Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) the importance of rural and regional newspapers in providing a vital service to the towns and regional communities they cover; and

(b) that maintaining a viable rural and regional press is in the interest of regional communities; and

(2) recommends that the Government:

(a) considers reviewing the amount of government advertising in regional papers;

(b) recognises the significance of its decisions regarding government advertising and the impact that these decisions can have on regional publications; and

(c) stops discriminating against newspapers which service rural and regional areas through its changes to government advertising.

I have many papers in my electorate. I remember growing up in Kapunda and reading both The Bunyip and The Leader. The Bunyip is a great country paper with a great history. It serves Gawler and the immediate surrounds of that town. The Northern Argus serves Clare and the Gilbert Valley. The Barossa Herald serves the Barossa and the outer Gawler area. TheLeader,based in theBarossa obviously serves the Barossa but it also stretches across into Kapunda, my home town. The Plains Producer services Balaklava, and the Two Wells & Districts Echo serves the people of the Adelaide Plains.

These are very important papers, trusted sources of information in these towns. They are trusted to both record the ebb and flow of country life—the sport and the community events—but also to bring the news of the nation and news of government programs to their local community. That is why I can attest to their importance. Several times as a local member, and also as a candidate for public office, I have advertised in these papers. I can attest to their efficacy in terms of advertising dollars.

About 32 per cent of the nation is rural or regional, and we know that these country newspapers have the highest levels of content of any medium; they are completely unmatched by radio and television. We have heard government backbenchers talking about some of the changes that have occurred in those media markets in recent years. We have seen a retreat of national news organisations from rural and regional Australia, and I think that is a great pity.

We know that they are still the most trusted paid medium in Australia, ahead of TV or radio or online sources. We know that nearly eight million Australians read regional or community newspapers. We know also that in order for these newspapers to continue to do this they have to retain and receive sufficient revenues to remain in print. They are important parts of these communities and important parts of this country. So that is why to one extent or another they rely on government as an advertiser as a source of revenue. Given that eight million people live in rural and regional settings, and given they deserve information from the government as much as people who live in the cities, you would not expect this government to cut regional advertising in the papers in the 2015-16 year by 20 to 30 per cent over what it was in 2014-15.

We have country members of the government out there sending in their press releases, expecting them to be quoted verbatim by the country journalists—

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What's wrong with that?

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We hear the member for Townsville saying, 'What's wrong with that?' You might want to go and talk to these papers and perhaps talk to the Treasurer and the Finance Minister and get them to start advertising in these papers. We know that this government is not shy of promoting itself. We have ad campaigns for the Green Army, jobactive, the FTA—

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a lot to promote.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear the member opposite saying there is a lot to promote. All I am asking is that they give country papers their share of the promotion dollar. Otherwise, there is a suspicion that this is aimed at cities and marginal seats, and not aimed at truly giving information to the public.

The classic example of this is the $20,000 instant asset write-off, which was advertised in the city press before the end of the 2014-15 financial year, but someone must have forgotten about the regional press. Yet where do we find the small businesses, the subcontractors and the people who create the great wealth of this nation? Where do you find them? You find them out in country towns; you find them out in farms and in regional communities; that is where you will find them. They deserve information just as much as the marginal seats in the city. They deserve the information.

There are 250 regional publications with Country Press Australia, who are in the building and lobbying MPs, so they will be around to see everybody. I think they have sent everybody a copy of every regional paper that they can get their hands on. It is important that the government advertising dollar responds to this campaign, because it is a campaign that is grounded in the public interest.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield, and it is a pleasure to agree with him. Is there a seconder to the motion?

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canberra. The question is that the motion be agreed to. I call the honourable member for Bass.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. Like the member for Wakefield, I bemoan the retreat of national media from regional areas, because maintaining a viable rural and regional press is vital to the social and economic wellbeing of local communities. In the digital age, however, the challenges for regional newspapers are considerable. These include the pervasive adoption of mobile devices and social media, resulting in a much broader array of media choices, and fierce competition for advertising dollars. Newspapers today must be innovative and adapt to these challenges. But they should also be supported by government policies that help to develop regional businesses and institutions, as the coalition is doing.

