Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will make it clear, up-front, that Labor supports these bills as long as schedule 2 of the broadcasting reform bill to repeal the two-out-of-three cross-media rule is omitted. Labor acknowledges the commercial pressures that the broadcasting sector is under. For these reasons, Labor supports all of the measures in the bill, except for the repeal of the two-out-of-three rule, which is ill conceived, not justified on the evidence and risks undermining Australia's democracy.

Labor supports most of the measures that the government announced to support the broadcasting industry last month because it was Labor that proposed them in the first place. Labor led the way on broadcast licensing fee relief, gambling advertising restrictions and on funding to support the broadcasting of women's sport. While Labor stands up for those issues on their merits, we understand that the government's reasons for drawing those elements into its overall set of measures on broadcasting announced on 6 May 2017 was as part of a deal-making process designed to cobble together support for its flawed media ownership changes.

Labor understands that these bills barely begin to address the genuine media reform agenda and do little to secure the public interest considerations in the contemporary media environment. In the context of debate on these bills, the government continually makes reference to the fact that the laws governing broadcasting in Australia are antiquated, yet these bills do little to adapt our public interest safeguards to 21st century conditions. Labor is deeply disappointed at the lack of coherent vision from the Turnbull government for the Australian media industry or the policy and regulatory framework that governs it. However, we recognise that the pragmatic course of action at this time is to support the majority of the measures in these bills. Even though Labor regards this government's second attempt at media reform as inadequate and piecemeal, we will take what little sensible progress we can get out of this lazy, inept government.

Labor's position on the proposed changes to media ownership safeguards has been crystal clear for some time now. Labor is committed to supporting the Australian media industry, as well as the jobs and content it produces, as the sector continues to adapt to the new media environment. At the same time, Labor is committed to safeguarding the public interest and our democracy and does not regard the internet as a reason or justification for the junking of fundamental public interest safeguards. The government does not have the balance between these interests right with these bills.

Labor acknowledges that Australia needs a thriving media industry to promote a diversity of voices, jobs, and quality news, information and entertainment. It is imperative that the sector remain viable and competitive in the modern media environment. This is why Labor supports the measures industry needs most: licence fee relief, repeal of the 75 per cent reach rule, and relaxation of the antisiphoning scheme and list.

Labor also acknowledges the facts around media ownership diversity in this country and, unlike the coalition government, understands the proper role of government in promoting diversity through competition. This is why Labor opposes the repeal of the two-out-of-three rule. To state a few facts, Australia's level of media ownership concentration is already one of the highest in the world. The traditional media—newspapers, commercial television and commercial radio—continue to be the main source of news and current affairs for Australians, particularly in regional areas. The majority of the top 10 news websites accessed by Australians are either directly or jointly owned by traditional media platforms. It is just the same voices on different platforms. The digital divide means that access to new media still remains out of reach for many Australians, given substandard levels of broadband connectivity, and this is particularly the case in regional and rural areas.

While Labor acknowledges the increasing influence of new media in Australia, we do not mistake the entry of new voices online or the abundance of online content for diversity of ownership of Australian media. It is a mistake to confuse the proliferation of content with diversity of ownership or opinion. To quote a speech Paul Keating delivered in the year 2000:

Public policy should be directed towards promoting diversity and preventing any further concentration of media power.

The result might be some arguable economic inefficiencies around the edges, but the Australian polity will be healthier. The principal objective has to be diversity. And the only way to get it is competition. That alone.

…   …   …

The cross-media rules have never been an end in themselves, however. They were intended not to preserve a static media environment but to promote diversification; to facilitate dynamic change.

The government's first attempt at media reform was its flawed Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016, which stalled in the Senate last November because this government does not know the difference between regulatory housekeeping and genuine, holistic reform.

When the Turnbull government announced the media reform bill over a year ago, in March 2016, they boasted then that it was:

… the most significant reforms to our media laws in a generation …

This was a gross overstatement for a few reasons.

