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

At this moment, this chaotic and dysfunctional government, this government devoid of any purpose but a desire to survive, is turning this parliament into a farce. It is currently doing a dirty deal with various of the Independents to change the nature of the Public Interest Media Advocate. Who knows—it could be somebody selected from the member for Kennedy's electorate. Or it could, perhaps, be the member for Fisher; he is part of the discussions. It could be a panel. Nobody knows.

A little while ago, we thought we were going to deal with the four bills relating to the Public Interest Media Advocate together; we were going to debate them in a cognate way, because they all link together. They establish the Public Interest Media Advocate, and then they deal with the Public Interest Media Advocate's jurisdiction, his control over media acquisitions and his supervision of the content of newspapers via his oversight of the standards of the press council and so forth. But now we have learned, just in the last few minutes, of a dramatic change. The Leader of the House wants us to consider the Public Interest Media Advocate bill in isolation, at the very end—as the last bill on the program. And the reason for that is: he does not know what it is going to say. He is still negotiating its contents. He is still doing his deals with the crossbenchers. Not only has Senator Conroy demanded that the parliament pass this legislation without due process, without due consideration, without any opportunity for interested parties to present their cases before committees and without any opportunity for proper debate; now, in what can only be described as the most absurd farce this wretched government has dragged this parliament into, we are being asked to consider a bill, and pass it, which refers again and again to the Public Interest Media Advocate. Again and again, it runs through the bill: 'The PIMA does this,' 'The PIMA does that,' 'The PIMA has this responsibility,' 'The PIMA must use his or her best endeavours,' 'If the PIMA accepts the variation,' and 'Before making a decision the PIMA must'—it goes on and on and on. That is what this bill is all about.

Yet we do not know what the PIMA is going to be, because the PIMA is defined as the Public Interest Media Advocate as established in the Public Interest Media Advocate Act 2013. Well, the Public Interest Media Advocate Bill 2013, which is the foundation of this whole exercise, is a work in progress. The Leader of the House does not know what it involves. The minister on the other side of the table does not know what the Public Interest Media Advocate will be. Who knows? Is this policy making on the run—legislation on the run? What sort of government is this? It is asking parliament to pass a law which vests enormous power in a public official, of which the identity, the nature, the term, the qualifications, the duties and even the number—we do not know whether the public interest advocate might not be a troika: three people; that is one of the things that has been put to them by the crossbenchers—all of that detail, is unknown. This is completely and utterly absurd.

I never thought the government would reach this low. But every time you think the government have plumbed the depths of absurdity and dysfunctionality, they find a new depth to which they can sink, and that is what they are doing tonight.

Now what are we debating? What is this Public Interest Media Advocate? Who is it? Who is she? Are there three? Are there five? Are they appointed for life? Do they have to be residents of a particular electorate? Are they appointed for three years or four years? What are their qualifications? We have no idea. And we have no idea because the government have no idea.

They have no concept of what they are doing and yet this is the work of a minister, Senator Conroy, the man famous for saying he is so powerful he can force business executives to wear red underpants on their heads. This is the work of a minister who said, only few days ago, that this whole package was non-negotiable and said: 'There will be no bartering.' I will tell you what: there is plenty of bartering going on tonight. Who knows what is being offered in return, because the Prime Minister realises that this is a test of confidence. In the House today, she was not prepared to say that the failure of these bills would be a vote of no confidence, but she knows her backbench are staring at oblivion ahead of them in the election. They know that they are being dug into a deeper and deeper hole by the incompetence of this crew.

You have to wonder whether there is not a sort of Manchurian candidate element, and I am not referring to the member for Griffith and his famous skills in Chinese. But we know that on the weekend before last there was a meeting at the Lodge at which Senator Conroy persuaded the Prime Minister that this media reform package—never has 'reform' been used as ill-advisedly as on this occasion—should be brought in with the demand that it be passed in four days. So it was presented to the cabinet as a fait accompli. It was decided at the Lodge by this group.

One of those present was the Leader of the House, the member for Grayndler, and I wonder whether there was not a bit of a Manchurian candidate element there. I wonder, given his notorious affection for the member for Griffith and his even more notorious lack of affection for Senator Conroy, whether he did not rub his hands in a Mr Burns imitation, welcoming this opportunity to create even more disaster for his boss. Who knows? The fact of the matter is this: we as legislators should be doing our work in a responsible way. Let's reflect on this: the government is asking us to pass a law, this bill, which gives a person, an official, called the Public Interest Media Advocate, enormous powers over media acquisitions. Basically, the Public Interest Media Advocate can determine whether a media takeover can go ahead on the basis of concepts as wafty as public interest and public benefit—completely undefined.

