Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not want to speak for long in this first part of the committee stage. Suffice it to say and to repeat for the third time that I also was concerned at the constrained nature of the committee hearing. It was not a very exhaustive thing. The Labor Party—through Senator Conroy—had 10 minutes to question witnesses. Government senators had about 30 seconds or, if we were lucky, we got 90 seconds. That is because there were so many of us there wanting to make a contribution to this debate.

I was very impressed, as always, with Senator Murray’s comments yesterday. A lot of what he says is true. Hopefully his warnings will never come to pass, but it is something that we as senators need to carefully look at.

I think, now that the government does control the Senate, government senators have to be much more stringent in their scrutiny of some bills, not with the purpose of trying to interfere with the government’s program, which I support, but just to make sure that the bills which come through are drawn in a way that will achieve the government’s goals. I am concerned about a number of the pieces of this legislation. Most of it we all support, I think. There are some elements that I am concerned about. I have negotiated with the minister and with the minister’s office. I am relatively satisfied with most of the amendments that are coming forward, although I do want to question the minister on some of these as we go.

I am concerned at some of the amendments coming through that could lead to country radio stations shutting down. I was distressed to see in today’s Australian, and perhaps in other papers as well, the comments by Macquarie Regional Radioworks that certain stations might have to shut down because they will simply not be profitable. One of them referred to is in Mareeba. It is a radio station I well know because it is up where I come from. I am very often in Mareeba. I use that radio station. If, as a result of what we do today, that radio station and the Roma radio station, which is the other one mentioned—and Senator Joyce would be concerned if the Roma radio station shut down—ceased operation, that would mean a lesser voice for country people with commercial radio stations. Whilst the Mareeba and Roma stations might not be perfect at the moment, they are certainly much better than nothing.

If the figures mentioned in this article are correct—and I have taken some time to check them out—and those radio stations continue to lose money then any sensible employer, any sensible owner, will shut them down. Why would you keep a radio station going if you are losing money on it? If the impositions we make in this bill are such that two radio stations in Queensland that I know of are going to shut down then I think that is bad legislation.

We can try to impose conditions on country radio stations to make sure they do feature country interest stories but, if in doing that we shut the station down, how are we advanced? We have gone backwards. That particularly concerns me. I again, as my colleague Senator Brandis did, refer to yesterday’s Financial Review editorial and urge my colleagues to understand that you can overregulate country radio stations and you can, by overregulating them, get the reverse effect to what you are trying to achieve—that is, you will have less understanding in the area.

Senator George Campbell made some comments about me yesterday that I do not want to go into. Suffice it to say that Senator George Campbell, from his ivory tower in Sydney, would not really understand much about country radio. But he should understand that the ABC in country Australia is a very viable and very local organisation. Country commercial radio stations know that. They have real competition in country areas. You can turn off the commercial radio station and go to the ABC, because the ABC is very local and runs good programs. That is why the commercial radio stations have to continue looking at what their audience wants. If their audience wants local news, they will run local news because they want the listeners. They want the listeners because they want the advertisers, and the advertisers will only advertise if they know they have listeners.

I ask the minister to consider whether we should perhaps not be regulating regional commercial radio as much as is proposed, although my negotiations with the minister have achieved some things but not all I would have hoped—but I guess a little bit is better than nothing. But perhaps we would have been better looking at this in another way. Perhaps we would have been better saying, ‘Let’s take the shackles off community radio and leave commercial radio in the country regulated only by their audience.’

I know there are a lot of community radio stations in many, many towns in country Queensland—I am sure there are in other parts of Australia, but as a Queensland senator I want to talk about Queensland—but they are constricted in the amount of money they can earn. They cannot sell advertising. They can sell sponsorships in a very limited sort of way. There are one or two community radio stations that I am personally familiar with who do a great job. They do employ journalists, but they struggle to make ends meet. What if we were to remove the limitation of five minutes of advertising per hour on community radio—five minutes which, if you do not use them in that hour, you cannot save up for the next hour? We could perhaps look at that sort of thing. I am not sure, but the minister might be able to indicate to me whether that is relevant in this whole package of legislation. Or perhaps the minister is considering these matters in some other forum or some other set of legislative packages.

One way to address this which perhaps we could have explored a bit more was to leave commercial radio as it is—relatively unregulated, particularly in country areas—and unleash community radio, which puts another competitive element in the country market. I do not think community radio will ever directly compete with commercial radio, but it is something that is worth thinking about. I think we would have been better looking at that than imposing regulations on commercial radio in country areas that can lead to some of them shutting down, as today’s papers have said.

By and large, I am satisfied that the bill is appropriate. I am delighted that the minister took on a lot of the suggestions made by the committee—that is, by Senator Eggleston, Senator Brandis, Senator Ronaldson and me. The minister has taken up the recommendation on the two out of three rule for country Australia but which the Liberal Treasurer, Mr Costello, has, by his influence, extended right across the spectrum. That is a good win for the Liberal Party, and I appreciate that—it does ensure diversity of voice.

I am delighted that the minister has addressed the B-channel access. It is something that I questioned a lot of witnesses about at some length in the committee hearings. I know Senator Conroy also raised some questions on the B channel. I am delighted that the minister has taken on my thoughts on that, which are displayed in the committee report, although I do want to question the minister about that, because there are a couple of elements that I think need a bit of scrutiny, perhaps a bit of tweaking. I am delighted the minister took up Senator Brandis’s point on the powers of the ACMA and the ACCC.