In my electorate of Bass we are fortunate to have The Examiner, the only seven-day-a-week newspaper outside of capital cities in the Fairfax stable. Around 60 kilometres away in Scottsdale, we also have the North-Eastern Advertiser, a locally owned, independent, Tasmanian regional weekly that is 106 years old. It is bucking the general media trend of the big cities, with growing circulation and increasing advertising revenue demonstrating how much local people value the coverage of local issues. I congratulate editor Neil Grose for reinvigorating the paper's fortunes.

But The Examiner, based in Launceston, is newsworthy in its own right. Having grown side by side with Tasmania during its 173 year existence, The Examiner is the oldest newspaper in Tasmania and the third-oldest continually operating in Australia. Its founding editorialist, the Reverend John West, was a strong advocate for the end of convict transportation. His writing in The Examiner and later in the Sydney Morning Herald, helped pave the way for Federation. The Examiner in 2015 continues to win international awards and punches above its weight when it comes to influencing the local and national conversation.

I also know from my personal association with The Examiner over the last 30 years or so how much pride it has in its connection to our community. We see this in every edition. Just last Friday The Examiner launched its annual Empty Stocking Appeal, Australia's oldest continuing public charitable campaign. The value that local people place on The Examiner is apparent in its high reader penetration. With the additional subscription options available today, 70 per cent of people in The Examiner's catchment area read the printed or online versions each day. That is because The Examiner's editorial focus is local news, which no other local media type can cover in as much detail.

Let me now turn to the economic viability of regional newspapers which, like The Examiner, have traditionally relied on print advertising and hard copy sales revenue. It is clear this has been eroded over time by new media. Many regional newspapers are no longer locally owned and are part of major media companies headquartered in the big cities. This has occurred for a number of reasons, including market share rules and networking technology, which enable resource sharing and operational efficiencies. Efficiencies have meant reduced staffing levels in many regional media organisations, including those imposed by Fairfax at The Examiner. As a private company, that is their right. In contrast, publicly funded media organisations like the ABC, with greater regional responsibilities than its commercial peers, have, sadly, mimicked the diversion of resources to the capital cities.

As I said earlier, new media and online advertising have transformed traditional revenue sources across the board, which in many cases has seen less local news being produced. Advertising has moved on and the fact is that traditional media channels no longer deliver the coverage they once did. Newspapers, both regional and metropolitan, are facing up to the challenges of the digital age and so must the government.

It is also worth reminding ourselves that, while government advertising in regional papers is needed to get messages out, the fact is that additional revenues from advertising are managed by head offices more often than not in capital cities far removed from Launceston and other regional centres. So we must be cautious in suggesting that government advertising alone is any sort of golden bullet that secures the future of regional media.

In conclusion, let me reaffirm that maintaining a viable rural and regional press is in the best interests of regional communities. In the digital age, newspapers today must be innovative and adaptive. Government policy should similarly acknowledge contemporary realities and encourage local ownership and a fair playing field.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Geelong has a number of weekly local newspapers, among them GeelongNEWS and the Geelong echo, which give us their snapshot of the weekly news in our town midweek, GeelongNEWS in respect of that news which occurs within Geelong centre and to the north and the echo in terms of the news on the peninsula. The Geelong Independent is a welcome addition to one's letterbox coming into Thursday-Friday, as we go into the weekend, for its take on what has occurred in Geelong during the week. All service our community tremendously.

But today I really want to talk about Geelong's daily newspaper, the Geelong Advertiser. I have a copy of today's paper here. It has been a part of our community for a very long time. If I can be indulgent: my first photo was in this paper in 1976, when I won as a tender eight-year-old the under-9 swimming championship at my local school. That a newspaper would cover such an event as that says a lot about what regional newspapers are all about. From that moment onwards, in the way in which I grew up it was always an incentive to see if you could get your name in the Geelong Addy. It was the incentive to kick a goal in the junior footie, because then you would get your photo in the Addy. A bit later on in my life a good round in the weekend golf comp might land you in the Geelong Addy. More recently I have flipped through the pages of that newspaper—indeed, on this very day—to try to find my name in relation to whatever particular issue is going on.

I look at my children, particularly my older two, Sam and Bella. They read this newspaper in a way that they do not read the Herald Sun, The Age, The Australian or the Financial Review. They flick through it with the hope that they might see their name in the way I did when I grew up but also so they might see a photo of their friends in a variety of different ways. Reading the Geelong Advertiser is an entirely different experience from reading any other newspaper, because it is our newspaper. It tells our story.