From a legal point of view, it is a hopeless proposition that will only lead to uncertainty and political influence peddling, because we all know there is nothing more political than media acquisition. Why did the Hawke and Keating government allow Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd to buy the Herald and Weekly Times in 1986 and create the concentration of daily newspaper ownership that they now keep complaining about? It was their creation—the whole transaction was written and directed by the Labor Party, and Paul Keating subsequently said it was done in order to pay back Fairfax for their unfavourable coverage of the Labor government. If you ever want proof that you should not allow wafty concepts like public interest to come into legislation like this, there you have it.

We have no idea who the Public Interest Media Advocate is. We do not know who is going to appoint them or how they are going to be appointed—that is all up in the air. All members—and I appeal to all members of this House: government members, crossbenchers and, of course, all our colleagues on the coalition side—should be ashamed that the government have presented this bill here. The government should be ashamed. If they do not have their ducks in a row, if they cannot deliver on their promise of no bartering with the crossbenchers and if they have to do a deal with the crossbenchers on the identity of the Public Interest Media Advocate, common sense dictates that we should move on to another matter of business. Then, if and when they finally reach some resolution, let them bring it back in and we can have a debate about who and what the Public Interest Media Advocate would be. Having determined that and having settled that, you can discuss the powers this Public Interest Media Advocate should have.

We know that the government have been infuriated by their treatment within newspapers, in particular within News Ltd newspapers. I said in this House only yesterday that they have taken a beating in the press, they have taken a beating on the ABC, they have taken a beating on the commercial broadcasters, and they have taken a beating in every pub, club, street corner, coffee shop and workplace around Australia, and they have taken that beating because they have been such a hopeless government and because they do things like this. This militant idiocy is serial incompetence. How can you seriously ask the parliament to consider a law giving enormous power to an official without knowing who that official will be and how that official will be appointed? That is what we are being asked to do tonight. That is the depth of the absurdity.

For the purpose of the remainder of my remarks, let's assume that the Public Interest Media Advocate is a government official appointed in the manner that was originally proposed, before the non-bartering communications minister started doing his dirty deals with the crossbenchers. Let's assume that it is still what they had before. What the government is saying is that, in order to protect diversity—which presumably means competition—you need to have a new official.

The reality is that we have a high degree of concentration in the metropolitan daily newspaper market; we know that. It was created by the Labor Party, or enabled by the Labor Party. But we also know that in the intervening nearly 30 years there have been enormous technological changes. The arrival of the internet and social media and all these other platforms has resulted in a vastly enhanced range of information sources. The Murdoch share of the newspaper market is as big as it was in 1986, when they bought the Herald and Weekly Times. But the newspaper share of the overall media and news information pie is much smaller and is getting smaller every day. That is a fact.

So, diversity is on the increase; it is improving. We are seeing more variety. People are much less dependent on any one source of information. I am not sure that I am enamoured of this neologism, but there is a new expression—multisourcing—which is the phenomenon that I think we all experience. We are getting our news and information from a combination of Twitter, Facebook and some online sources—the ABC, commercial radio, online newspapers and blogs and of course, from time to time, even hard copy. All of that has dramatically changed the way news is being looked at. So you would have to say that if you were concerned about concentration in the Australian media you would be comforted, really, by the technological changes we are experiencing at the moment. That, of course, is why the government's claim that this is all about protecting diversity is such humbug. It has no credibility.

Having created the lack of diversity, at least in the metropolitan newspaper market, they are now, just as we are seeing more diversity, trying to insert this new official. And you also have to ask yourself: if you are concerned about monopolies being created, or a substantial lessening of competition, doesn't the ACCC do that already? Isn't the ACCC there to regulate competition laws? And didn't the ACCC recently stop Kerry Stokes buying a greater share in Fox? That was the system working. The laws are there. It is a remarkable thing—but I suppose we should not be surprised, given the events of the last hour or so—that here you have, for the first time in our peacetime history, the government creating a public official answerable to the government who would have an involvement in, oversight of and influence over the content of newspapers.

