Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

First up, may I say in response to the previous speaker, Senator Paterson, that Labor is definitely not anti media. Labor certainly does care about jobs—jobs for all Australians. In fact it is not Labor that is removing penalty rates as of this weekend.

Turning to the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017, as a former journalist of 20 years, I do have a very real interest in issues around media reforms—certainly from my own experiences—especially reforms that impact on diversity in our media. It is certainly true that we need to keep abreast of, and introduce reforms in response to, a volatile and continually changing media sector. New platforms are opening up the ways we receive information, and we are often flooded with information. But does this information add to our knowledge? Does it reflect us and our community? Does it bring a diversity of voices and views to our media landscape? I do understand that some degree of government regulation is necessary to protect us from abuses of media power. A completely unregulated media market would result in a handful of powerful outlets dominating traditional, and perhaps even digital, forms of media. That is why I have concerns about the repeal of the two-out-of-three rule. We need to make sure there is a diversity of voices and cultures reflected in our Australian media.

I grew up in Borroloola in the Gulf of Carpentaria. In the early days we did not have television. The only communication we would have had, and did have, was ABC Radio. The first images and stories that I saw about first nations people or about the Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Marra and Gurdanji peoples of my region were pretty much negative. We talk about fake news. Let me tell you, fake news has been around a long time as far as Aboriginal people are concerned. We only have to look at, for example, the land claim for the Yanyuwa in the 1990s for the Sir Edward Pellew group of islands. A local media newspaper reported that it was local fisherman who would be removed or kicked out of their homes because Aboriginal people wanted the land. Have a think about that reporting. Have a think about that. Who was removing whom, and how long has that been going on for? Sadly, negative media stereotypes are still overwhelmingly the case.

Diversity in media is about reflecting the positive stories, and the voices that often do not get heard and the faces that are not seen. It is what we see all the time in mainstream media reporting on Indigenous affairs, when one of two spokespeople are expected to represent all Indigenous people and nations like we are some homogenous mass. Inevitably, the stories focus on failure, on gaps, on statistics or on not quite measuring up. This is where Indigenous media, the Special Broadcasting Service—SBS—and in some respects the ABC are important, although I must say that the ABC is dropping the ball when it comes to its listeners in remote areas, and that is all listeners, but I will be talking about that more a bit later.

We need to remember the importance of the diversity in Indigenous voices and opinions. The mainstream media often struggles to reflect the differing views and opinions in Indigenous communities, preferring sometimes to ignore differing views or to even display them as conflicts rather than the normal discourse and trading of views and ideas. As we move down the path of issues like constitutional reform and truth telling, as we talk about treaties and what they may look like, the question is: will mainstream media accurately and fairly reflect the differing views and opinions—and there are so many differing views and opinions—that are out there? Will they be able to do that in a way that does not escalate fear and anger? Will these be discussed, and sometimes argued, as we progress these issues? But in a mature way, in a way that all Australians can have a look at these issues and make their own minds up. So if we have concerns now about the coverage of these particular issues and reports, what will it mean if we have further concentration in media control and ownership? And I am only talking about one or two small examples.

I said earlier that 'fake news' seems to be the buzzword, but fake news really has been around for way too long for Indigenous Australians, like how we are all supposed to get 'special treatment'—yes, that is fake news. I would like to be standing in this chamber today talking about how we are supporting and celebrating the achievements of Indigenous media workers. There are many, and there should be more. I would like to be talking about how the government is supporting the work of the Indigenous Remote Communications Association, which has done an enormous amount of work around the importance of the remote media sector and how governments can support the sector. The industry has identified the need for serious policy development work to be done in the Indigenous media sector. Policy in this area is really lagging behind, with no real update since the 1990s. In fact, the most major reform in this country that I can recall in this space was the BRACS—Broadcasting for Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme—program. But, again, while so many communities did receive the ability to have media communications and to have radio stations, my community Borroloola did not receive it. We missed out. As a result of missing out, I was able to work with the ABC at the time to ensure that in this region in the gulf country—1,000 kilometres south-east of Darwin, our nearest capital—we could actually have a radio service. We spent a couple of years trying to set up a satellite service and applying for a communication licence—the broadcasting licence we needed. The community got behind us and supported me in that process. It certainly took a lot of diligence and a lot of reporting in the application process so that the community and the township of Borroloola could receive its very first local radio station.