Warren Buffett encapsulated this perfectly when he said:

If you want to know what’s going on in your town – whether the news is about the mayor or taxes or high school football – there is no substitute for a local newspaper that is doing its job. A reader's eyes may glaze over after they take in a couple of paragraphs about Canadian tariffs or political developments in Pakistan; a story about the reader himself or his neighbours will be read to the end. Wherever there is a pervasive sense of community, a paper that serves the special informational needs of that community will remain indispensable to a significant portion of its residents.

Those words are absolutely true in relation to the Geelong Advertiser.

The Geelong Advertiser was founded in 1840. It is Australia's second oldest masthead. It was established by a Scots immigrant, James Harrison, who is perhaps Geelong's most famous son. James Harrison, as the original promoter and editor of the Geelong Advertiser, also gained fame as the inventor of the modern fridge. Indeed, he came up with that invention by his observations of the way in which alcohol evaporating on typeset made that typeset cold.

The Geelong Advertiser is a really significant part of Geelong. It has had many owners through the years. Today, it is owned by News Corp and it employs more journalists and photographers than any other local media outlet within our region. In that sense, it is the custodian of Geelong's story. I think, when you examine what it is that makes Geelong Geelong, there are a few critical institutions—the Geelong Football Club is an obvious example, perhaps Deakin University, you might say, is one of the critical organisations within our city—but I think there is none that is more important than the Geelong Advertiser. Without it, our story would not be told, and without our story being told it would be hard to characterise the same sense of identity. We might just be another outer suburb of Melbourne. But what makes us distinct is that we have a voice, and the Geelong Advertiser, for 175 years this month, has been the voice of Geelong.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield for raising this motion and I would like to add my voice to the chorus of people extolling the virtues of a competitive and informed local media market.

I do not have to tell anyone about the values involved in this debate and I would like to back up exactly what the member of Corio just said in relation to the importance of our regional newspapers to our community. The ability to tackle the big issues facing a nation is different in the regions. While it is important to hold the political players to account in national issues, both social and structural—such as the ice epidemic, domestic violence and infrastructure—it must be handled with its readers in mind.

My local paper, the Townsville Bulletin, has to cover not only the issues such as energy and water infrastructure but also the local issues such as chooks, primary school pageants and swimming carnivals. While this may seem trivial to some, it certainly is not. The ability to be all things to all people is a tough gig. It is something which few can accomplish and fewer understand. The ability to affect a regional community's self-perception and mood should never be underestimated nor undervalued. Sure it is a training ground for journalists who want to be the next Laurie Oakes or Paul Kelly, but it is also home to wise old sages such as John Anderson who can show them the virtue of telling a story and writing for their audience and can show them that there is as much to learn from the publican at Gannon's Hotel in Julia Creek as there is from an exclusive with the Prime Minister—and many times it is probably more interesting and probably has fewer untruths in it. I may rue the day, but I never want to see the day, when locals cannot get a say with letters to the editor or with stories about lollipop ladies or Centrals rugby league. To do that, newspapers must have a strong economic base, good leadership and a strong sense of community.

In this, I would like to draw the tenuous bow and make mention of the proposed changes to my local ABC programming. ABC management have firmly stated that this is not a budgetary change but a programming change. The ABC has come out strongly and announced these changes without consideration of the Townsville market. We in Townsville will get out first hour of breakfast radio from Newcastle or the Gold Coast. This is despite saying that we would not lose one minute of local broadcasting. Our main morning talk show will be cut from two-and-a-half hours, to one hour. It would seem that the ABC has forgotten what the Townsville Bulletin still holds firm: programs such as these, are what gives our community its texture, its colour, its smell and its sound. It is what the regional media is all about.

I do not get a great run in either place. The previous speakers have said that we should be able to just put out our press releases and have them printed verbatim. I cannot see what is wrong with that, because at least you know when it is coming from me it is the truth. These pesky journalists wanting to know what the truth is and finding the other side of the story are wasting their time and they should know better. If they just put it exactly as I said, we would all get along fine.

