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

I appreciate that. This is a blatant misuse of public money and an abuse of the public trust for the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and the Minister for Communications, Mitch Fifield, to decide which journalists they support based on which journalists support them. That is the crux of the issue here.

The Greens want to support Australian journalism and journalists' jobs. At a time when trust in politics is so low, public interest journalism is more important than ever. The public funding to support public interest journalism must be available to all players, not just those in the right-wing media and their friends in the government. This is about ensuring that we support Australian journalism and Australian journalists, not just the ones that happen to agree with the Prime Minister.

The Greens want a strong, sustainable and vibrant news media industry, and we want a balanced one. We're not suggesting for a moment that all of the funding should just go to news outlets that promote the Greens' policies. That wouldn't be investment in public interest journalism because, in order to have proper public interest journalism, there must be balanced representation and reporting so people on all sides can get all the different views. So whether you are a Greens member of parliament, a Liberal member of parliament, a One Nation member of parliament or a Nick Xenophon member of parliament—whatever you are—you should know that when a journalist is reporting they are doing it because they are supporting and upholding public interest journalism. It doesn't matter whether or not they like our views. In turn, it shouldn't matter whether or not we like their reporting.

This government says it would rather go broke than stay balanced. This amendment is an opportunity to say to the government that it has overreached and, well and truly, this is the case. It is an opportunity for the Centre Alliance, Senator Griff and Senator Patrick, to correct what former senator Nick Xenophon said was an instance where 'blind ideology yet again got in the way of sensible public policy'. I say this to Senator Griff and Senator Patrick: Nick's gone; he's nicked off. You have an opportunity today to fix this mistake, to make sure we remove the blind ideology. Why should taxpayers fund just one reported view of how this government is going? Why should taxpayers fund the mouthpiece of One Nation and Senator Pauline Hanson but no other journalist in this country? It is an ideologically blind piece of legislation. We can fix it. We can fix it today, and I urge you to consider the amendments at the committee stage.