Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion forthwith—That this House condemns the Prime Minister for yet another display of poor judgment by attempting to ram wide-reaching media reform legislation through the parliament without proper consideration and at the risk of damaging Australia’s reputation as a nation that regards freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, as a cornerstone of our democracy.

Standing orders must be suspended because freedom of speech is at the heart of our democracy, yet that is not what the Prime Minister of this country thinks. The Prime Minister of this country stood up in this parliament not more than five minutes ago and said that a respected organisation regarded us as ranking not first, not second, not fourth, not 10th, not 20th but 26th in the world for freedom of speech, and this government now wants to drive our ranking down even further.

The Prime Minister exposed what she really thinks about freedom of speech in this parliament last week. This phrase should echo around this chamber; this is a phrase that should come to characterise this prime ministership every bit as much as the fateful phrase: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' The phrase that Prime Minister uttered in this chamber last week, the phrase that exposes the truth about her, her standards and her judgment, is: 'Let's have no more'—wait for it—'sanctimonious nonsense about freedom of speech.' The Prime Minister thinks that freedom of speech and talk of freedom of speech is 'sanctimonious nonsense'. What an appalling indictment of this government.

This is a government and a Prime Minister who do not like scrutiny and are now trying to close it down. That is why standing orders need to be suspended. This is a government that cannot cop criticism, and when it is criticised it reveals its authoritarian streak. That is why standing orders need to be suspended. This is about the Prime Minister's standards and the Prime Minister's judgment. That is why standing orders need to be suspended. We all know the Prime Minister's standards. She said in this parliament some years ago: 'Labor is the party of truth-telling'—but do not tell the truth about the Labor Party, particularly if you are in the media, because if you try to tell the truth about the Labor Party you will be subject to all the bullying force that an incumbent government can command. That is why standing orders must be suspended.

Remember, this is a Prime Minister who said that News Ltd had hard questions to answer and was then unable to specify what those questions might be—not a single one. This is a Prime Minister who had a screaming match with her then boss of News Ltd in Australia because one of his papers had dared to talk about the Australian Workers Union slush fund of the 1990s. This is a government that has a communications minister who declared that the Daily Telegraph was engaged in a deliberate campaign to bring down the government, without any evidence whatsoever. This is a government with a communications minister who claims that media proprietors will wear red underpants on their heads if he says so, and now he brings in this kind of legislation to try to make that true. This is a government typified by Senator Cameron, who not so long ago accused the hate media, again News Ltd, of fabricating stories about a leadership challenge. The same guy who accused the papers of fabricating stories was in fact counting the numbers for a leadership challenge, and maybe he is doing it again right now. Maybe right now, much the same thing is happening.

The job of the media is not to run advertising for the government of the day; the job of the media is to speak truth to power. That is the job of the media. I know that because I have worked as a journalist. The shadow minister for communications knows that because he, too, has worked as a journalist—perhaps as a more distinguished journalist, indeed, than I was. But we both know what the job of the media is. The job of the media is to speak truth to power, and thank God that that, thus far at least, is what most of the media in this country have been prepared to do. The media is not an arm of government, and no government should ever try to make it one. The media is an arm of our democracy, and that is the way it should always stay.

It is funny just who the friends of this government are these days. When it comes to 457 visas, who is their only friend? Pauline Hanson. When it comes to regulation of the media, who is their great international supporter? Frank Bainimarama: 'Great! Fantastic! We've finally got a few friends. We've lost the clubs and the pubs, we've lost most of the decent, honest workers of this country, we've lost the migrant communities of this country, and we've lost the western suburbs of Sydney. But it's okay: Pauline Hanson and Frank Bainimarama are with us.' Is it any wonder that this Prime Minister's support in the caucus is ebbing away day by day, hour by hour?

Let's briefly, because standing orders must be suspended, look at the problems with the legislation that this Prime Minister and this government is pursuing. It includes an entirely subjective public-interest test on mergers and acquisitions in the media, when we already have the ACCC, a perfectly reputable body, to do exactly that. This is why standing orders must be suspended.

But the most sinister element in what the government is trying to do right now, the reason why standing orders must be suspended to condemn this Prime Minister, is as follows. Not since the days of the Committee of Public Safety have we seen an attempt by a government to introduce something as Orwellian as the Public Interest Media Advocate. The Public Interest Media Advocate, this government's version of the Ministry of Truth, will be vetting every aspect of the media in this country for fairness, accuracy and the professional conduct of the journalist. They will be judged not by the High Court, the Supreme Court or the parliament as a whole but by a hand-picked representative of this government.

