claimed that he has the authority to make telecommunications company executives wear red underpants on their head? I think not. He is also famous for overturning the Australia Network tender process because the preferred tender came from a company that he in fact despised. I could go on, but those two examples give a fair indication of the type of man we are dealing with. I need say no more.

But on the other hand, on the coalition side, we have the shadow minister for communications, the member for Wentworth, and he has a track record in relation to freedom of speech. It was the member for Wentworth, the shadow minister for communications, who rose to prominence by standing up to the establishment and defending free speech in the Spycatcher trial. His reputation goes before him.

The contrast could not be more obvious. The government only support freedom of the press when it suits them. We on this side of the House recognise that freedom of the press is the foundation stone of a democracy. On the other side, we have a minister who spends his days attempting to deceive and mislead this parliament and the Australian people about the true status of the NBN, and in his spare time he is now attempting to muzzle the media.

For this reason, we are resolute in our opposition to the government's proposal to regulate the media. Not only are we opposed to the government's attempts to control the media on an ideological basis; we are also appalled by the chaotic handling of this issue and the minister's insistence that these reforms must be rammed through this parliament. We found out this morning that the minister rammed the changes through cabinet, even though some of his senior colleagues were absent from the meeting. The minister rammed these changes through the Labor caucus despite the protests of the caucus chairman. The arrogance of this minister is breathtaking.

The bills introduced this morning should be subject to a major Senate inquiry. They should have been released for comment before being introduced into this House. The key stakeholders should have been consulted. At the very least, the cabinet should have been given time to read the papers. At the very, very least, the cabinet ministers should have had the chance to read the papers before being asked to approve them.

These are typical bullying tactics from Senator Conroy. I have a message for the minister: these tactics may work in your factional fights within the Victorian ALP, but they are not appropriate in this parliament and have no place in this parliament.

As the shadow minister for regional communications and a member representing a regional electorate, I am also bothered by the government's approach to the reach rule. Geographical boundaries are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the media landscape. Media consumers are accessing news and entertainment on demand, from all over Australia and the world. In years gone by, someone living in my town of Coffs Harbour would have had access to a local newspaper—whichever newspapers were delivered to the local newsagent. Now we have access to newspapers from all around the world. We used to have a choice of two TV stations. Now we have more than a dozen digital television stations and access to online videos from many, many sources. People are getting their local news and stories from blogs and websites as well as the local newspaper. We have YouTube and scores of other sources. So, while the reach of traditional television networks is still restricted by law, the reach of new media is unlimited. With this in mind, changing the current reach rule does not appear to be an unreasonable proposition.

However, I am deeply concerned about the possibility that mergers between television networks could result in a reduction in the amount of quality locally significant content broadcast in the regions. Unfortunately, the government has given the new joint select committee only one day to examine how the reach rule might impact on local news services and what measures should be put in place to protect local content. This is a very complex issue and the amount of time being offered for consideration does not do justice to it. We need to have proper scrutiny, proper analysis, and we need the opportunity for stakeholders to make a meaningful contribution. These are measures that need to be properly thought through and they ought to be subject to thorough parliamentary scrutiny. A one-day inquiry and the deadlines imposed by the minister with regard to these bills fall far short of the standard of proper parliamentary scrutiny that the members of this House see as appropriate.

The free-to-air television body Free TV Australia made two submissions to the Convergence Review which advocated the removal of the reach rule. We have now seen two of the three main free-to-air networks air concerns about removing the reach rule and one national network enter into preliminary merger discussions with a regional network pending the removal of the reach rule. It is clear that some stakeholders are eager for the reach rule to be removed, and some believe that removing the reach rule would be detrimental to business. I mention these background issues to make the point that removing the reach rule is a complex issue that requires more scrutiny than can be provided in a one-day committee meeting.

Despite the complexity of the issue, the bottom line is quite simple: we will not be railroaded into supporting an outcome that is not in the best interest of our constituents. We will only be satisfied with the outcome if it protects local content and local news. Despite the rise of the internet, Australians living in the regions still rely on their local television network as their key source of local news and stories. We must not allow any changes that reduce the amount of local content and storytelling broadcast in regional licence areas.