It is remarkable, isn't it, that there has been no effort to deliver a regulatory impact statement. A regulatory impact statement should be produced with every piece of legislation. This is, on any view, a very big deal. The RIS requires a number of things to be done. One of them is to ask: 'What exactly are you trying to achieve? What are the objects? What is the mischief? What is the problem we are trying to address?' We have asked the Prime Minister several times now in question time: 'Give us an example of the problem you are seeking to address. What has gone wrong? What requires you to take this new step?' And of course she has not been able to provide any such evidence. No, she does not have any explanation for it. And then the RIS would ask: 'What are the impacts on the industry? What are the costs and benefits associated with this additional regulation?'

I remember when the Rudd government was elected they were going to cut red tape. They were also going to do a cost-benefit analysis of major infrastructure projects. There were a lot of things they were going to do, and of course there were a few things they were not going to do, too, such as a carbon tax. So, keeping promises has never been a strong suit. But this is a classic case of where there should have been a careful, sober, objective analysis of what the problem is, what the options are for dealing with it, how this proposal measures up. But we see none of that. We see this hectic rush to get the legislation passed, and no-one is given any explanation for why it is so urgent. We recall—I think it was about 18 months ago, or perhaps a little longer—when the phone hacking scandal emerged in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister leapt on that and said, in her best effort to appear chilling, that News Limited had hard questions to answer. And of course News Limited's response was to ask, 'What are those questions?' She could not nominate any of those questions. What she was trying to do, of course, was to take advantage of the disgraceful and indeed criminal conduct by employees of news in the United Kingdom and somehow or other taint the organisation here with the responsibility for that.

But it has to be said that the phone hacking offences that were committed in the United Kingdom were serious breaches of British criminal law. Whatever criticisms can be made of the police over there in the past, the fact is that people are being arrested, people are being charged, people will be brought to trial and perhaps several of them will spend time in jail as a consequence. The criminal justice system is working there—and it is perhaps somewhat overdue. But there has been no counterpart to that in this country. We have had no evidence of any atrocities of that kind. The only offence the News Limited papers seem to have committed is not running headlines every day saying what a fabulous job the Prime Minister is doing! Well, they actually had a piece in the Telegraph today saying much the same thing—but it was a satirical column. It is very difficult to expect a government to be happy with the media, but to seek to regulate it simply because you are unhappy with the headlines and the treatment is really the stuff of authoritarianism. That is why the various proprietors and chief executives and editors have been so critical.

Just looking at some of the feedback on this public interest test in terms of media acquisitions, I note that Graeme Samuel, the former chairman of the ACCC, who obviously knows a great deal about competition law, said:

The public interest is extremely difficult to define and has a tendency to morph into a political interest. It would give those in government greater control over the media.

And he is quite right. I note also—and Free TV, which is the industry body of the free-to-air television stations made this point, and it is a very powerful one—that they pointed to the uncertainty and subjectivity of the public interest test as introducing, as I have said earlier, a very high degree of complexity, as well as an increased likelihood of contested results. They said:

For example in the UK, consideration of the BSkyB/ITV case took more than three years to resolve, including references to both the Competition Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal. It has been observed that one of the problems with the public interest test in the UK is that too much discretion is given to regulators, which leads to contested decisions. Again, this leads to uncertainty for industry.

In my youth, I used to practice in the area of broadcasting law and I have been involved in a professional way with many of the big media takeovers in Australia. I represented Kerry Packer when he sold the Nine Network to Alan Bond. I represented him when he bought it back. I was involved in restructuring Network Ten. I sold Network Ten on behalf of Westpac, who owned it after it had gone into receivership. And there were many other transactions involving Fairfax and so forth. This is an area of practice I am very familiar with—media acquisitions.

I can say without any shadow of doubt that they are always intensely controversial and intensely political. The best practice is to keep the politicians out of it because what would-be proprietors will always do, if they need a political approval—and it does not matter who is in government—is offer fine headlines, good coverage and good return for some sort of governmental approval. We are better off not creating that temptation if we can possibly avoid it.

That is why, in this industry of all industries, the merger rules should be absolutely black and white. There are some very clear ownership limitations in the Broadcasting Services Act. They have changed over the years but they are very clear, black and white rules about overlapping ownership and concentration of ownership. The laws relating to competition in the Competition and Consumer Act are, again, very well understood. They are litigated from time to time but there is a huge body of law and juris prudence around them and people are familiar with it.