Firstly, the bill contained only three key measures, two of which were in the nature of regulatory tinkering and one which was completely ill conceived. Secondly, the repeal of the 75 per cent reach rule was just a pedestrian bit of regulatory housekeeping that could have been dealt with in any omnibus deregulation bill, given that the usefulness of the rule had expired and that it was largely redundant.

Labor has indicated its support for the appeal of the 75 per cent reach rule for some time. Repeatedly, Labor has indicated its support for the removal of the 75 per cent reach rule, and Labor wishes to express its disappointment that this government has continued to dither and delay this important measure that Labor wanted to repeal last year.

Thirdly, the amendments to local program requirements obligations for regional commercial television broadcasting licencees following a trigger event were just an extension of an existing scheme. Labor indicated its support for these measures last year. So far, we have not heard anything startlingly new here.

Finally, the proposed repeal of the two-out-of-three cross-media rule was completely ill conceived, given the very clear evidence that the rule should be retained and given that simply removing safeguards does nothing to adapt our media regulation or our public interest safeguards to be fit for the 21st century. Now, and on their second attempt, the broadcasting reform bill rehashes the provisions of the flawed media reform bill and throws in a few additional bits and pieces designed to scrape together support for the repeal of the two-out-of-three rule.

The government argues that parliament should support these bills because they have the support of the Australian media industry. These bills are overwhelmingly pro industry. It is not surprising, therefore, that the measures have the support of industry! Indeed, at a specially convened media summit at Parliament House last month, chief executives from Australia's major commercial and subscription TV, newspaper and radio companies travelled to Parliament House to demonstrate support for the measures that the government has announced.

In addition to a number of deregulatory measures around ownership, control rules and antisiphoning, the bills save commercial broadcast licencees around $90 million per annum from the abolition of licence fees and the introduction of a new spectrum tax. The fact that the government's measures are unanimously supported by industry is notable, but it is not a reason for the parliament to support the bills without question.

Media businesses answer to shareholders, but they do not answer to the Australian public. It is the role of parliament to stand up for public interest. This government argues that the parliament should support these bills because we have to kill diversity in Australia in order to save diversity. It simply does not make sense! What getting rid of the two-out-of-three rule means is that there will be a greater consolidation of Australian media companies. With that, it is almost inevitable that media companies will consolidate and will cut costs by merging. There will be fewer journalists, fewer views, less information and more power for media proprietors.

Abandoning the cross-media rules carries the dangers of intensifying vertical integration and concentration, without doing anything for horizontal diversification. And then what? The government's pro industry package is just a bandaid for industry. It offers almost nothing for consumers and citizens, and at the same time undermines diversity. It does not address the real policy problems with the current framework, or offer up options for a new framework. Ultimately, both industry and citizen consumers will suffer for this government's ineptitude.

The government argue that regulatory form is out of date and in need of reform. Repeatedly, Labor called on the government to undertake holistic, evidence based reform, but they seem particularly opposed to undertaking evidence based reform. The government's response instead was that, six months after the report of the Senate inquiry into the media reform was published last November, the Minister for Communications announced a series of reactive, short-sighted and surface-level deals to cobble together a package of political trade-offs that do very little to secure public interest outcomes in the contemporary media environment. In their four years in office, the government could have had a holistic review of the evidence—perhaps even four times over. Instead, the government's latest media reform package is surface level, shallow and piecemeal when considered in the context of the true degree of media reform that is actually needed.

I said at the outset that Labor supports most of the government's overall set of measures, which were announced on 6 May, because Labor was the party that actually proposed a number of them in the first place. One of the measures the minister announced was on additional gambling advertising. Labor led the way in addressing community concerns around gambling advertising as far back as 2013, by demanding that Australia's broadcasters amend their codes to ensure a reduction in the promotion and advertising of gambling during live sport. Concerned that the rules were not working optimally, in March this year Labor moved a motion in the parliament calling on the government to work with the broadcasting industry, and national sporting organisations, on a transition plan to address the issue of gambling ads before and during live sport broadcasts. This hypocritical government voted against the motion, only to announce gambling advertising restrictions in live sporting events just a few weeks later. Clearly there is a lot of confusion on the other side of the chamber.

