Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Part of the way through Senator Birmingham's contribution, he made a reference to the fact that the Liberal Party believes in free speech and a free media. There is a very simple response to that: ditto. Because, in the four years that we have been in government, there has been not one whit of change and not one response from the current government that in any way interferes with the concepts of free speech or a free media. What we have witnessed over the last four years is the market operating, and there has been enormous technological change for content providers and new players entering the market. Over the last fortnight, we have seen the two principal media companies in this country engaging in revision—occasioned by technological change—of their own particular business models. We have seen it in News Limited's headline paper, the Australian, today, outlining their changes, and we saw it earlier in the week from the Fairfax press, which operates in the country's two largest states and the ACT. What is occurring—and it is not caused by government; the government has not interfered and it has not sought change—is the operation of the market.

Senator Birmingham made some references in his contribution to the independent inquiry into the media and the Convergence Review Committee inquiry. The government has received the findings and recommendations of the independent inquiry. What have we done with those? They have been sent off to be Convergence Review Committee for its consideration. And both the convergence review and the independent media inquiry have recommended to the government—which the government has not yet decided on and cabinet has not even considered—that the framework for news media regulation in Australia needs to be strengthened. That is hardly a remarkable proposition when the media industry, whether radio, TV, the press or the internet, is going through such radical change that it would occur to anyone who takes an interest in this that the degree, nature and type of regulation that has occurred under successive governments in this country for the last 100 or 150 years might need to be looked at and possibly altered into the future. That is all that is occurring.

One of the principal proposals so far, from the Convergence Review Committee, is that all content service enterprises be required to join and fund a body. What is that body going to do? It will require those enterprises to join that body to administer self-regulatory codes of practice. Content providers in the media, entertainment and news industry will be required to join a body to administer self-regulatory codes of practice. So all of these organisations develop their own behaviour and establish codes of practice, and all of the players in that market, whether it be TV, radio, newspaper or internet, who provide content will simply be required to join that body and then they can administer their own codes of behaviour, which they themselves—not the government, not the parliament, not some bureaucrat somewhere—have determined. This is hardly a remarkable proposition. And what has happened with that? It is only a recommendation to the government and it will be considered by the government at the appropriate time.

Let us not kid ourselves: the media plays a fundamental role in our society. A healthy, robust, growing and differentiated media is not only fundamental to a market economy such as ours but also fundamental to the democratic society that we work in, live in and wish to retain. It cannot be argued that, as a result of technological change, the media is not facing significant challenges; regrettably and regretfully, we have seen those played out on the front pages over the last week. We are told that, over the next two or three years, 1,900 people are going to be laid off from the Fairfax organisation alone. The number of people to be laid off by News Limited has not yet been identified. (Time expired)