I am also concerned about the impact on local presence if the reach rule is removed. Whilst these are separate issues, they are linked. Local news and content is important, but it is also important to have reporters and cameramen on the ground in the regions. We need to have local news and stories told by local people, not by some syndicated network 3,000 kilometres away, where the individual involved cannot even pronounce the local place names. Holders of regional broadcast licences are using limited public spectrum to make money. In return, the least we can expect is that they broadcast material relevant to that licence area.

This government has a history of introducing rushed and ill-considered reforms and seeking to avoid the harsh glare of public and parliamentary scrutiny. We will participate in the joint select committee in good faith, but we will not be rushed into supporting an outcome that is not good for our constituents, we will not be rushed into any measures that will reduce freedom of speech for the press and we will not be rushed into playing the minister's games—a minister who cannot be trusted. He cannot be trusted with the NBN and he certainly cannot be trusted with media reform.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a matter of importance. The debate on the member for Wentworth's motion is very, very important because it says that there is a threat posed to free speech by the government's proposed media reforms. But at the heart of the Labor government's media reforms—as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker—is the potential for further concentration of media ownership in Australia.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rubbish!

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not rubbish. If the member for Mitchell listens to me he will understand better. I have been in this place for 15 years, and every time this issue rears its ugly head I have been an outspoken opponent of concentration of media ownership.

I will accept the point that the member for Wentworth made in relation to the Labor government's allowing News Limited, Mr Murdoch, to buy the Herald and Weekly Timesand we understand the politics of that time. I disagreed with it; I still disagree with it. It certainly allowed News Limited and the Murdoch family to get a stranglehold on the print media in Australia. Even more shameful for the government of the day, our government, was the fact that the Foreign Investment Review Board somehow, conveniently, looked the other way when Mr Murdoch decided to abandon his Australian citizenship and become an American citizen to dominate the media internationally, starting in America and the UK, while being allowed to keep his media assets in Australia. I opposed that. I was not here at the time; I certainly would have railed against that if I had been.

We have not heard from the member for Wentworth or the member for Cowper about the potential for concentration of media ownership in Australia. For the benefit of those members, and the member for Mitchell, I will remind the House that the Murdoch media owns 70 per cent of the metropolitan daily newspapers in Australia. They own more than 50 per cent of the regional and suburban newspapers in Australia. They now have a 50 per cent monopoly share in Foxtel in Australia; interests in AAP, HarperCollins Publishers and other publishers; and have one of the most accessed sites on the internet: news.com.au.

I do not have any problem with the so-called propaganda, that has been referred to in recent days, by the Murdoch media. The Murdoch media have the right to run the stories however they like but they do not have the right to drown out all the other voices. And this is what is going to happen without this legislation. And that is why I feel so passionately about it.

Those on both sides of the House—whether they are in the Labor Party or the Liberal Party—are guilty of surrendering to the power of the media moguls in Australia. And that is wrong. If this legislation goes through it will preclude Mr Lachlan Murdoch from getting control of a free-to-air television network—and I am referring specifically to the Network Ten—and being able to buy radio stations.

What do you think would happen if the Murdoch family were able to get control of a free-to-air television network in Australia? I will tell you. The lucrative sporting dollar would flow principally to the Murdoch family. They have the game sown up with Foxtel. It is a very convenient way to get around the antisiphoning legislation so that the most attractive programs that have to be run on free-to-air television will be run by channel 10 under Mr Lachlan Murdoch, extracting the best advertising dollar. And what will that do to Channel 7, Channel 9, the ABC and the SBS, in terms of their capacity to broadcast sport and provide a bit of competition? It will neuter them. What will they be left with? They will be left with broadcasting the lawn bowls and programs like that. Okay, it might be fair enough for those people who like lawn bowls but it is not very lucrative like the Rugby League, the cricket, the Melbourne Cup, World Cup soccer and the Olympic Games—all the principal sporting events.

I draw to the attention of the previous speakers, and the member for Mitchell, a very sober and balanced analysis in response to all the hysteria led by Mr Kim Williams, the chief executive of News Limited in Australia, in relation to this package. Mr Richard Ackland, who is a very respected commentator, says:

The self-righteous bloviating from press interests, and the shrill coverage from News Ltd papers in particular, leads to the suspicion that Senator Conroy can't be far wrong with his tiny package of media reforms.

