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

I rise this evening to speak in relation to the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2021. This bill enacts recommendations from the ACCC after some three years of work by the regulatory body on these issues. I think it's really important to say at the outset that this bill is designed to deal with one particular part of the issues facing public interest journalism in this country—news media and, of course, the long-awaited regulation of the big tech giants. It doesn't solve everything. It certainly cannot stand alone as the only action that needs to be taken to ensure that we deal with the monopoly that exists online with the digital tech giants and the monopoly that exists within Australia's media landscape—namely, the monopoly of the Murdoch press.

We know that public interest journalism in this country has been struggling for quite some time. Trying to get to the negotiating table with these big tech giants to negotiate how they access the services of digital advertising and revenue spend has been very, very difficult. The ACCC's report, after three years, made it very clear that there was a power imbalance in relation to the ability of media organisations and publishers to actually have a fair and genuine negotiation with those big tech giants. Facebook and Google didn't need to turn up to the table and they didn't need to put genuine offers on the table, and, in many cases, they refused to do so.

Monopolies are bad. They often lead to a lesser quality product and higher prices for the consumer. In this scenario, we have seen that the monopoly that both Google and Facebook have had has really made it difficult for those who create news journalism in this country to be able to be paid for the content that they create, access the advertising revenue in a fair and transparent way and continue on their very important work. Public interest journalism is essential to ensure that we have a robust and accountable democracy; to ensure that there are journalists being paid for the work that they do to investigate very important news and stories in the public interest; to ensure that there is a fourth estate that is willing and able, funded and resourced, to hold the government of the day and the parliament to account. It is essential that we have journalists working to inform the rest of us about what is going on in our own backyards, in our own communities, across the country, and, indeed, where Australia fits in the rest of the world.

As I said at the outset, this particular piece of legislation doesn't solve all of the problems we face in 2021 when it comes to the current online platforms or the monopolies within the media landscape here. It deals with one particular part. It deals with advertising revenue and the bargaining process for that, and that is it. The government and this parliament have a lot of work to do to make sure this is not set-and-forget, that we actually roll up our sleeves and get serious about making sure there is a proper investment and that the settings are there for investment into media diversity in this country to make sure that we can tackle the other big monopoly that exists in Australia. That, of course, is the monopoly of News Corp. We can't have a continuing attack on our public broadcaster from this government. Cut after cut after cut is making our public broadcaster less and less effective when it comes to covering the stories that really matter to Australians and making those stories and that information accessible. We need to make sure that small publishers, independent publishers and start-up news organisations can get a foothold in the market and are able to flourish so that we are not just employing new journalists in this country and the next generation of journalists but ensuring that, as consumers, as the audience, as regular members of the community, we have free and open access and transparency to be able to consume the information and the news that those new platforms and those new agencies are able to create for us.

There are a number of things in this piece of legislation that need amending. Overall, the principle of tackling the power imbalance is absolutely right; it does need to happen. But there are a number of amendments needed to make sure the Australian people—the community, our news organisations, our smaller publishers and other regular users of the internet—are protected. We need to make sure that the ABC's funding is secure, and I foreshadow that, as part of tonight's debate, I'll be moving an amendment to protect the ABC's funding going forward. We'll also move an amendment to ensure that small and independent publishers get a fair say when it comes to the review of this legislation in 12 months time. We called for a review of the legislation, and it has been promised by the government. We want to make sure that small independent publishers are front and centre when the impacts are being considered.

We also want an amendment to ensure that the revenue gained through this piece of legislation actually goes where it is intended—that is, to the journalists themselves. We want to see this money flow to the newsrooms, not the boardrooms. This shouldn't be simply another slush fund for big media corporations that already monopolise the market here in Australia. It needs to go to ensuring that journalists and photographers get paid for their work and that the groundbreaking public interest stories that are waiting to be uncovered right across the country are uncovered and made accessible to everyday Australians. We need to make sure this money actually goes to journalism and not just into the pockets of shareholders or executives.

Putting this piece of legislation aside, there is also the looming issue of how we deal with the power of big data. It is not just an issue Australia has to grapple with but something countries and governments right around the world are facing. The power of big data, corporations like Facebook and Google, to run surveillance on their customers, their everyday users, and to bundle up that data and sell it off for their huge profit at the expense of people's privacy and the integrity of their use online, is just extraordinary. It needs to be reined in. In the European Union there has been a long-running debate in relation to reining in the power of the tech giants and ensuring that the individual user has control over where their data is collected, who it's collected by and where it goes next.

It worries me, as a mother, that everything my 14-year-old daughter does online is tracked and traced by big corporations right around the world. It worries me that these big corporations don't just know where she has been, what she likes, where she shops and who she is friends with but dictate what she's going to show interest in next. She is a 14-year-old, and her data footprint is being collated, collected and then sold to the highest bidder. It is simply not okay. We have to make sure we implement proper protections for users' data and privacy right here in Australia. We don't need to be on our own in this. The EU is there and many other countries are going there. Australia needs to be front and centre in making sure we protect the user, the individual person online, not just the interests of the big corporations.

We also, of course, need to tackle big money in this space. When you have big corporations like Facebook, Google and the Murdoch press paying little to no tax in this country, you know you've got a problem. Tonight we will be moving an amendment that goes directly to this point because we shouldn't be in a situation where two big billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg and Rupert Murdoch, get to dictate what news Australians get to consume, when they consume it and by which means they can consume it, all the while not paying tax in this country.

We need to start turning up the heat on these big corporations and these billionaires to pay their fair share of tax, to ensure that these services and these products exist in the public interest, not just for the corporate profit. We have got to stop these corporations from being able to run their tax affairs so they can minimise their tax using offshore havens. We need to make sure that the Australian people get bang for their buck when pieces of legislation like this pass.

Monopolies are bad. We need to take them on and we need to have the guts and the courage to do it. This amendment tonight is only one small part and it's not going to fix the problem at large. We need to get some amendments into this legislation. I look forward to debating this bill in the committee stage. I also look forward to having a genuine discussion with both sides of government, both sides of parliament, in relation to how we're going to rein in these big billionaires for good, because for far too long they have called the shots. They've absolutely called the shots. We've got to rein in the big tech giants, we have to protect people's data and their privacy and we have to make sure that Australians have access to a diversity of public interest news and that it's not just dominated by the wills, the whims and the political agenda of a billionaire from his apartment in Manhattan. I look forward to debating the rest of this bill into the evening.