To introduce this into the media landscape is simply designed to ensure a highly political process, because the way it is proposed to work is that, if the Public Interest Media Advocate thinks there is any diminution in voices—that is to say, any acquisition, by definition, is going to result in some diminution of voices because one media outlet is going to buy an asset, a competitor, a rival or whatever—the Public Interest Media Advocate then has to weigh up whether that is in the public interest or of public benefit, a completely and utterly undefinable term. That inevitably will result in a highly intense political argument.

I cast my mind back to the Fairfax takeover in 1991. Earlier in the year I had assembled the Toorang group with Conrad Black, Kerry Packer and other colourful individuals on one side and Tony O'Reilly on the other. Everyone was running down trying to get okays from Canberra because, of course, there was a political element because there were foreign ownership considerations on both sides. You cannot get around that, and the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act is there for the long term.

This law would add an entirely additional political element. It would give the politicians more discretion. You can say, yes, there will be this regulator who will act completely independently but that regulator will be appointed by government and government will expect him or her to do the right thing. All of those temptations will be there. As I said right at the outset of my remarks, in this new depth of absurdity, even for this government, we do not even know who this all-powerful official or officials will be. At the present time we have no idea, nor does the government, what the identity of the Public Interest Media Advocate will be.

Honourable members could quite legitimately take very different approaches to this bill, depending on whom that Public Interest Media Advocate could be. Some members might be attracted to it, depending on how the Public Interest Media Advocate is appointed. And so the logical thing, of course, is to deal with it at the outset.

It is hard to understand why the government is rushing into this in the way it is. It is very difficult to see where the urgency arises. Kerry Stokes, the Chairman of Seven West, spoke for a lot of people when he said, 'I can only recall legislation passed in this haste in the wake of 9/11.' That was a time when we all felt, with more than a little justification, in Australia and in the Western world generally, that we were under almost existential threat. That was a time of war and there was enormous anxiety, and legislation was rushed through. But where is the urgency here? What is the imperative? What is the reason for this? Some people have speculated that the Prime Minister is just looking for a distraction, but I am not quite sure what it is a distraction from. Is she trying to distract people from her other failures and so create a dysfunctional mess that is so great that it distracts people from the other dysfunctional messes? Is Senator Conroy smarting under the realisation that the NBN project is going to miss its targets yet again and, under its current rate of construction, it could take over a century to complete the build?

Mr Irons interjecting—

They would no doubt have to lift their pace, as the member reminds me. What is the distraction? What is the explanation? We have none. As I said, we have been told that there will be no bartering, but what we know is going on now behind closed doors is just that.

This is a bad law. There is no justification for involving the government any more than it is already in media acquisitions. We have adequate laws to deal with competition. If there are threats to diversity, the competition laws can deal with them. And we can be comforted by the reality that diversity is increasing, not diminishing, thanks to technology. The idea of having a new official overseeing the content of newspapers, which is the subject of another bill, is disgraceful. The idea that we would for the first time in our peacetime history have the government involved in the content of newspapers is surely a shocking step and one that, were it ever to be contemplated, should be taken with great care and after due consideration.

But tonight we are the victims of a tragic farce. We are here, as I have said, considering a law which will place a government official, an entity, a public interest media advocate, a PIMA, in charge of media acquisitions, and we do not know what that PIMA will be. We do not know who the person will be, who will appoint that person or what their term will be. We know nothing, because the PIMA Bill itself is the one that is being negotiated, with bartering and backroom deals going on with the Independents. Surely this is a government that has sunk very low before, but this must be its lowest moment. This is the moment when it has not only made a farce of its own efforts but sought to make a farce and, in doing so, dishonour this parliament, insult this parliament, insult the intelligence and responsibility of this parliament and, of course, the millions of Australians whom we all represent.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (New Media Diversity) Bill 2013. I unreservedly agree with the comments made by the member for Wentworth. This bill forms part of a package of media reform legislation that the government is trying to ram through the parliament in a desperate last-ditch effort before it runs out of time before the election. Plain and simple, it is an election ploy. If it is not an election ploy then it has to be a means to control the media. Not only the way in which the government is trying to push through this legislation raises questions—and I will move onto that in a moment; the very content of these bills raises serious concerns about our collective direction, as a nation, if these bills are successful.