The Daily Telegraph, without a glimmer of irony, thinks it is an ''aggressive attempt to silence your media''.

Kim Williams, Rupert Murdoch's provincial governor, said this is the first government outside of wartime to ''attack freedom of speech''.

The ever-reliable ''professor'' David Flint thinks the media plan is an assault on the very foundations of our federation.

Opposition spokesman Malcolm Turnbull declared—

as the Attorney-General said in his speech, repeated here—

''Freedom is at stake, liberty is at stake, democracy is at stake.''

It is at stake if our laws do not go through the parliament, because there will be a concentration of media ownership. I will go on, for the benefit of the member for Mitchell, who is still in the chamber, so he knows what Mr Ackland said. The article continues:

And this from a Liberal Party spokesman whose leader has growled at the ABC about its ''bias'' and about whom the public broadcaster lives in fear of retribution.

What is really at stake is how far these special pleaders can get away with their over-egged rhetoric.

Maybe forgotten in the excitement is the realisation that under the Conroy plan, Murdoch's News Ltd will now have its Foxtel pay TV operations subject to a public interest test for mergers and acquisitions. It can't get more shocking than that.

The main components of the Minister for Communications' announcement on Tuesday, about which the details, expected to be revealed on Thursday, are: self-regulating press standards with oversight by a public interest media advocate; and a public interest test for media mergers and acquisitions.

Some TV ''reach'' provisions are to be referred to a parliamentary committee that is expected to solve something that the free-to-air moguls can't agree on themselves. So one point at a time.

The main print standards body will still be the industry-run Australian Press Council, although the plan envisages the possibility of competing self-regulatory bodies that are approved or ''declared'' by the public interest media advocate.

The standards or codes of journalistic conduct are the ones that presently exist. The industry will remain self-regulating and no government funding is to be provided.

The PIMA would have oversight of the media councils, seeing that they were doing their jobs properly and responding to complaints appropriately.

Where's the threat to free speech, liberty and democracy in that tiddlywinks scheme?

The complaints are a bit rum when you consider that historically the press barons fought tooth and nail against the implementation of even an industry-run council. They turned on and off the funding faucet whenever it suited and generally regarded the whole process with disdain.

Now the Australian Press Council is being embraced as the rock on which our freedoms are built.

Instead of fines and torture as penalties for disobedience proposed by the Finkelstein review, it is now a carrots and sticks approach.

Journalist exemptions under the Privacy Act would apply only to those media organisations who signed up to a self-regulating press standards body. How wicked is that?

I do not have time to read the rest of it, but everyone should read it because it is a balanced and accurate reply.

I remind the House where I started: what this is all about is the future of our democracy, because this will allow concentration of media ownership in Australia. People do not vote for a media company; in a small number of cases they vote for a local member and in most cases they vote for a party, its policies and the leader. They do not vote for Rupert Murdoch.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They vote for John Murphy now.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hope so.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week we have seen a new low from the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy with his announcement of Orwellian media reforms. Those who have followed the career of the minister—the factional power plays and the egocentric statements that he can, if he so chooses, get people to wear red underpants on their heads—might describe these Big Brother media reforms as a new low, and they might think that is a big statement. In this place, when I make such statements, I am at least protected by parliamentary privilege. But, if Senator Conroy has his way, those who critique him in the press may not be so lucky. Why? He has announced that the government will regulate the media in this country—a media that has been, until this point, free of government control and interference. In all other longstanding democracies, the media has been free for centuries. He has said that the government now will intervene and interfere.

Why does the media need regulation? What is the problem that he says needs solving? No-one can in fact articulate this. The Prime Minister herself, when questioned by journalists—something that may well become an inconvenience of the past if these reforms go through—ducked the question. She could not give one example. We know, though, the real reason why these so-called reforms have been brought into this place: the Greens have demanded it. Bob Brown demanded it when he was leader. He described News Limited as the 'hate media'. The member for Reid describes the media as the 'Murdoch press' and 'press barons'. Christine Milne, the new leader, is very concerned about who owns what in the media. The fact is that the Labor Party do not like being held to account. They do not like scrutiny. Why is this? Because a free media does not do as it is told.