Decisions made by others miles away—and, in Townsville's case, thousands of kilometres away—must be made with the view that we are an important part of our state and country. We deserve to be treated fairly, and head offices all over the country must understand that it is, indeed, different where we live and we need to be respected by all players. My Townsville Bulletin and my local ABC are vital cogs in my region's psyche, and so it should be. To that point, as busy a man as Rupert Murdoch is—the Townsville Bulletin is owned by News Corp—he came through Townsville because he wanted to see what the new printing press was like. He wanted to see the new offices and see how it was actually working in Townsville on the ground, and that is what the Townsville Bulletin represents.

My seat is only in Townsville, but around Townsville we also have the Ayr Advocate, the Herbert River Express, and the Northern Minorin Charters Towers. Those papers are very important in making sure it is not just about the Cowboys—paraphrasing what the member for Corio just said—it is about our local people, it is about your eisteddfod results, it is about your primary school kids, it is about your junior sport, it is about our community and I think regional newspapers are a vital cog in that. They are a great training ground for journalists, editors, sub-editors and advertising people on the way through. But it must come with a good, solid economic base, and newspapers, per se, have faced a great deal of change in the very recent years and have come through the other side.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to lend my voice to this very important debate for those of us who live in regional Australia on the importance of our regional and rural newspapers. More than 100,000 people live within the boundaries of my electorate of Ballarat. It contains small towns, such as the community of Dean, with a few hundred residents through to the burgeoning regional city of Ballarat itself. Ballarat's history has always contained a wide array of experiences. The Eureka Stockade saw 500 diggers from around the world take an oath on the Southern Cross. It saw police troopers sent in to enforce the law, backed by two army regiments following orders from the government. Each person has their own version of events from that day. Each had their own history that led them there. Ballarat's largest towns and smaller settlements are all founded by similar people and similar families, with stories just as varied. These stories do not tell themselves. Frequently, if it were not the dogged reporting of local regional papers and newsletters, they would not be told at all. Who else is going to access the opinion of a potato farmer half an hour from the nearest train line?

If a volunteer group from a town with a population of double figures runs a charity drive, are they going to get air time in a major broadsheet? I do not think so.

For stories of national significance that happen locally, local media is an absolute necessity. Without the local connection, the story will not show our perspective—something that leaves us all poorly informed. Without papers defined by that insistent focus on our communities, however small or distant they are from capital cities, we do not hear from people and they do not always hear from us. Such a bridge between parts of our community builds familiarity and can generate community cohesion, as well as give an insight into wonderful local events. These regional newspapers and the stories they tell of our communities deserve our support.

The federal government does spend a significant amount of money communicating policy, informing citizens and advertising programs through media nationally yet many of the smaller, regional publications miss out. There is an important disconnect we need to think about here. Not only is the government and its departments ignoring a communication channel that is completely integrated with target communities they want to get to but it is also failing to recognise the impact federal advertising dollars can have on regional communities, particularly on those smaller regional newspapers.

In my own electorate, we have large publications. We have a Fairfax publication inBallarat, TheCourier, which is a daily newspaper. But we also have much smaller publications across multiple areas of my electorate: The Moorabool News in Bacchus Marsh and Ballan; the leader, The Local News, in Daylesford and Hepburn Shire; The Miner, which now covers from Ballarat all the way through to the member for Corangamite's seat in Geelong; and smaller but growing community publications like the Glenlyon & District News, the Creswick District News and the Buninyong District Newsletterall of which I advertise in. These projects are not large by national standards, but in terms of 'local penetration', they connect with audiences in a way that is second to none.

Even a single government advertisement could be enough for these papers to take on a local photographer for a day a week or offer work experience to local students. By supporting regional publications, we can easily support our regional communities. Regional newspapers also play a very broad role in ensuring that local voices are heard. It is the stories within those regional newspapers, breaking stories in some instances, that are only told by local journalists who know the people to talk to, who actually go and speak to those people and who delve deep into the history of a particular issue. They also make sure that regional communities have a very powerful voice, potentially, on the national stage as some of those journalists eventually do go on to be on our national broadsheets. There is a number of journalists who started at the Ballarat Courier, for example, who I now see throughout many of our major newspapers. Many have also gone on to be editors and other staff on other newspapers. They are fantastic publications.

