Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to put Labor's position with regard to this bill on the record today in light of the deals that were done—that may or may not live long in the memory of Australians, as so many dirty deals have been done by this government. But, with regard to this particular one, the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund exists only because of a shoddy backroom deal between the Turnbull government and the Nick Xenophon political party, who now call themselves Centre Alliance.

This fund is the result of a heavily compromised trade-off. The fund didn't come about because the Turnbull government genuinely committed to promoting public interest journalism. Far from it. It came about as a result of one of many backroom deals done to grease the path for the Turnbull government's repeal of the two-out-of-three cross-media control rule. This is a rule that, until September last year, acted as a public interest safeguard by stopping any one voice in the media landscape from becoming too dominant and by promoting diversity and competition between different voices. The two-out-of-three rule ensured that no individual or company controlled more than two out of three regulated media platforms—commercial television, commercial radio or associated newspapers—in the same licence area. In essence, it was to preserve diversity of opinion on our airwaves.

In a democratic country like Australia, which has one of the highest levels of media concentration in the world, you would think that removing such a significant safeguard would be understood as being seriously misguided. But not for this Turnbull government. You would think that senators from South Australia, a state one point above the minimum floor for the number of media voices, would comprehend the importance of maintaining a rule that serves media diversity. But, no, not for former Senator Xenophon and not for Centre Alliance. Last year the Turnbull government junked a safeguard that prevented Australia's already high levels of media concentration getting worse, and it did so with the help of Nick Xenophon and the Centre Alliance senators. What sad irony that a law that acted as a democratic safeguard in promoting media diversity was done away with by deal making conducted behind closed doors and away from democratic scrutiny.

So, why all the deals? Well, after trying for over a year to get the repeal of the two-out-of-three rule through parliament, the Turnbull government was not able to persuade this chamber on absolute merit. You may ask why, and the answer is a very instructive revelation of this government's intention. The repeal of this rule was contrary to the public interest. They were unsuccessful in getting it through on merit, so they went to the deal making that characterised the final passage of this bill. Instead of accepting the reality of acting against the public interest, the Turnbull government started on a series of grubby backdoor deal-making adventures, including a grant of $30 million of taxpayer funds to Fox Sports. At Senate estimates in October last year, the Australian Sports Commission and the office for sport officials confirmed that they had not been asked to provide any advice in relation to this dubious deal. The Liberals would rather have Australians believe that this payment is about promoting women's sport. But the fact is this government didn't even consult their own sports advisers about whether or not it was a good idea before they just went ahead and did the deal anyway. Yet, even that grubby deal wasn't quite enough to get them over the line. Further deals were yet to be done.

Next, the Turnbull government sidled up to Pauline Hanson and the Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, going so far as to use the ABC as a bargaining chip to ensure One Nation's support for these very flawed media ownership changes that their legislation proposes. Last year, the ABC's Four Corners aired a program into One Nation called Please Explain and ABC News published leaked recordings of conversations that Senator Hanson's use of a donated light aircraft featured in amongst other things. In response, Senator Hanson threatened to refuse to support the federal budget unless the ABC's funding was cut by $600 million over four years. This ridiculous retaliatory threat didn't hit its mark and $600 million didn't disappear, but that does not mean that the ABC has not been under attack constantly by this government, with Senator Hanson cheering from the sidelines.

In August 2017, the government announced a deal with the One Nation party on media ownership changes inclusive of a number of unnecessary and unwarranted amendments to the ABC Act and charter as well as an insidious competitive neutrality inquiry aimed at reducing the role of the ABC to that of a market failure broadcaster. In announcing the deal, Senator Hanson also made it clear that she'd be speaking to the Treasurer and going after the ABC in the budget in 2018. Fast forward to the budget last night and—lo and behold!—further savage cuts were handed down to the ABC. This budget of 2018 contains a further $127 million in cuts to the ABC over four years on top of the $254 million in cuts that the Liberals have imposed on the ABC since 2014. The Liberals have now broken their election promise, which you might recall, Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher, of no cuts to the ABC. That was one of the things that was written in the blue blood of the other side. Well, they have broken that promise many, many times over. Part of breaking it was securing this dirty deal to get rid of the two-out-of-three rule.

