Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I shall not speak for too long today as I have just been relieved of one of the teeth in my head. Probably some would say that is a great outcome! The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006, the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Bill 2006, the Communications Legislation Amendment (Enforcement Powers) Bill 2006 and the Television Licence Fees Amendment Bill 2006 are terribly important for our nation. What is the fundamental thing we are trying to protect here? We are trying to protect the nation from this outcome: that, in 10 years time, the real power would be controlled by a couple of media houses. If that were to happen then we would have really usurped the operation of this parliament. This parliament would turn into a quaint place where a lot of people would run around frantically but the real power would actually be held somewhere else.

The United States had to deal with this issue. That is why good Republican senators such as Teddy Roosevelt and Taft brought in the Claytons Antitrust Act and the Sherman Antitrust Act on either end of the 1900s—because of the threat that a corporate body would rise to such an extent that it would challenge the powers of the parliament. That is the underlying fear within the National Party we have been trying to protect against—the evolving of an organisation that would challenge the role of the parliament, and the media is the place where that organisation is the most likely to evolve.

We heard interesting analogies through the committee process. I remember reading one which mentioned the hierarchy of bribery claims in Chile. The largest bribes did not go to politicians or police; they went to media outlets. If you really want to control the place, the media is where you do it. In the Senate we reflect the aspirations of the people, and the media are the gatekeepers of what goes out and what comes back and how we are perceived. Therefore, they have inordinate power in society, which means they have a very special spot that we have to be extremely concerned about.

The suggestion has been put that this is not something where we should rock the boat too much, but I disagree with that firmly. This is absolutely an issue where we have the utmost responsibility to preserve the freedom that is in our nation and the gatekeeper of the freedom of our nation is the media. We have a building nearby called the War Memorial, which is a clear sign of those who have made the supreme sacrifice in protecting the freedom of our nation. In this place we must be ever mindful of that; otherwise we will have to build a building out the back for the ones who have let the show down. This is why this legislation is so important. We have already heard that it has been in animated suspension. There is a reason for that: there was concern in the Senate about issues in regard to this.

In the National Party we have had this concern right from the start in a resolution from state management. We tried our best to pursue those concerns through the Senate committee process and to finally get amendments to this legislation. The two out of three rule is a result of that work—the two out of three rule in regional areas which has become the two out of three rule in metropolitan areas. That is a great outcome. It has started to put some controls on where the media is. The local content rules is another outcome that the National Party has brought into this parliament. So, the protection of the media not only in metropolitan areas but in regional areas, the local content rules, the issues about channel B, the increased powers of the ACMA and the ATT are the issues that the National Party can claim responsibility for by being some sort of guardian of the passage of this legislation, to protect the democratic process in this nation.

If there were not a National Party, without a shadow of a doubt these protections would not exist. There would not be the safety valve in conservative politics to bring about these results. That shows clearly to the Australian people that, rather than our being shoe-holed in some rural constituency, there is a relevance to the National Party being in the Senate. The day the National Party is removed from the Senate will be a bad outcome for democracy. We will have everybody on the other side signing a pledge that they will always obey their masters in Sussex Street, we will have the inherent development of a loss of capacity to hold diverse views in the Senate and we will have a bipolar world. A piece of legislation like this would go straight through without the National Party standing up and fighting for democracy, as has happened with this legislation.

There are still issues that need to be looked at. I agree that there must be tighter controls on what a voice is. In the National Party we are not belligerent; we listen to everybody. We try to truly reflect views in the Senate, as we are supposed to, and be an open chamber that takes on board varying opinions, and not be like the other place, some bastion of tribalism. Hopefully, in this chamber we rise above that somewhat. When you sign a pledge that you are always going to follow your caucus leader, of course, you cannot. You usurp the democratic right of all the people who voted for you. They do not have the right to have access to your caucus leader; only you have that right. That means the caucus leader in Sussex Street starts telling the Australian nation what to do and that is what is inherently wrong about a Labor Party senator.

I believe we should have a tighter control on what a voice is. I do not believe that a media outlet that predominantly plays music or shows the races can be called the voice, so much so that I am prepared to back myself in and, if required to vote with that amendment on whichever side of the Senate it is moved, I will do that, unlike the people of the Labor Party. You do not have that right. The day you do that in the Labor Party, you are kicked straight out, because you are not a free enterprise. You are a totalitarian regime, run from Sussex Street, and that is why you never have the numbers to have a majority in both houses. You will never be given it again in our nation. It will never happen because you aspire to that totalitarian control—