Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Acting Deputy President Bernardi. The chamber will be delighted to learn that I am not attempting to emulate Dame Nellie in terms of her beautiful soprano voice! But I want to associate myself with the comments that have been made by everyone in this debate this evening on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017, particularly as it relates to community radio. I want to share with you an experience I had in the days when there was an inadequacy of community radio, especially for those of us who needed it in the field of agricultural extension. I know that Senator Siewert was very active in this space. I was invited down to the great southern town of Kojonup, where I was asked to give a speech this particular night to a group of interested farmers on artificial insemination in sheep. Kojonup is the middle of the sheep-production area of Western Australia. They assured me that they would utilise the local community radio to publicise the event.

I drove down on a winter's night, about this time of year, down from Muresk college at Northam to Kojonup. I got down there, and I thought I had the right night—through you, Acting Deputy President, to Senator Smith—but the CWA hall was in darkness. There was one other car there, so I went over to this person and said, 'Isn't tonight the night?' He said, 'Yes it is. I'm here for it.' We found our way into the hall and turned the lights on. We waited for some period of time, and I said to him, 'Look, do you mind if I get underway with my speech?' He said, 'No, that's okay.' I had 80 slides, and I presented my slides—eloquently, I thought—on the question of artificial insemination in sheep. I asked him if there were any questions, and he said, 'No, I don't have any questions.' I said, 'That's okay. If you have no questions, do you mind if I pack up and get underway, because it's a three-hour drive back to Northam and there are kangaroos, it's dark, it's cold, it's wet and it's miserable, so do you mind if I get underway?' And he said, 'Hang on, what about me? I've sat here and listened through your speech; what about me?' I said, 'What about you?' He said, 'I'm the other speaker'!

It goes to show the importance of community radio, particularly in agricultural communities. Obviously I join with the comments of Senator McCarthy, followed up by those of Senator Smith in this space. And in all seriousness, that story I just told was actually not a true story. I have to tell you: it wasn't Kojonup; it was Katanning. But anyhow I got that a bit wrong; it was further away from Northam.

Only the other day in fact did I approach Minister Fifield, because I had had an approach from people here in the eastern states who run a Saturday morning community radio station—some of them ex-military, others of them simply community-minded, all voluntary. As part of the engagement, they said to me, ‘Look, is there any way in which we can secure additional funding, because our community radio program is so popular?' I am sure each of us in our various positions have been approached by constituents, particularly ethnic and other communities, who rely so heavily on their access to community radio.

For once, having approached the minister and having received the information that I did from him, I was able to go straight back to them and say, ‘You wouldn't believe it: funds were actually included in the recent budget, extending funding for community radio.’ When I communicated back to them, of course, as you could imagine, I immediately took credit for this and said that it had been my intense lobbying through to the minister that had attracted this funding.

I applaud, as part of this process, the extension of funding and the importance of community radio, and there has not been anyone who has spoken this evening who has been at variance with that particular view. I would just like to pick up on a comment that was made by Senator Paterson in what I regarded as an excellent contribution in this debate. He was talking of the fact that media has moved on. He used the horse-and-cart analogy and made the point that, by the time they got to some legislation associated with the use of horses and carts, they were long out of the scene and the horseless carriage had in fact made its approach into the major cities of the Western world.

Only days after the British election, early morning–I must have been preparing for my valedictory speech because I heard an interview hosted by Geraldine Doogue, a fine Western Australian. She was interviewing two senior journalists from the UK—one from the Conservative side of the British media, the other from the Labour side. The two of them were making this point: that the election of 2017 in the UK was the first time in which the importance of the print media was subordinate to the electronic and social media. One of them, who was a correspondent for The Times, made the observation—he said, 'I have two children,19 and 21, and neither of them, even though their father has been part of this world all of their lives, would pick up any print media ever.' Of course they obtain their news, their inputs, their communication et cetera through electronic media sources, be it Facebook, Google or many of the others.

Further to that comment, the point they made was this: in general terms, the print media had supported the Prime Minister, Mrs May, and the electronic and social media had supported the Labour leader, Mr Jeremy Corbyn. What was the impact of that? Of course, as we know from the Brexit vote, most young people in the UK did not turn out to vote, although they were keen to stay within the European economic community. We know that voting is not compulsory in the UK. They were supportive of staying in Europe but they did not vote but, as a result of the electronic media, if you like, campaigns that were conducted in favour of Mr Corbyn, they turned out en masse with the result that Prime Minister May did not get a majority in the House of Commons.

We see evidence in support of Minister Fifield's legislation here and we see this as a straight indicator of the radical movement now in how people get their news. The older generations—even Senator Bushby is probably in that category; I bet he gets the Hobart Mercury on a daily basis; I noticed Senator Abetz gets it in a print form. One generation uses print media; another generation would not know what print media was.

What this speaks to is the irrelevance now of the two-in-three rule. I, like Senator Smith, believe that Senator Ludlam is one of the most knowledgeable people in this space.