In this budget, the Liberals have frozen the indexation of ABC's operational funding, amounting to a cut of $83.7 million. They articulated that it's to ensure the ABC continues to find back-office efficiencies. But the government know they can't squeeze blood from a stone. They know full well that this cut that they are inflicting on the ABC means cuts to jobs, content and services at the ABC. The Liberals and Nationals complain that the ABC isn't doing enough news coverage, yet these hypocrites have left a $43 million hole in funding for ABC News and Current Affairs. The ABC said that the impact of the cuts cannot be absorbed by efficiency measures alone because the ABC has already achieved significant productivity gains in response to past budget cuts. The Liberals claim their budget is about investing to create more jobs every day and to support essential services, yet these cuts to the ABC will inevitably lead to job losses. Redundancies at the ABC are on the horizon as a result of the government's cuts to the ABC in last night's budget, and reductions in the ABC services that Australians value will be the consequence of the budget delivered by Scott Morrison, the Treasurer, last night. We will have less news and fewer jobs as a result of these attacks on the ABC.

As a result of all these deals, there are now three bills before the parliament to meddle in the ABC Act, to have a faux competitive neutrality inquiry and to have a further efficiency review to undermine the ABC. Yet, despite all of that, it still wasn't enough. To secure their legislation against the public interest, the government still needed the senators in the then Nick Xenophon Team—now called the Centre Alliance—to get them over the line. So off they went, money in hand, to do a deal. Nick Xenophon and his senators from South Australia knew that if he did a deal with the Turnbull government to scrap the two-out-of-three rule he would be responsible for handing unprecedented media power to the hands of a privileged few, despite the fact that Australia has one of the most concentrated media markets in the world. Yet Senator Xenophon—with the approval of his party, you'd have to suggest—did the deal.

What's more, Senator Xenophon knew that, if he did the deal with the Turnbull government to scrap the two-out-of-three rule, he'd be responsible for the unleashing of an unprecedented attack on our very highly respected national broadcaster, the ABC, and also the SBS. Each member of the Xenophon team knew well that a vote for the government's media ownership changes was a vote for the competitive neutrality inquiry, which is designed to cruel the ABC and SBS, and that they were also signing off on a raft of other retaliatory attacks designed by the government, with Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, against the ABC. Yet, despite all of that, the Xenophon party did the deal. What's more, former Senator Xenophon knew that, if he did the deal with the Turnbull government to scrap the two-out-of-three rule, he wouldn't even get the kind of journalism fund that he wanted. He knew that the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund was compromised and that it excluded publishers like The Guardian Australia. By his own admission, the deal was ideologically motivated and, therefore, fundamentally flawed as a public interest intervention. But—that's right—despite all that, Senator Xenophon went ahead with the deal. Just weeks after supporting the Turnbull government's flawed media ownership changes in exchange for a handful of beans, Nick Xenophon announced that he was leaving the Australian Senate and federal politics altogether, and his departure ensures that he will not be accountable for the consequences of the damage that he did when he signed up to that dirty deal.

The government's repeal of the two-out-of-three rule permits media mergers and further concentration of Australia's already highly concentrated media market, and it begs the question: why expend taxpayers' money on a fund for journalism cadetships and scholarships when there aren't enough jobs to go around for existing journalists? Where will the new journalism cadets work when the media mergers, consolidations and job losses that follow the repeal of the two-out-of-three rule occur? What we've seen since the repeal of that rule is absolutely alarming. In the media sector, we've seen yet more closures and job cuts. The Blacktown Sun, for example, and its sister publications, including the Rouse Hill Couriertrusted sources of local news and information—closed in December last year. Sadly, right on the heels of the closure of those local papers, the only dedicated national newspaper for young Australians, Crinkling News, has also announced it will cease. This innovative outfit ticked so many of the boxes, informing the child audience, developing literacy skills and promoting critical media thinking, but it wasn't saved by anything that Senator Xenophon claimed he was hoping to achieve. The fact that these closures come after the Turnbull government's changes to media ownership laws were enacted in the announcement of this Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund shows how inappropriate these measures actually are.

We've learnt for decades that public interest journalism is under immense pressure from digital disruption, yet this government has cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the ABC and SBS, trusted sources of investigative journalism in Australia. It's repealed the two-out-of-three cross-media rule to permit even greater consolidation of Australia's already highly concentrated media sector and it's now threatening journalists with criminal sanctions simply for doing their jobs, with its flawed Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme. Clearly, the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund is a meagre short-term bandaid. It's too little and it's too late for too many.

Over the six months that have passed since the Turnbull government abolished the two-out-of-three cross-media control rule, in an orgy of deal-making and back-scratching, cross-media mergers have begun to result. How many have actually come through? The answer is zero. The milestone makes a mockery of communication minister Mitch Fifield's alarmist urgings that parliament must act on media reforms to protect Australian jobs and give industry a fighting chance and his dire predictions of the failure of Australian media organisations.