Speaker, does anyone think for a second that, if this Public Interest Media Advocate—this media tsar hand-picked by a desperate government in desperate trouble—had its way, there would have been coverage of the appointment of your predecessor as Speaker? Would there have been coverage of the travails of the member for Dobell? Would there have been coverage of what happened in the Australian Workers Union in the mid-1990s, notwithstanding the interest of the member for Barton in seeing the truth exposed on this subject? Would there have been coverage of the activities of the former minister for fisheries in New South Wales? Of course there would not. This is a government which wants to hide the truth to protect itself. It does not want to protect the national interest; it wants to damage the national interest. It wants to hide the truth to protect itself. Does anyone think this is anything other than a disgrace? That is why standing orders— (Time expired)

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

Is the motion seconded?

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

I second the motion. Last week we gave the Prime Minister the opportunity to give us one example of the problem she is seeking to solve with this legislation. She could not give us one. She is going to introduce, so she tells us, the first effort in our peacetime history by a federal government, or indeed any government, to regulate the content of newspapers and that this has to be debated, considered by committees, discussed by the parliament in every way and concluded by Thursday afternoon. This holds the parliament and the people we represent, the people of Australia, in the utmost contempt.

The Prime Minister says this is all about the concentration in the media. She says it is all about diversity. She says our media is more concentrated than it is just about anywhere else in the world. But the reason there is a high level of concentration in our media is that in 1986 it was their predecessors, the Labor government, the Hawke and Keating government, that gave the FIRB approval to allow Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd to buy the Herald and Weekly Times. That is what created the concentration in the daily newspaper market. And to hear the Labor Party saying that they are champions of diversity, that they are losing sleep over concentration, is so much hypocrisy. They have no commitment to diversity. They allowed that transaction to go through because they thought it suited their purposes. They thought they would get favourable coverage as a result.

I do not recall whether they did or not, but I tell you: any public-interest test administered by a government official will be, as this one is proposed, nothing more than a political-interest test. The test will be what is in the interest of the party in power. We say that, if, by some mischance, this power is given to a government by this parliament, if this parliament does not, as we hope it will, reject this outrageous proposal, then if we are elected to government we will repeal it. We will not take advantage of powers that the Labor Party gives a future government to meddle further and interfere with the content of newspapers.

On the subject of diversity, we have every reason to be optimistic about diversity in our media. I look up at the press gallery here. I saw Mike Bowers there. He works for the Global Mail, a new digital newspaper. I certainly cannot remember a new print newspaper in my lifetime. Katharine Murphy and Lenore Taylor are going to work for the Australian edition of the Guardian. That is launching in a few weeks—a new newspaper. Michelle Grattan has gone to work for the Conversation, which is a remarkable new effort headed by Andrew Jaspan. These are just three new sources of news and information. The truth is this: Rupert Murdoch's share of the daily newspaper market is as big now as it was in 1986, when Hawke and Keating gave them the keys to the Herald and Weekly Times. But the slice of the overall news and media information pie represented by daily newspapers gets smaller every day, because we are getting our news from so many different sources: new digital outlets, international publications and new social media. All of that is making it a much more contestable and diverse universe.

The complaint from the Labor Party that we have a problem with diversity and overconcentration is seen for what it is. We have more diversity and less concentration now than we have had for many years, and diversity is increasing. So their concern is not about diversity; their concern is about opinion. They do not like getting a shellacking in the press. But they get it on air, they get it in the pubs, they get it in the clubs and they get it in the streets—they get it all around the country—and they get it because they so richly deserve it. This government gets the press it deserves. Its attempt to bully the press, to bully the media into submission is one which is a disgrace and which this parliament must reject.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to respond to the member for Wentworth on this question. This is the guy who stood up here and just lectured us about relationships with the media and free speech, the same person who sued the Sydney Morning Herald over a piece involving allegations about an ex-girlfriend's cat, the same person who settled with the Australian Financial Review in court because of an article calling him 'part polymath, part sociopath'. And he even tried to stop his political opponents questioning whether he was fit for public office.

We will not be lectured by the member for Wentworth, who fits into a fine Tory tradition. When this political mob was in government, Peter Costello put in a gag order on charities. As a condition of funding he tried to shut up the representatives of some of the poorest people in this country. This is the same mob that cut the Environmental Defenders Office funding to try and shut down its ability to take on government. This is the same mob who limited through Work Choices the ability to have freedom of association of working people. John Howard used conclusive certificates to prevent FOI releases—something that this government changed. Look at what this same mob did in Victoria: Ted Baillieu and the denial of public access to large government contracts done in secret. This is the same Tory political tradition that had Jo Bjelke-Petersen throwing people in jail for demonstrating on the streets of Queensland, and that tradition has been brought back by Premier Newman.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Standing orders still apply and 94(a) can still be issued.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Premier Newman has placed a gag order on community organisations once again in order to stop them speaking out on government policy—and it is little wonder, given what his member Mr Driscoll is going through, that he does not want community organisations talking about the performance of government. So we will not be lectured by that mob over there who represent not just years but decades of tradition of trying to shut down voices in our community, whether they be community organisations or whether they be the trade union movement.

