Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

I suspect you could be right just this once, Senator Thorp. Senator Conroy and the Prime Minister claimed that the opposition will be consulted about the appointment. We have no detail to these reforms, but there has been absolutely no commitment on whether such consultation will be mandated, whether it will be a requirement that the opposition actually agree to the appointment or how such processes will work. In the end, there is every chance this will be a dog of the government and the government will tell it how and when to bark.

Equally, Senator Conroy claims that these reforms are about protecting a diversity of voices. Do not take my word for the fact that we have greater diversity than ever before. Do not take Mr Turnbull's word for it. How about we take the managing director of the ABC, Mr Mark Scott, who said, way back in 2010 when these reform processes were started:

Now there are multiple players. Anyone with a mobile phone, laptop or camcorder can be a broadcaster.

That is right, Mr Deputy President: anyone can be, just as anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection can be a publisher and just as we have, of course, millions of people worldwide through Twitter and other fora who are ensuring their voices are heard. The opportunity and the capacity for people to have their voices heard, and for them to be critics of the media, are greater than ever before—they have greater opportunities than ever before.

Senator Conroy says we should look to what the rest of the world is doing, and in doing so I note he says that he will proudly frame the front page of today's Daily Telegraph, which does indeed highlight what some other parts of the world have sadly done with press freedoms. Rather than looking to what the rest of the world is doing when it comes to media freedom, I would prefer we lead the rest of the world when it comes to media freedom. As I believe the Convergence Review was initially intended to do—before it was sidetracked by the claims around the hate media and by the Finkelstein review that was just bolted on at short notice to the whole Convergence Review process to address the gripes of the Greens and some in the Labor caucus about what they saw as unfair treatment—I believe that we should recognise that we live in a world with more voices than ever before and more opportunity than ever before. Far from needing more regulation and control over the media, this is an era in which we should be seeing less regulation and greater freedom for expression and greater freedom of the media. Indeed, as Senator Bob Carr even told this Senate recently—in terms of what is needed in Fiji—we should be having robust freedom of expression, association and the media. (Time expired)