Ultimately, Labor's leadership on this issue has compelled the government to act, and we welcome the measures as a step in the right direction. That said, Labor does not feel they go far enough to address community concerns. Labor anticipates that our communities will continue to complain about the intrusion of gambling advertising in live sports given the amount of gambling advertising the government's flawed proposal continues to allow, and given the fact that gambling advertisers may simply shift their advertising to avoid the five-minute shoulder. It remains to be seen whether viewers will be bombarded with gambling advertisements at the 8.30 pm mark or whether the timing of live sports fixtures will be altered to minimise the impact of the new restrictions. Labor shares the concerns of people across Australia who are worried about the impact of gambling advertising on our community. Adults and children should be able to enjoy watching live sport without the intrusion of betting odds and gambling ads. It is in everyone's interest to ensure that children do not consider betting and gambling a normal part of enjoying sport.

On the matter of sport, the government's announcement of $30 million in funding to support the broadcasting of women's and niche sports is yet another area where the government is picking up on Labor proposals. Labor announced funding to support broadcasting of women's sport on the ABC, a national free-to-air service, as part of its 2016 election platform. The government's main point of difference is that it will provide the funding to subscription television rather than to the ABC. It remains to be seen what the legacy of the government's approach will be given that subscription television is available to around 30 per cent of Australian households, a rate far different from that of the ABC.

Labor is committed to ensuring Australians enjoy coverage of premium sporting events on free-to-air television. Labor regards the proposed changes to the antisiphoning scheme itself as being in the nature of regulatory housekeeping, something the government seems determined to dress up as reform. The changes to the list of events in the antisiphoning notice proposed in this bill are changes that are permitted under the current scheme. I note that these are justified on practical grounds, where the history of rights acquisitioned by broadcasters and audience viewing patterns no longer warrant their inclusion, for example. As with so many issues in the communications portfolio, Labor is disappointed that the government has not conducted a holistic, evidence based public consultation process on the scheme and the impact of over-the-top providers in the lead-up to the proposing of this bill.

That brings me to content reform. Labor believes that it is imperative that Australians reap a return on the use by broadcasters of the radio frequency spectrum, a very valuable public asset. It is disappointing that the government has moved to erase pressure at one end of the value chain, with commercial broadcasters, and has neglected other links. The government's piecemeal, ad hoc approach to reform sees them granting licence fee relief to broadcasters but no relief for the production sector, which is also feeling increased competitive pressure in the contemporary media landscape. The broadcasting sector is not the only industry that has been disrupted by digitisation, and yet the government, which is coming up to its fourth year in office now, only recently announced a content review to assess issues in the Australian production sector.

Despite the fact that since 2014 the Department of Communications and the Arts has identified content issues as in need of reform, as part of its deregulatory road map this government has only recently just commenced work on a content review. Meanwhile, ABS data released last week shows that the government's commitment to Australian content in the context of media reform or broadcaster reform is all talk and no action. The production sector is suffering as a consequence of this government's inaction and ineptitude when it comes to joined-up reform. Piecemeal, ad hoc regulatory tinkering has not addressed the key structural issues the industry is facing.

The communications minister has proved to be incapable of getting his ducks in a row to usher in abolition of broadcast licensing fees and the introduction of the spectrum tax at the same time as identifying his content policy. Perhaps he does not understand the nexus between the two.

As the Productivity Commission stated in the report of its inquiry into broadcasting in 2000, licence fees:

… seek to recover some of the value inherent in commercial broadcasting licences from commercial broadcasters and provide a return to the public for their use of scarce radiofrequency spectrum.

The sector-specific licence fees levied on commercial broadcasters formed part of the social compact that has been a central theme in how broadcasting policy in legislation has been approached in Australia—at least until this minister came along, anyway.

Broadcasters have a unique role in preserving our national culture. Labor supports the changes to licence fees proposed in these bills and recognises the competitive pressure facing the sector. We note the policy objects of the Broadcasting Services Act are not amended in these bills, and expect the proposed measures to flow through in terms of provision of support for the Australian production sector.

Despite Labor's disappointment— (Time expired)