There is no doubt that the proposals before us today are the most onerous regulation of the press in peacetime history. This bill presents a bleak future for our nation and for the freedom of media outlets. This package of bills removes the independence of media from government both in terms of ownership decisions and in terms of self-regulation. We have all seen the grandstanding by both the media and this Labor government over the last week with regard to media reform. We have seen ultimatums being thrown out and we have seen the media respond in a very colourful way. However, it is vital that we look past this grandstanding and give effective debate to the reality of this situation. The point is that these bills are effectively trying to restrict Australian media's ability to do its job—that is, to inform Australians about current affairs. In Australia, we are fortunate to have a media that is independent of all levels of government and that acts as a watchdog to the ultimate benefit of the public.

It has been a longstanding unofficial title that the media is the fourth estate of our democracy—an estate that brings to the mind of the Australian public those factors that they need to be aware of. It exposes those who involve themselves in behaviours that are not acceptable to the society in which we live—and we have certainly seen that over the last 12 months with the exposure of some Labor individuals and the practices that have prevailed at various levels. Although times may have changed since Edmund Burke first coined the phrase 'fourth estate', the purpose and role of media in Australia has not.

In our democracy, media performs the critical role of keeping the public informed about government activities. By virtue of its independence, media has been able to comment on the performance of governments and oppositions, to hold them accountable for their actions, to question their actions and to create the public debate that causes the public pressure that needs to be brought to bear on particular issues which impact on the lives of ordinary Australians—families, communities, states and territories.

The independence of the media has granted journalists the ability to criticise or applaud based on the virtues of an action or situation. The bills that this Labor government is attempting to pass today remove the media's independence from government. The bills that this Labor government is attempting to pass today place the final say on ownership decisions and media content into the hands of a government-appointed regulator. These bills grant a government regulator, the Public Interest Media Advocate, with the ability to evaluate the standards and codes of conduct in relation to privacy, fairness and accuracy. These bills place a public officer in charge of private media in a move that equates to government control.

Anybody who holds an office that is funded from a government source is inadvertently under the influence of their minister or their respective line of authority. As a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I am well aware that article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees freedom of expression for all Australians on all issues. It accords them the opportunity to challenge that within their society with which they are not happy. Therefore I will continually argue that our media should be free from the constraints of governments.

Clearly, this proposed Public Interest Media Advocate will have the capacity to determine media standards. Not only this, but the scope of the Public Interest Media Advocate is so vague that it will be open to the interpretation of the government of the day, with ultimate control resting with the minister and the Prime Minister. To make matters more serious yet, media outlets will have no right of redress for decisions made by the Public Interest Media Advocate. Decisions of the Public Interest Media Advocate are binding and media outlets will face potentially high costs if they withdraw complaints.

All of these measures are designed with the intent to minimise opportunities for media outlets to question the judgement of the government and will no doubt strike fear into the heart of journalists. By all means, while we may not always like or agree with the coverage of politics in the media, those of us on this side of the chamber accept that the media perform an important function of informing Australians about the activities of this place within a democracy. It is simply not possible to expect a government controlled regulator of a free press to adequately keep a government accountable for its decisions.

This Labor government has only demonstrated once more that it is dysfunctional and in chaos. Trying to push through this legislation without proper scrutiny is a slap across the face to the many individuals within the media who believe they are performing a critical role in our democracy. This package of legislation was only revealed last week, with the government having the intention of pushing it through the parliament as quickly as possible. This government has been talking about making changes for two years now, but has left it until the eleventh hour to take any action, expecting that all stakeholders will simply fall in line on these controversial changes. Not even the government's own members were given the opportunity to properly scrutinise this legislation.

Now the Prime Minister and her cronies are attempting to force feed all members of this parliament, leaving no room for disagreement. The minister has been playing tough cop all week, telling the parliament that it could take it or leave it and that there was no flexibility to negotiate this legislation. When it became clear yesterday and today that this package did not have the support of Independent MPs, the government did a quick shuffle, backtracking from its tough cop stance.

We have to ask why the government is so concerned that it feels it necessary to push these reforms through without adequate opportunity to scrutinise the legislation. This is a growing trend for this government, which seems to believe that it does not need to allow scrutiny of the bills that it brings before the parliament. Once again it would seem that this government is more concerned about its own survival than it is about the greater good of governance of our country. The government is the only beneficiary of these reforms. This is most definitely detrimental to the quality of content in our media and most definitely detrimental to the national interest.

