Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, and on behalf of Senators Ludlam, Xenophon and Lambie, move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

  (i) more than five million Australians listen to community radio in an average week,

  (ii) the community radio audience comes from a diverse range of backgrounds and maintains a diverse range of interests,

  (iii) community radio listeners are disproportionately more likely to identify as Indigenous, religious, LGBTIQ, from a culturally or linguistically-diverse background, or as living with a disability,

  (iv) these interests are not adequately served by commercial radio, and

  (v) the diverse range of voices that contribute to community radio are even more critical in a commercial environment, where diversity is impacted by increasingly consolidated media ownership structures; and

(b) calls on the Australian Government to:

  (i) increase funding targeted for community digital radio, taking the Commonwealth contribution to $4.5 million per annum in 2018-19, and

  (ii) commit to funding community radio at that level, indexed, on an ongoing basis.