Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Given that Senator Xenophon had the opportunity last night to speak for 20 minutes on the details of the deal that's been done in the dark, outside this chamber, but failed to bring in any scrutiny to it, I think these amendments are quite outrageous. There are two numbers that Senator Xenophon is proposing to change. This is a fig leaf on a fig leaf. These amendments have been moved so that it looks like Senator Xenophon has done something in this chamber and so people have something to look at.

If we actually go to page 10 of the bill, as it stands, it comes at a section of the bill that talks about trigger events and then local programming requirements. This is important; but if this is all we are getting from Senator Xenophon in terms of an amendment, while he's out crowing about how fantastic the deal is that he's done, then this is simply an embarrassment. If we go to 61CX in the bill, we see here a comment:

… 360 points in each timing period that begins after the end of the period of 6 months beginning on that day—

And there's a change to the number of 600.

It says this is:

… a trigger event for a regional non-aggregated commercial television broadcasting licence occurs on a particular day …

And it says:

… the licensee must broadcast, to each local area, material of local significance in order to accumulate at least—

That 600 points. That's it; that's his first big amendment. It's one minor change. I noticed in the comments that the senator put on the record today that this may lead to—this is what I heard—an increase in local coverage. That is it. That is what we get. We get 600. Then we go onto point (d) under 61CX in the legislation, where it says there are:

… 45 points in each week that is included in a timing period covered by paragraph (c).

It's an increase from 45 points to 100 points. Now, seriously, when you look at this as the entirety of the Xenophon amendments you have to wonder why he even bothered to bring it in.

Last night we saw an amazing event here in the parliament, where the One Nation amendments that were dispatched of last night were actually documented in this place by another senator from another party and, when they came for a vote, the One Nation party didn't even show up to support what was a declaration of the known bits of the deal that they're supposed to have done with the government. After Senator Xenophon has given us chapter and verse on how fantastic the deal is that he's delivered—which, by the way, I notice is being characterised in the papers today as a 'trinkets and baubles' concession from the government, and I have to agree with that characterisation—we are now faced with this amendment.

I have to say that I thought Senator Xenophon might have a whole host of other amendments that he would suddenly spring on us this morning, which might have locked down some of the supposed deal that he has constructed with the government, seeing as he has started to talk about a very significant change in the ACMA responsibility for looking after some of the changes that he mooted in his conversation last night. I wish I could be more specific, but I have got nothing to look at. I have no papers; there's nothing that has come in here for me to give the scrutiny that it deserves.

What we have got is a change of the role for ACMA that is really quite significant, and that is not made clear in any way in any documentation. Instead, we have this amendment suggesting a change, under 61CX, from 360 points to 600 points to increase the coverage. The senator has told us this morning that 'may occur'—so, 100 points instead of 45—in a timing period, with regard to the capacity to keep a licence. This is an embarrassment. This is such a tiny amendment to a piece of legislation that is quite significant.

This is a package that the government has been putting forward for 18 months, which it could have put through a long, long time ago if it had only had the courage to stand up for the Australian people and pull the two-out-of-three rule out. If it had, we wouldn't be in this position where we are looking at this embarrassing amendment. The reality is this amendment, at this stage, simply doesn't cut it. It simply doesn't deliver anything significant for the Australian people. It doesn't provide protection for people in the regions to actually have a view of the world around them. It doesn't increase anything. It simply provides a cover for Senator Xenophon to say that he's moved some small amendment in this place.

What really concerns me is that, last night, in order to construct this deal—where we have got 600 points in each timing period and 100 points in each week as the major piece of legislative change that's going on with this bill that's before us—what got sacrificed was protection for the ABC and the SBS. Senator Xenophon, with the show that he was putting on, sought to distract us all from the fact that he's letting this ABC SBS special deal, cooked up with the minister, go ahead outside of this chamber.

One of the committees that I get to participate in is the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services. We have done some very good work there. Indeed, this morning I was standing up with Senator Xenophon giving a press conference on delivering a unity report around changes to whistleblower protection. Whistleblower protection is all about putting things that are going on in the dark into the light. It is about cultural practices that make the hidden transparent. This is the hypocrisy of what we've seen on offer from Senator Xenophon today—doing all of his dealing outside of this chamber, in the unlit market, if you want. There is no transparency about what's been done. He thought it was good enough to come into the chamber and deliver 20 minutes last night, with some sort of a shopping list of things that has been concocted with the government in the course of this week—one can only assume—offering up this tiny, tiny change. Two numbers—that's all that Senator Xenophon has achieved in terms of the changes in this bill. That's it in its entirety.

Labor cannot support this amendment because of the construction of the whole deal and the way in which the senator has brought this to the chamber. It simply isn't substantive enough to provide adequate protection for all the things the senator says that he has achieved for the Australian people. The broadcasting reform bills and the many backdoor deals that are associated with them represent a direct assault on media diversity in Australia. They hand unprecedented media power to a very privileged few commercial operators, and, at the same time, these deals that are part of what's going on here provide for an incredible attack on Australia's national broadcasters, the ABC and the SBS.

Senators in this place get around the country, and we know there is one thing that Australians have great faith in, and that is our national broadcaster. What we see in this amendment is nothing that's going to deal with the threat and the challenge presented by the other deal that has gone on here, between Pauline Hanson's One Nation and the government, also a deal done in the dark—unobservable, reported in some quarters but inadequately presented for the scrutiny of the Senate. This amendment that Senator Xenophon has moved comes in the context of one of the most concentrated media markets in the world, and yet we have seen the Turnbull government hell-bent on making it worse by repealing the two-out-of-three cross-media control rule.

The Turnbull government have been trying to repeal this two-out-of-three rule for 18 months. They haven't been able to do it on merit, and that is why we're at this point, where we've got this fig leaf of an amendment coming forward from Senator Xenophon. They couldn't do it on merit, so they've gone to the back room to do a deal outside of this chamber. The One Nation party and the NXT party look like they're going to get this through. It will include a grant of $30 million to Fox Sports, plus embed an attack on the ABC and SBS.

The proposal to repeal the two-out-of-three rule is contrary to the public interest, and Labor want to make that very clear today. Despite the speeches that have been made, despite the assurances that have been given, despite the shopping lists of deals that have been done with the government, we are very concerned about the loss of the two-out-of-three rule. It's a vital safeguard that continues to do the heavy lifting in our market and it maintains diversity in Australia. Those opposite argue that diversity will continue regardless. But, once this bill goes through—and it looks like they have stitched up the numbers to make it happen—we can't go back from what this government is about to give away, giving away two out of three.

We know, earlier in this process, Senator Hanson was very clear that she was going to stand up for the bush and make sure they were looked after. Well, the deal got done—is it the bush or the ABC? Does she want to attack the ABC more than she wants to look after the people in the bush? Clearly, she wants to attack the ABC, and she's done her deal around that. Senator Xenophon, not to be left out of the deal-making, because that would be an upsetting experience, has dealt himself in. And he's delivered $60.4 million, and how many cadetships was that—40 or 50?