This government does not have a good track record when it comes to legislative reform. We need only look as far as the carbon tax and the mining tax to see two examples of mismanagement of government programs and ineffective legislation. This government does not have a good track record when it comes to administering new programs.

Ironically, this is not something that has escaped the notice of media. Seven West Media Chairman, Kerry Stokes, has said: 'I can only recall legislation being pushed in this haste in the wake of 9/11. My submission is you shouldn't be doing any of this.' Fairfax Media CEO, Greg Hywood, said, 'To be plain, the impression, voiced almost universally over the weekend, is that the process is at least unseemingly rushed and the bills mirror that state of affairs.' Network Ten's Hamish McLennan said, 'The implications for regional Australia are great and that we shouldn't rush the changes through.'

The Public Interest Media Advocate will require all media voices to register with the government. This alone creates confusion as to what the definition of 'media voice' will be. Where will the line between a personal online blog discussing current affairs and an online media outlet containing discussion of public affairs be drawn? Surely personal opinion will be a huge part of decisions made by the Public Interest Media Advocate and the so-called public interest will be open to enormous interpretation. This bill will require all media voices to consult before any changes to ownership are made. All changes will need to be approved by the so-called Public Interest Media Advocate.

These changes are wide-reaching and significant, yet industry and stakeholder input into developing these reforms has been minimal. Now that these reforms have been announced, the government seems determined not to consider the impact on the sector. It would seem that this government is so tied up in its own agenda that it is not interested in having a discussion with the media about the changes it intends to enforce. Fairfax Media CEO Greg Hywood has said:

The practical application of this legislation is that it sets up a model where a minister of the government can pick up the phone to his own appointee and say 'fix it'. 'Fix it' being 'get the media off our backs' ... It is our strong view the fact that a government feels it is not getting a fair go from one or other media outlet is a very poor reason to regulate, in fact it is the worst reason. We believe (we) feel that the introduction of a government-appointed regulator to oversee print and digital newsgathering journalism will have seriously dangerous consequences for good government.

This Labor government is trying to have the entire debate of media reform caught up in media diversity.

Media diversity is a challenge that we need to face. It is a complicated and serious challenge that we should consider. It is a challenge that is caught up in the emergence of new media and a diversity of media platforms. It is also a challenge that is caught up in the emergence of shared content, for example with the collaboration of News Limited and Network Ten's Meet the Press. But this is not a challenge that is unpacked or solved by these bills. In fact this legislation barely scratches the surface of dealing with media diversity and instead presents a heavy-handed approach that benefits no stakeholders.

Media diversity is not a challenge that should have a bandaid solution applied to it without adequate consultation or discussion. It is an ongoing challenge that requires the investment of time, discussion and industry input. It is a challenge that needs serious consideration, not the half-baked attempt that this government has presented in this legislation. It is for this reason that I must add my voice in opposition to these bills today.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the media reform bills and note that, as I understand it, as I stand here there are various backroom deals going on to allow these bills to be passed. I just attended a function in parliament at which the member for New England was scurrying around looking for somebody. Perhaps it was the Leader of the House. At the moment there is a lot of movement and colour going on around here but no-one seems to know why there is such indecent haste to get this particular legislation through.

The Leader of the House is still not quite sure what these bills will say because he is still negotiating the legislation with the Independents. The Public Interest Media Advocate Bill—one of the six planks of this legislation—is still a work in progress. There is no act, yet one of these bills refers to the PIMA Act. It is shameful policy on the run.

The member for Wentworth said in his speech that he never thought the government could plumb these depths, but that is precisely what this Labor government is doing tonight. We have no idea who or what the PIMA is, because the government itself has no idea. The Prime Minister realises that this is a test of confidence. Indeed it is.

When I was the editor of the Daily Advertiser at Wagga Wagga we ran a line across the editorial which read:

This is true liberty, when free-born men,

Having to advise the public, may speak free

That particular line—a quote from Milton—had been on the newspaper since the paper's first edition way back on 10 October 1868. It was still there, and run in every single edition, certainly until I left in February 2002. When we think about that particular quote we realise that it is so true. When we have a democracy in which people can 'speak free' we have true democracy. When people are able to say what they think—within the parameters of common decency and defamation—that is to be desired.

