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

There is the assertion that it changes all parts of the broadcasting licence. This is dealing specifically with what would be assessed as a point when there is a merger in one of the regional or metropolitan markets. There has been a linkage made—and I do not presume it to be there in this amendment—that this changes everything in the broadcasting licensing section. What it really deals with is that, when you are counting up the points—which are the number of voices in the market—you will be counting only points that are relevant for that purpose, points that are relevant as putting out a predominant amount of content. 4.8 hours a day is not a lot. If you take news, current affairs, talkback and public opinion pieces, I think 4.8 hours a day is a fair indication of whether it is an effective voice or not.

If we do not deal with that, if we have something that puts out basically no content at all—a music station—when it comes to a merger, when they are going to cut down the numbers in a market, that would be counted to the same extent as an outlet that affects opinion predominantly. If that is the case then you could actually reduce the media because you would have the potential to have an outlet that is predominantly music staying in the market and one that actually affects opinion being merged or taken over.