A free press is critical to our democracy. That is why we stand opposed to any restrictions on the press. Winston Churchill said so accurately some time ago:

A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny … where free institutions are indigenous to the soil and men have the habit of liberty, the press will continue to be the Fourth Estate, the vigilant guardian of the rights of the ordinary citizen.

This is why it is important. We have seen the investigative reporting of our press in recent times. We have seen them uncover the scandals of the HSU. We have seen them uncover the scandals of the Obeid empire. All of this of course is very inconvenient to those who sit opposite. What has been the reaction to Senator Conroy's announced changes? Have they been universally acclaimed? No. His announcement has united each and every voice in the media to condemn the move. Let me remind the House of some of the statements which have been made. Kim Williams, the chief executive officer of News Limited, has said:

This government will go down in history as the first Australian government outside of war time to attack freedom of speech by seeking to introduce a regime which effectively institutes government-sanctioned journalism.

Seven West Media said:

This is an unprecedented restriction that is wholly inconsistent with the notion of a free press.

Greg Hywood, the chief executive of Fairfax, has said:

… there's no evidence that there is a problem to solve in Australia. We can't see the purpose of further regulation of news publications.

Andrew Bolt, the HeraldSun commentator, has said:

I never dreamed—never feared—Australia would have a government plotting to control journalists it did not like.

But lest they think that this is some media conspiracy, News Limited conspiracy, let me quote Mark Scott, the managing director of the ABC:

It's a disaster for us all. It's profoundly disappointing. The voice of industry was ignored.

Let us examine the reforms which the government says are so vitally needed. There are two in particular that I want to examine today: the new public interest test, which it says will apply to media merges; and, secondly, the government appointed Public Interest Media Advocate. First to the public interest test. The government is very concerned that we have a diversity of voices. Yet never before have we seen in the media such diversity as exists today. The internet has definitely changed the landscape, as has social media. We now have access to voices like we have never had before. This should give some comfort to those opposite. Already we have regulators who look to the very questions of diversity and competition. We have the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, ACCC, which actually implements the former Trade Practices Act, now the Competition and Consumer Act. They make sure that we do have competition in this space.

Only recently did the ACCC knock back Channel 7 in its attempt to buy Fox Sports and when those opposite have been asked the question, 'What is it in particular that this public interest test will ensure does not occur?' they cannot explain it. Also, the Australian Communications and Media Authority looked to the question of diversity. Yet the government says we need to add another regulator, that we need to add a new test, a test which no doubt will cost more and a test which so far lacks any detail. If the government is truly concerned about media diversity, let me remind them that in 1986 it was the Hawke-Keating government which allowed News to buy the Herald and Weekly Times. Yet it is only now, months out from an election, that the government seems to think we have an issue with media diversity.

Let me also touch on the Public Interest Media Advocate. The government say that this is vital in order to have the right ethical standards and sanctions. Yet we know that it is simply a solution in search of a problem. They cannot say what it is that the Public Interest Media Advocate will do. They also ignore the fact that we already have an independent body, a self-regulated independent body, the Australian Press Council, which does indeed regulate the ethical standards of the media.

In the time remaining, I want to touch briefly on the process which has led us to this matter of public importance today. After doing nothing for two years, Senator Conroy now claims that there is great urgency to respond to the Convergence Review and the Finklestein inquiry. He says it is an imperative to regulate the media and to pass the bill by the end of next week. We on this side are alarmed at the lack of process, the lack of due diligence, the lack of consultation and the lack of detail which have become a hallmark of this current government and the way they do business.

I reflect upon recent initiatives of the government which have had a similar lack of process and lack of scrutiny: the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, again another Greens-Labor special, a $10 billion Bob Brown bank, with no consultation, no notice, no detail and $10 billion of taxpayers' funds being whittled away. This was all done in less than five business days and according to the timetable set by Senator Conroy. We know that he wants to put through this bill by the end of next week. There has been no detail, there has been no consultation even among the cabinet of the Labor Party. It has been rushed through to try to restrict the voice of freedom in Australia. This is something we all must stand united against.

Free press is essential for our democratic institutions. The Conroy announcement will ensure that the media is turned into a eunuch. We must stand united against this. It will hurt our democracy and ultimately hurt the Australian people.