I have an editor near my electorate of the Riverina, Tertia Butcher, who emailed me this week—she comes from Africa—saying that she felt that the media censorship laws were far greater here than what they were where she comes from. She feared that if this sort of legislation passes—even though we are still not quite aware of what it all entails—we could have more draconian laws than some African countries. This government's claim that it is doing this in the name of regulation is nonsense.

The media is already very well regulated. The court of public opinion will always tell a news organisation whether it has crossed the line. The court of public opinion, certainly in this day and age of social media, will determine whether a radio station loses advertising. The public will vigorously lobby companies to stop advertising. We saw that last year, when Alan Jones said what he said. We all know about that; we do not have to go into that again. When the broadcaster Alan Jones went a tad too far the court of public opinion certainly let his radio station know that that was transgressing, that it was a bridge too far. People voted with their feet, and people should be able to continue to do that without needing a public interest advocate.

I interjected in question time yesterday—when the question was about who it might be—that the public advocate might be Bob Brown. Who would know who this Labor government might put as the public interest advocate—the guardian of journalism, the person who is going to decide who has done the wrong thing!

I find it interesting that the member for Lyne would be doing these backroom deals at the moment to get this legislation through, when it was the member for Lyne who, in 2010, gave that rambling 17-minute speech about letting the sunshine in, kumbaya, 'beauty in its ugliness', and all those lines. He was getting on his high moral horse about how things should be run and yet, as I understand it, he is doing backroom deals with Labor to try to get this legislation through. In fairness to the member for Lyne, he said that he would not back it. I hope he keeps his word, because this is an attack on the media. It is an attack on free speech. It cannot be seen as anything else. Why Labor would want to do this in an election year is unfathomable; but why Labor would want to do it in the first place is unconscionable.

As for some of the other bits of legislation involved in this, the government's claim that they are protecting diversity is sheer humbug. It was the Labor Party in government which led to a concentration of media ownership in the Australian newspaper market with the sale of the Herald and Weekly Times to Rupert Murdoch in 1987. Keeping promises has never been a strong suit of this government. Phone hacking was a serious breach of British law, but are we seeing the John McTernan influence on the Prime Minister? I know that the government in Britain at the moment—the Tory government, as Labor would call them—are bringing in certain public interest tests for their media, but we have always known that the British media does go that bridge too far. We have always known that the British media are quite different to the Australian media.

The Australian media are responsible. The Australian media are accountable. I can see you smiling, Deputy Speaker Lyons, but it is true. Certainly we might not always like what is written about us—we have all in this place had articles written about us that were not quite accurate—but there is always the ability to pick up the phone and ring the editor and say, 'Look, that's not quite right.' And, by and large, newspaper editors respond with corrections or clarifications. I see you shaking your head, Deputy Speaker Lyons. There is another way that we can address those problems and it is called the Press Council. It has operated very effectively. Even the newspaper in my home town has had rulings against it by the Press Council in matters relating to local government coverage. And, in good faith, the newspaper reported those particular findings in a prominent space so that the readers knew that the Press Council had found against it. The readers knew that the Press Council had done its job—and that is the way it ought to be.

ACMA does the same job with respect to broadcasters.

I do not know how often, when I am driving around my large electorate, I hear on the community radio bands, and certainly on the commercial radio bands, people being urged to ring the radio station in the first instance if they think that the radio station has aired something that was not quite right. Then they will put them in touch with the relevant authority to see that that particular problem or issue is resolved. Television stations are also subject to defamation laws with their news coverage and they are subject to content discretion with their TV programming.

For the government to say that this is necessary is just rubbish, and we all know it. We all know this is an attack on News Limited. We all know Labor does not like the coverage it is receiving. The only offence the News Limited papers have really committed in this country is to write headlines about how great a job the Prime Minister is doing, because we know she is not. We know that Labor is not governing properly. But I must say that the coverage has been balanced. The Fairfax papers always seem to find a way to report that Labor is doing a reasonable job, and indeed some of the policies that Labor have put forward could be construed as being half decent, but it is just the delivery. I can see the member for Makin smiling. Some of your party's policies are quite decent, but it is just the way you put them into practicality, the way you implement them, that is making everybody sick and tired of the way Labor is governing.