In 1996 we were able to open that radio station and, again, it was really as a result of looking at what was happening in other remote regions across Australia under the BRACS program and realising that we had missed out. Taking those steps to establish the radio station, which we called B102.9 FM, 'The voice of the Gulf', in the local town, meant that local languages could be spoken and heard and they could be informing the community in language about cyclones, flooding, damage, if the local mail plane was coming in, if there was an incident on the roads or if any visitors were coming to the region. All of the local news could be spoken in language or English, and it was available to provide information to the cattle stations. The radius was not all that far—we started off with 50 kilometres—but it was such a huge advantage for the people in the region to be able to communicate and listen to their own local station. 'The voice of the Gulf' had a short radius of about 50 kilometres, but it was a good start.

Now in my electorate of the Northern Territory we are fortunate to have some strong Indigenous media organisations who tell the stories of our communities, who keep people in touch and connected and who help keep language and culture thriving. But it is also about sharing with non-Indigenous Australia the richness of this culture, which is very much a part of the lives of all Australians. The ability to reach out to all Australians and say: 'Hey, don't be afraid of us. We are here as first nations people and these are the languages spoken through the airwaves, on the TV screens and now in Indigenous newspapers across the country.' They are informing and educating but are also available for all Australians to make their own minds up: are they going to read the information in this paper, listen to that radio station or watch a news story from that Indigenous channel? They can make their own minds up in a very informed way about the issues that impact first nations people, not perpetuate the fake news has been going on for so long over so many decades.

Today we have organisations such as PAW Media; TEABBA, the Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association; Radio Larrakia; and CAAMA, the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association—the very first Aboriginal organisation to be granted a broadcast licence. We used to have strong Indigenous programming on Imparja Television in Alice Springs which, sadly, is now nothing more than a commercial relay station with no local news and no local content, let alone Aboriginal content. It is sad that all these years later we are seeing bush people's access to news and information cut and restricted. This is not just for Aboriginal people who live in the bush; this is for all our cattle families on the stations, the pastoralists, the truckies, the nurses and the police who live in the regions in these areas that rely on this.

Certainly, the cutting of the ABC shortwave service has impacted enormously on people who live, work and travel in remote regions, and it is certainly an indictment on this government that it has not stepped in to fund the ABC to enable them to continue using the transmission infrastructure. The government, ironically, hides behind the notion of the ABC's editorial independence, but the shortwave issue is not about interfering in any way with the ABCs absolute right to determine their content. This is about infrastructure. ABC management has made it perfectly clear that they cut the shortwave because they determined they did not want to spend their budget that this government has slashed to the bone on transmission services to a remote area audience that the ABC determined they could ignore.

I would certainly like to let you know what this remote area audience thinks about that, and I quote from submissions that the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association has made to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee inquiry, that it was an 'unjust and dishonest policy of exclusion and discrimination against remote and regional Australians' and that:

Many people in rural and remote Australia are socially isolated, with less face-to-face contact with family, friends and other support networks. This can lead to loneliness and depression, and can contribute to suicidal behaviour. Stimulation provided by shortwave radio to those doing important jobs in isolated areas is critical.

There is a growing divide between remote and urban organisations due to access to technology and digital services. We are waiting to see what the real effects of the recently-announced ABC restructure will have in regional and remote areas. ABC management have said they want to increase the ABC's digital and video output from rural and regional Australia, but, when we have the NBN failures in the bush, just how realistic is this? We need to look at legislation that ensures that we not only have media that reflect the diversity of Australia, but media that reach into all of its remote areas, and that we have the accessible technology to support this.