Today the Leader of the Opposition could not resist going back to his roots, going back to just saying no to everything, going back to negative Tony, back to nasty Tony. He has been sitting there stewing away. Every day we have seen the 'Mark Riley moments', where he sits there trying to keep control of his temper, trying to calm down the anger every day, and it has boiled to the surface. What we see with this motion to suspend standing orders moved here today is an attempt to release that pressure valve. We understand it must be difficult for a bloke with his character to keep it in control for so long, because we know what his character is about. Today it fitted in with his general attitude to life, because this is a bloke that has never seen a billionaire he did not want to embrace. This is a bloke who can be always relied upon to back-in the big end of town. We have here this legislation that will be debated later in the week, but they did not wait to look at the legislation before they said they would oppose it. I reckon it was two words that turned them off: public interest. As soon as they saw that, they said, 'Well, we know we are against that. We do not have to look at the detail. We do not have to wait for the committee processes. We know that we are against it.' They are against action on climate change, they are against the NBN, they are against taking action against the big miners, they are against national hospital reform, they are against assisting the steel and car industries, they are against parliamentary reform and they are against the Parliamentary Budget Office.

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

The Leader of the House must display where standing orders need to be suspended.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly will, Speaker. Because of this ridiculous motion, we are not actually debating what we should be debating before this parliament. Once again, they have shut question time down because they have no issues of substance to go to. We have the hypocrisy of the person who employed David Oldfield standing up here. This bloke, when asked: do you welcome Pauline Hanson's endorsement said, 'Look, I am happy to take votes where I find them.' That is what he said on Sunrise, but he comes in here and attempts to lecture us about these issues.

The fact is that this side of the parliament wants to discuss the real issues of our plan for a stronger, fairer and smarter Australia; our plan for the economy, for manufacturing and for protecting Australian jobs; our plan for education through the Gonski reforms; our plan for the National Disability Insurance Scheme; and our plans that are being rolled through this parliament on issue after issue, day after day. Those opposite do not have a plan for the future. It is no wonder that his own colleagues see the Leader of the Opposition as a policy lightweight who cannot talk about issues because he starts off with a $70-billion black hole. All they offer are cuts and relentless negativity. We do not have to project into the future what they would stand for were they to succeed in September. We can see it with what state Tory governments are doing right around the country: sacking nurses, sacking teachers, cutting back on community services. We see their selfish position.

But today, they also don't want a debate. We could have had some debate about the economy, but of course taxes, interest rates, unemployment and inflation are all lower today than they were when they were in office.

I was looking forward to question time continuing, because I predicted that I might have got a question. I could not get one from across there and, if I had got a question, I would have been able to talk about the member for North Sydney's little trip down the Bruce Highway last week, where he was asked—

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order!

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

"You were talking about your drive north, and you would have spent a lot of time on the Bruce Highway". This is what he said: 'Well, it is improving. I mean, you know I'm not going to play games on this. I mean, there was a lot of work happening on the Bruce Highway.' He went on and said: 'Well, between Townsville and Cairns there was lot of work'. Indeed there was—

Mr Pyne interjecting—

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

The Manager of Opposition Business is on thin ice, and he knows it.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and indeed there is. That is consistent with what the member for Herbert said: 'I'll give Labor a pat on the back and say they've spent more in their four or five years on the Bruce Highway than we did before.' It is no wonder I can't get a question on infrastructure and transport: because those opposite are endorsing us. On the issues of substance, on the real policy debates that we should be dealing with in question time, we are quite happy to get questions. But what we do not get are questions of substance on policy from those opposite. What we get are personal attacks. What we get is relentless negativity. It is no wonder, increasingly, as you go round the country, as people take a closer look at the Leader of the Opposition, they say to themselves—

Mr Briggs interjecting —

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

Order! The member for Mayo!

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As was said about another political candidate one time: 'In your guts, you know he's nuts.' That is what they say, because they know that he is so negative, so relentlessly negative, that he just says 'no'. Well, if you want to run the country, you have to put forward an alternative vision, and that has to consist of more than just slogans.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speaker, the Leader of the House has been required to withdraw that phrase that he used towards the end of his speech before. It reflects on the mental health of a member of the chamber. It is completely outrageous, and I would ask him to withdraw it.

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

The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. Time for the debate has expired. Regarding the issue of the withdrawal, I am struggling to recall that it has been asked to be withdrawn. The issue was in context of a quote into other matters but, given the level of intensity in the debate, I am going to ask the Leader of the House to withdraw.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

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

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.