Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge that Senator Bernardi, who's currently in the chair, really belled the cat last night on what these reforms are actually about, because a dirty deal has been done to secure the passage of this legislation. Senator Bernardi and, I understand, Senator Lambie—more in token nature than in whole-hearted support—highlighted what this is really about, and that is an attack on public broadcasting and an attack on the ABC.

We heard from One Nation senators who came into this chamber and—credit where credit's due—were honest about what it's about. Senator Burston has been incredibly honest about his views when it comes to public broadcasting. I commend him for that. I pay tribute and credit to someone who was prepared to say: 'This is my view. I will vote according to my view, and I will negotiate and strategise on how I can get legislation through that supports that view.' That's what One Nation has done. This isn't a victory for the government; this isn't a victory for media diversity. This is becoming a victory and has become a victory for One Nation. This is a victory for One Nation when it comes to media reforms here today.

I have to say that, when it comes to the issue of public interest journalism, a whole lot of crocodile tears have been poured in this place but the big ideas have actually been run away from. Through our Senate inquiry, we heard witness after witness and big idea after big idea. We were able to hear big ideas—again, some of which have the merit to actually be properly explored. Do you create a proper fund to allow investment in journalism to be treated in the same way as we treat research and development grants?

Do you end up levying a big company like Google to pay for that? These are the big ideas, if you're serious about the future of journalism, that should have been explored and needed to be explored.

I have to say—I said it last night, and I will say it again—Senator Xenophon, your position on this and what you settled for is so much weaker than what you were saying to the witnesses and others as we were going through our public inquiry. This is not a good deal. This is a $60 million slush fund that we find out is to buy iPads. It's to buy iPhones. Everyone's going to get a new iPhone X under this proposal! This is the slushiest fund imaginable. This isn't about the future of journalism. This is about a government throwing money at a problem to try to get the passage of legislation.

The worst bit about it is when you actually look at institutions like The Guardian, BuzzFeed and others. Again, the question I will specifically be posing to the minister in a moment will be about why he is creating this. I mean, we know what's being said in this chamber is different than what's being said outside it. We know that the minister has been telling people privately that the issue with including The Guardian is that he could not possibly—they had to exclude them—get it through his own backbench and couldn't get it through his own party. Senator Leyonhjelm belled that cat yesterday morning when he said that as long as there's nothing going to The Guardian, it's something he could support.

So what do you do? You create a slush fund to buy iPads and iPhones and, in doing so, you exclude different organisations when you may not like what they have to say. That is not media reform. That is not where we should be heading in this modern era when it comes to how we deal with media and how media needs to be dealt with. There are big challenges, but that's not what this legislation has addressed. What we have here is a government that has done its deals and has done a deal with One Nation, and then has gone and done a deal with the Xenophon group. They have tried to find a way of marrying the two together.

The only real honest brokers in all of this—I have to say again that it amazes me—has been One Nation, because at least they have held a consistent position to do in the public broadcasters. That has been their position from the start. Senator Hanson came into this chamber yesterday and, in her second reading contribution, made it very clear that there are journalists at the ABC who she dislikes, who she feels haven't given her a fair deal, and part of her reason for this is that. We heard from Senator Malcolm Roberts—again, consistency is a beautiful thing—who was able to somehow turn this entire debate into a conspiracy with the CSIRO as it relates to climate change and ABC coverage. Respect where it is due: sometimes it's tough to make the links that he keeps making, but he believes in it.

Then last night Senator Bernardi—I think it was at about five minutes to 11—actually exposed what this is all going to be about in the end. Senator Xenophon, we all see through this. We know what's gone on. You have gone to the government and said, 'Look, I'll cut you a deal. Cut me a favour here, and make sure the One Nation stuff is separated out so that I don't have my fingerprints on it.' That's what's gone on here. We all know that. We all know what's really happened here. This is a dirty deal that's been done at the last minute. This is not how big issues, big reforms and big changes should actually be dealt with and actually be tackled. That isn't what we've had here at all. What we've had is a cheap deal that was done at the last minute to keep One Nation happy and to buy off the NXT party.

There is the opportunity here to actually make big reforms and to actually reshape Australia's media landscape. What we have here is a fix to a problem, but, frankly, the inclusion of the potential CBS takeover of Network Ten changes it all anyway. What's the rush? The rush is because we were told it has to be done immediately, because Channel 10's about to go under. That is what we were all told. That is what the minister was saying in the media and that is what was being said privately. There was an urgency. Then, all of a sudden, you end up with this.

The specifics of the deal will get looked at by FIRB and others. I understand there is an ongoing legal case on what will happen with the future of Channel 10. I will let others far more experienced than me settle those legal matters. But the idea that we need to do this urgently wasn't there before. So, why this dirty deal at this hour in this way? That is a question that no-one has been able to properly answer in the Senate. To have this kind of a deal—frankly, we are all getting a bit tired of it, Senator Xenophon, we really are—through the chair. We all sit around like lemmings while you make this eleventh-hour deal that is going to throw huge issues up into the air—like what the future of the Australian media landscape is going to look like—and it all depends on whether or not they are buying you off well enough. You are a senator who made it so clear what your views were on horsetrading. Your views were so consistent for so long, and you have spoken so passionately and funnily and charmingly about it, but you then go and do these types of deals week after week after week.

And it is always the same: it's a last-minute deal; there will be an hour's motion, it will have support, we will be stuck here dealing with it, and there will be a pot of money that appears to look good on the surface. Then, when we get to the point of actual examination, we see how pathetically weak and small that pot ends up being. What we found out today is that this is a $60 million iPad-iPhone fund. That is what this is. This is for the new iPhone, everybody. This is what the Senate is spending its time and another $60 million on. I note what Senator Bernardi and Senator Leyonhjelm—who, again, have been quite honest in this debate—have said about it in the past 24 hours: they are not fans of this type of spending, but it is probably not bad enough for them to change their votes. I don't want to misquote other senators, but that was the gist of my understanding. They are both big enough and bad enough to speak for themselves.