Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2021. Whatever your view of this bill, if passed, there is no doubt it will constitute an important global milestone in the regulation of digital platforms. Its advocates see the bill as pushing back on the unaccountable and invasive behemoths of surveillance capitalism: these global giants who have power and profits unprecedented in world history.

In my first speech in this place, I called for these companies to be held to account and to pay their fair share of tax. The Morrison government likes to describe the fight with Facebook and Google as an issue of national sovereignty. If they really believed that, they would be taking unilateral action to tax these companies properly, rather than simpering on the sidelines waiting for the OECD to get the United States to agree to a global system to tax multinational corporations. I also called for regulation to ensure that their staff, their contractors and the smaller businesses that rely on them are paid and treated fairly. I remain strongly of the opinion that taxing these companies fairly and squarely is what we should be doing, and I include all the other foreign companies, media and otherwise, who avoid tax and seek to benefit from Australian government contracts, customers, skills, workers and infrastructure.

I believe this media bargaining code, developed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, was developed with good intentions. It tries to address the power imbalance between the digital platforms, Facebook and Google, and the news media companies that produce the journalism content that is viewed and shared on these platforms. But it is important to see the bigger picture. The bigger picture is the functioning of democracy and the scrutiny and accountability that journalism brings to this parliament and all our institutions. The problem with this code, as the government has constructed it, is that it fails to genuinely protect the media diversity that underpins our democracy.

My test for this bill is twofold: firstly, whether it encourages and supports a thriving media ecosystem that includes the start-ups and future titles that the internet encourages and, at the same time, arrests the decline of public interest journalism in Australia, including the haemorrhaging of small and regional newspapers and broadcasters and the threats to independent news wholesalers like AAP; secondly, whether it supports jobs in the industry. The success of Australian democracy depends on a free press and the diversity of voices within it, and that ultimately depends on media jobs. If people are employed in the media industry without reporters, producers, researchers, still and video photographers, and without expert analysis, there is no media industry and no democracy worth its name.

Democracy needs a busy, noisy, competitive and competent ecosystem of voices. This includes a diverse media as well as labour unions, charities, academics, think tanks, churches, other civil society actors and not-for-profits. All of these voices are threatened when a diverse media industry is threatened. But the truth is that the money that this media bargaining code delivers to local publishers has no conditions attached. There is no requirement that money be spent on public interest journalism. There is nothing to stop Rupert Murdoch using it to pay out News Ltd executive bonuses, just as we saw with the JobKeeper wage subsidy, which also had no accountability built into it. There is nothing to stop former Liberal Treasurer and chair of Channel 9 media, Peter Costello, from deciding to redecorate his office if he is so minded. There is also nothing stopping these companies using the money to gobble up their small competitors and close them down.

We could very well get to the end of our first year of the media code and find that we have fewer jobs in public interest journalism and less competition in the market. Google, Facebook and the other digital platforms have, no doubt, had a profound impact on our media environment and have challenged business models. But the strength and diversity of public interest journalism had been on the decline for years prior to the arrival of Google, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

I now want everyone in this chamber to reflect on the closure of regional and small publishers around this country in the past year or so. We have to make sure that this never happens again. Before 2018, there were the following closures around Australia: the Comet News, The Advocate, Hills Avon Valley Gazette, Midland Kalamunda Reporter, North Coast Times, The Western Herald, Hills News, Rouse Hill Courier, Penrith City Gazette, Mt Druitt St Mary's Standard, Blacktown Sun, Parramatta Holroyd Sun, Cooma-Monaro Express, Wagin Argus, Merredin Wheatbelt Mercury, Central Midlands & Coastal Advocate, The Roxby Downs Sun, Casey Weekly, Frankston Weekly, Casey Weekly Cranbourne, Knox Weekly, Monash Weekly, Maroondah Yarra Ranges Weekly, Peninsula Weekly, the(sydney)magazine and TheMelbourne Magazine. Seven suburban newspapers in Melbourne's south-east, including the Frankston Weekly, the Monash Weekly and the Peninsula Weeklyhave closed since 2018. But News Corp has closed a further 122 papers. A total of 76 papers will become digital only, bringing the number of online titles published by the company to 92 after News Corp launched 16 new online titles in recent years.

But 36 small papers will disappear entirely, including Queensland's Buderim Chronicle, Caloundra Weekly, The Capricorn Coast Mirror, Coolum News, Nambour Weekly, Ipswich Advertiser, Maroochy & Kawana Weekly, Gold Coast Sun, Hervey Bay Independent, Maryborough Herald, Balonne Beacon, Surat Basin News, Herbert River Express, Innisfail Advocateand the Central Telegraph. In New South Wales the titles to fold are Coastal Views, The Northern Riversecho and The Richmond River Express Examiner. In Tasmania, there is Tasmanian Country.

The following regional titles will become digital only: in Queensland, Mackay's The Daily Mercury, Rockhampton's Morning Bulletin, The Gladstone Observer, Bundaberg NewsMail, Fraser Coast Chronicle, Gympie Times, Sunshine Coast Daily, The Queensland Times, Warwick Daily News, The Central & North Burnett Times, Central Queensland News, Chinchilla News, Dalby Herald, Gatton Star, Noosa News, South Burnett Times, Stanthorpe Border Post, The Western Star, The Western Times, The Whitsunday Times, Whitsunday Coast Guardian and Bowen Independent.

News from towns covered by the Atherton Tableland are The Northern Miner, Port Douglas and Mossman Gazette, and The Burdekin Advocate. This will contribute to appear as it does now, under the regional sections of The Cairns Post and Townsville Bulletin. In New South Wales there are Tweed Valley News, Ballina Shire Advocate, Byron Shire News, Coffs Coast Advocate, Grafton's Daily Examiner and Lismore's Northern Star. In the Northern Territory, there is Centralian Advocate.

Community titles in Melbourne will become digital only. They are at Stonnington, Mornington Peninsula, Knox, Whitehorse, Monash, Northern, Whittlesea, Maroondah, Moorabbin, Moreland, Lilydale, Yarra Valley, Frankston, Bayside, Cranbourne, Greater Dandenong, Moonee Valley, Maribyrnong and Wyndham, and they include the Mordialloc Chelsea Leader and Caulfield and Port Phillip Leader.

Also moving online are local news titles in New South Wales and the ACT: Fairfield Events, Penrith Press, Macarthur Chronicle, Blacktown Advocate, Canterbury-Bankstown Express, Central Coast Express, Hills Shire Times, Hornsby Advocate, Liverpool Leader, Manly Daily, Northern District Times, Parramatta Advertiser, Inner West Courier, Southern Courier, Illawarra Star, Wagga Wagga News, St George Shire Standard, The Canberra Star, Newcastle News, The Blue Mountains News, Central Sydneyand The South Coast News.

Queensland titles to cease printing are: Albert & Logan News, Caboolture Herald, Westside News, Pine Rivers Press, Redcliffe & Bayside Herald, South-West News, Wynnum Herald, North Lakes Times, Redlands Community News and Springfield News. South Australian papers to cease printing and move to digital are: Messenger South Plus, Messenger East Plus, Messenger North, Messenger West and Messenger City, Adelaide Hills News and The Upper Spencer Gulf News.

These are just some of a number of closures that have already taken place. The real test for this government, and for this bill, is that no other companies fall into disrepair and our democracy is not further undermined under this government's watch.