Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The government has committed to reforming Australia’s media ownership laws while protecting public interest in our diverse and vibrant media sector. As is well known, the government recently released outline proposals to reform our media ownership laws as part of a broader reform package relating to new digital services and other key broadcasting issues. In this paper, it has been proposed to remove the current cross-media and foreign ownership rules, with diversity protected by a floor under the number of media groups permitted in a market to prevent undue concentration of ownership.

The floor of four voices in regional markets and five in mainland state capitals seeks to find a balance between establishing too high a threshold that would prevent any mergers taking place and ensuring protection for a minimum number of voices and media outlets. However, this would not include national daily and out-of-area newspapers, the ABC and SBS, pay TV, the internet and other potential news services over other platforms, which will all continue to supplement the commercial platforms to deliver a wide variety of information, entertainment and opinion to the Australian people wherever they may be.

Under this approach, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, would have the power to grant an exemption certificate where a cross-media transaction does not breach the floor. The Trade Practices Act 1974 would continue to apply to media transactions, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission would play a critical role in assessing competition issues associated with mergers, including in regional areas where media markets operate on lower revenue and higher costs.

There was a comprehensive inquiry into the issues surrounding cross-media ownership, which I chaired several years ago, in which all of the issues surrounding this matter were examined. The government will be introducing legislation on changes to cross-media ownership in the near future. When that happens, the legislation will be referred to the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Legislation Committee. Accordingly, referring this matter to the ECITA references committee at this stage would unnecessarily duplicate the inquiry the legislation committee will be holding in the not too distant future. Therefore, the government will be opposing this motion.

Question put:

That the motion (That the motion () be agreed to.