Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting this amendment of the opposition. We are extremely concerned that, given the lack of alternative options put forward by the government to ensure media diversity, to ensure that journalist jobs will continue to grow, to protect the jobs that are there, to ensure that there is proper investment and opportunity for public interest journalism—in the absence of anything of substance coming from the government in relation to that—we simply cannot support scrapping the two-out-of-three rule, because we believe that it will result in a concentration of the media, at a time when we need more diversity and we need more scrutiny on our governments, whether they be state, federal or local, more scrutiny on politicians. We need to be able to protect the role of public interest journalism here in Australia. We know that there are, of course, issues in relation to the changing nature of the media landscape. We know the pressures that are on media organisations to sustain themselves, but the government has come up with nothing to really deal with those issues aside from scrapping the two-out-of-three rule, which really helps the big guys but doesn't really help the little guys at all.

We've already been through some of the details today of what we know of the deal that has been done between Senator Xenophon, One Nation and the government in relation to the $60 million that has been secured to pass this bill. But we have heard that this won't go to jobs for journalists, won't go towards ensuring that independent smaller players across the board will be able to employ journalists so that they can do good public interest journalism. No. We have heard that it's going to go to some computers, iPads and phones, or maybe some junkets. There is no commitment to actually paying journalists to be journalists, no support for media organisations to ensure that they can be sustainable. It doesn't deal with the realities of the changing media landscape and the fact that business models of media organisations are under huge pressure and are going to have to change. It is a pipedream at best and a false hope at worst for media organisations across this country who are looking at what's going on in this place today. There's been a nice big deal handed on a platter to some of the largest media companies in the country, with the scrapping of the two-out-of-three rule, but there is nothing for small and medium players, which will mean less diversity. So, in the absence of proper investment in public interest journalism, in the absence of actual jobs for journalists, the Greens simply cannot support scrapping the two-out-of-three rule, and we support the opposition's amendments.