It is critical that these newspapers are supported. It is also important that when advertising important government programs whether it be things like tax help or whether it be particular tax concessions or small business concessions that those smaller regional newspapers are also seen as a really good conduit into those communities. They are often the paper that people will read. They may not necessarily read The Australian some will but not all—but they will pick up the local paper that covers that area. They will make sure that they have the local newsletter that covers that area as well and I would strongly encourage the government to support rural and regional media because it is in the best interests of rural and regional communities that we do support a strong regional newspaper.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to support the member for Wakefield's motion and particularly acknowledge the importance of rural and regional newspapers in providing a vital service to the towns and regional communities they cover. They maintain a viable regional and rural press in the interests of regional communities. I will take this opportunity to acknowledge that many small publications, as the member for Ballarat also highlighted, are not the carrier of daily national news but are important to local communities that depend on them to function.

I also acknowledge Matt Deighton, the editor of The Mercury, which is a very important daily publication in Hobart and in southern Tasmania. Also on the north-west coast we have the Fairfax publication, The Advocate, edited by Julian O'Brien. I particularly acknowledge the regional lift outs that go into, in my case, the municipality of Latrobe and the municipality of Kentish. Indeed, they are very important services.

I will touch on The Examiner, one of the nation's oldest newspapers, in a moment. I also acknowledge other publications in my electorate that include The Bagdad Newsthanks to Vicky Pearson—The Brighton Community News, The Central Coast Courier, The Coastal Columnand the wonderful job that Heidi Howe particular does in collating that at St Helens.

I must make special mention of The Country Courier. My thoughts are with Chris Keating, the former editor. I know he is unwell at the moment. I also congratulate a former staffer of mine, Alison Andrews, who has just unfortunately resigned to take up a role as the owner—a 'media magnet' as we like to call her—of The Country Courier, which goes throughout the northern midlands and it is a very important publication in that part of Tasmania. The Derwent Valley Gazette is owned by The Mercury and I thank them for the coverage of the Prime Minister's visit there a couple of weeks ago. Other publications include: The Great Oyster Bay Community News edited by Bill Fry and his team; The Highland Digestgreat work done by editor Libby Schubridge and those at the online access centre; The Kentish Voice; TheMeeandah Valley Gazette; The Midlands Herald; The Southern Midlands News, The Surreal Times; Tasman Gazette, ably run by Gaye Wright; and The Valley and East Coast Voice run by Wendy Dawson, who took over from the formidable Judith Spilsbury who ran it for many years.

The Examiner in Northern Tasmania is Australia's third-oldest surviving daily newspaper after the Sydney Morning Herald 1831 and the Geelong Advertiser in 1840. As the Launceston Examiner Commercial and Agricultural Advertising, it was the first published on Saturday afternoon 12March 1842 on a hand press smuggled into Van Diemen's Land disguised as a brewery machine.

The Launceston Examiner was originally located in Brisbane Street Launceston and had a staff of 12 led by its founder and first editor, James Aikenhead. The first three editions were free and were then sold for sixpence to become a biweekly in 1842 and by 1853 it was being published three times a week. James Aikenhead was a local businessman who was eventually joined by Johnathon Stammers Waddell. But it was Congregational minister John West who is still remembered as The Examiner's first campaigning editorial writer. From his office he drove the anti-transportation fight to stop the transportation of convicts from England to the new Australian colonies.

The Reverend West wrote the leading article in the first edition of The Examiner attacking convict transportation and its detrimental effect on building a respectable, sound and prosperous society. This launched the newspaper's leading role in the antitransportation campaign which helped unite the Australian colonies and sow the seeds of the Federation of Australian states in 1901. The Reverend West went onto become editor of The Sydney Morning Herald in 1854. The Examiner moved to a purpose-built premises in Paterson Street, Launceston, in 1857, from where it continued to operate until a few months ago.

During its long and distinguished history, The Examiner has always remembered the legacy of reformist lead writer, the Reverend West. It has grown to become one of the city's biggest businesses, employing nearly 350 staff at its peak. It became an integral part of its community dominating news media across the state as a fiercely independent publication always ready to campaign for its community.

I am telling the story not only because it holds an interesting place but because I want to all urge all to advocate to protect these businesses. They are an important part of healthy rural and regional communities. In contrast to other media, newspaper audiences have never been bigger, whether it be online or in print editions.

Debate adjourned.