At one point in his defence of his attack on the two-out-of-three rule, the minister said that Labor's opposition to the repeal was crippling the industry and limiting the options for organisations like Channel Ten. How wrong he was! Developments since that time clearly demonstrate just how captured by the sector the Turnbull government was and how out of touch it remains. The CBS acquisition of Channel Ten occurred thanks to the two-out-of-three rule. It was voted for overwhelmingly by Ten staff and has seen Ten go on a frenetic new hiring spree and commission the largest number of new domestic shows it has ever commissioned in one year. Contrary to Minister Fifield's doom and gloom, the President of CBS Studios International, Mr Nunez, said:

We're looking to grow Ten, we're looking to evolve Ten, we're looking to see Ten be successful in every way possible …

By comparison, it's now well understood that the alternative plan for Ten, devised to follow the repeal of the two-out-of-three rule—which I'm glad to say was delayed long enough to allow Ten to be acquired more generously—was to slash its newsroom and bring in News Corp's Sky News to reduce costs and give the Murdoch news service greater reach. That did not happen, thankfully.

As the recent joint venture for playout operations between Seven West Media and Nine Entertainment indicates, with efficiencies we inevitably see job cuts. Labor acknowledges that other media merger plans may already be in train and may yet materialise. With recent history as our witness, Labor again condemns the Turnbull government's repeal of the two-out-of-three rule, which paves the way for further job losses and consolidation in Australia's media market, which is, as I've said, already one of the most concentrated in the world.

With this deal, the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund, Senator Xenophon revealed the pitiful price he put on Australia's media diversity—$60.4 million in exchange for his vote to repeal the two-out-of-three rule. Labor won't oppose this bill, the Communications Legislation Amendment (Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund) Bill 2017, but regards the fund to be a short-term, bandaid solution that does nothing to fill the void left by the repeal of the two-out-of-three rule. It's too little, too late for too many media organisations. The fact that innovative outfits like Crinkling Newshave announced their closure since the changes to the media law and the announcement of the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund indicates how inadequate the Turnbull government's measures are. Labor senators further note that the fund exposes the rank hypocrisy of the government when it comes to the use of taxpayers' funds to prop up commercial media instead of supporting our national public broadcasters. The Turnbull government handed $30 million to Fox Sports, which has a foreign based parent company, but excluded The Guardian Australia from this fund for the same reason.

Labor will not oppose the bill, which amends the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, by inserting a new part 14F, to establish legislative authority for the Australian Communications and Media Authority to make a grant of financial assistance to a publisher of a newspaper, magazine or other periodical, or a content service provider. The grants would be limited to the financial year commencing 1 July 2018 and the following two financial years. Labor will not oppose a mechanism to distribute a modest, short-term fund in the name of public interest journalism. But Labor will hold the Turnbull government to account for undermining what precious little media diversity Australia enjoys. Taken together, the Turnbull government's media ownership changes and its plans to undermine our public broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, represent a direct assault on media diversity in Australia. This has implications for our democracy and our culture. The Turnbull government seems hell-bent on destroying diversity in Australian broadcasting. Labor condemns the Turnbull government's disastrous record on media diversity and public interest journalism. To this end, I move the second reading amendment as circulated in my name:

At the end of the motion, add:

", but the Senate:

(a) notes that the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund was agreed by the Turnbull Liberal Government as part of a back-room deal with the then Nick Xenophon team in exchange for support for the repeal of the 2 out of 3 cross-media control rule in 2017;

(b) notes that the Government's disastrous record on media diversity and public interest journalism includes:

(i) removal of a key media diversity safeguard which prevented even greater consolidation in Australia's already highly concentrated media sector with the repeal of the 2 out of 3 cross-media control rule;

(ii) budget cuts of hundreds of millions of dollars from the ABC and SBS, which are trusted sources of investigative journalism in Australia;

(iii) pushing community television off the broadcast platform to an online delivery model without an adequate transition period;

(iv) threatening journalists with criminal sanctions simply for doing their jobs under the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2017;

(v) policy inaction in the face of the loss of more than 3000 journalism jobs in Australia over the past five years;

(c) notes that media diversity and support for public interest journalism are not mutually exclusive and that Australia needs both;

(d) calls on the Government to stop actively undermining media diversity and public interest journalism in Australia;

(e) calls on the Turnbull Government to drop its destructive attack on the ABC; and

(f) calls on the Government to support media diversity and public interest journalism in Australia.".