This legislation is important. We cannot put in place measures which are going to muzzle our media. It has never been on. As the member for Wentworth has said repeatedly, there has been absolutely no media watchdog like this that government has wanted to put in place in our peacetime. It is not needed. It has not been needed in the past and it is not needed now. With those remarks, I will sit down so that I can allow the member for Hughes to make some very pertinent comments on this legislation.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (News Media Diversity) Bill 2013. I have a copy of the bill here. It has 74 pages and there are another 52 pages in the explanatory memorandum. I wonder how many members of the government that will come into this chamber shortly and vote for this nonsense have actually read either of these documents. For, if they did, they would see that the bill makes reference to the Public Interest Media Advocate over and over and over again. The only problem is that who the Public Interest Media Advocate is, how they will be selected and what terms they will have are all in a separate bill, which was due to be debated and voted on at the same time. What we have here tonight in our federal parliament is an absolute farce of procedure. We have a government that is completely out of control, that does not have a clue what it is doing and that is making it up minute by minute. Is it any wonder that the country is in such a mess? Is it any wonder that our national debt is heading north of $260 billion? If the government cannot organise this parliament to run here tonight in an efficient manner, where we are actually voting on legislation that ties together, what hope have they got?

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

Just for the record, we are speaking on individual bills, not the package. It is not a cognate debate, so I do refer you to the actual bill before the chair.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Correct, and that is the concern. We are voting on and speaking on separately the broadcasting legislation amendment bill 2013, which has reference throughout it to the Public Interest Media Advocate. But the detail of that Public Interest Media Advocate is in a separate bill that we were originally, less than half an hour ago, meant to debate and vote on together. Now we understand there are some backroom deals going on somewhere else in Parliament House, trying to stitch up the votes of Independents. The procedure is an utter and complete farce.

Looking at the provisions of the bill, what is the mischief, what is the evil, that these bills are meant to remedy? No-one from the government side has been able to identify this. We already have the ACCC, which has a substantial lessening of competition test for mergers. The ACCC investigates mergers in this country. The process is working; it is working reasonably well. We have already seen the ACCC bar the Seven Group from bidding for Cons Media. We have already seen the ACCC active in the media, finding where there will be a substantial lessening of competition and blocking those mergers. This is simply an overlap of legislation.

But the real concern is that, with decisions that this public media advocate makes, there can be no appeal. They become the judge and jury. Under the ACCC process, there is a process of appeals where, if a company disagrees with what the ACCC have done because it does not like the ACCC's verdict in blocking its merger, it has the right to take that decision through our courts. This bill does not include that right to take a decision through the courts.

We know the reason for this bill. It is simply that this government desires to suppress any opinion that does not align with its policies. It is simply the government deciding to silence any criticism of its policies. That is what this bill is all about.

Secondly, what is the rush? Why are we rushing these bills through parliament tonight? These bills were introduced only a few days ago, on the last sitting day of last week. What is the rush to get these through parliament? Why are the government and the minister seeking to trample on the parliamentary processes and rush through this legislation—legislation that, for the first time in our nation's history outside of wartime, attempts to put controls on the media? Are we facing an invasion? Is that the reason? Have hostile foreign troops landed on our shores? Is that the reason for the urgency of this legislation? What national emergency has arisen that has caused this government to abandon all due process and rush this legislation through our parliament?

We know these proposed media laws are all about pressuring a free press to prop up a completely dysfunctional government. This mad rush that we are seeing here tonight, this dysfunctional process, is just one example of the bad judgment of this Prime Minister and this government, which continues to make it up as it goes along. Two centuries ago, the great and wise Adam Smith, in his book The Wealth of Nations, left us a warning. Smith wrote:

The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

Adam Smith was a great visionary. But, when he warned about an order 'whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it,' even Adam Smith in his wildest dreams could not have imagined how accurately his words could be applied to this Labor government. One only has to look at its long and shameful record.

I would hope that tonight someone on the opposition benches will step forward, show some leadership and call this farce for what it is. Any one of these government members could call off this farce. The process is a farce, the legislation is a farce and it is damaging to our nation. This legislation should be rejected, and I hope at least one member on the other side will show some courage and come and sit with us to reject this legislation here tonight.

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

Before calling the next speaker in this debate, I will deal with the division that was called after 6.30 pm. I took the view that the deferred division should not be proceeded with until the member speaking at 8 pm had completed his speech, and so I did not interrupt the member. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for a later hour.