Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McKim knows me well; there's always a 'but'—well, not a 'but' but an 'and'. I must say I diverge from his drawing of a dichotomy between neoliberalism and civil liberties. I intensely disagree with his characterisation of neoliberalism. I'm quite happy to call myself a neoliberal and also a classical liberal. My philosophy is based in part on a book called On Liberty, written by a fellow called John Stuart Mill. It means—and I'll use Senator McKim as a bit of a prop in my analogy—that, if Senator McKim is one of a hundred people in a room and Senator McKim is of one view and the other 99 are of a different view, the 99 have no more right to silence Senator McKim than Senator McKim has to silence the 99. That goes to the absolute core of my beliefs in terms of classical liberalism. For me, it actually comes down to the individual. It's not about big corporations. Indeed, if one reads a lot of the work of great neoliberals such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, one finds they actually decry the power that the big corporations had, as rent-seekers, to get subsidies et cetera from government. They actually attack that on the basis that in a free society it should not occur. So I do diverge quite strongly from Senator McKim's view that neoliberalism and civil liberties are dichotomous. I actually think they should be on the same page, although maybe they're not always practised that way.

Lastly, I must say it caused me to smile when Senator McKim referred to people donating their data to research institutes in some sort of noble public view. Great idea! I doubt, Senator McKim, that my data would be interesting enough. I'm sure it would take a lot of time for whoever was looking at my data to come to any great view with respect to its importance in the context of whatever they were looking at. Maybe Senator Ciccone's data would be far more interesting than my data. Goodness knows what people would find among Senator Sterle's data, but it would be extraordinarily interesting as well. I was thinking of Senator Sterle when Senator Brockman was making his contribution and he referred to the huge Saturday newspapers we used to receive. I can remember seeing the paper, as a boy growing up, when the retail classifieds used to be in there and it was half a foot thick. I was thinking Senator Sterle would have needed his truck to transport that paper back to his home for his morning cup of coffee—there you go.

I think we as a country should be proud that we are at the forefront of making sure that companies like Google and Facebook, and potentially others, pay their fair share for news media and that they fairly remunerate the news media organisations that produce that data. I genuinely believe we should be proud as a country that we are at the forefront of that. Of course, when you're at the forefront of something, the introduction of it and discussions relating to it can get pretty willing. We've seen that recently. I would like to commend Google with respect to the extraordinarily constructive approach they've adopted in dealing with news media providers. They should be congratulated, and strongly so.

With respect to Facebook, I note that discussions are perhaps continuing. In this regard, I would like to quote from a good friend of mine, Mr Sam O'Connor MP, who is the state member for the seat of Bonney on the Gold Coast. Mr O'Connor is an outstanding young state parliamentarian. I am sure Senator Stoker would agree with me when I make that observation. When I wanted to get some information about the sites that are being blocked by Facebook because of its concerns with respect to this legislation, I thought there was only one place I would need to go. I'm sure Senator McGrath would agree with me. I knew that Sam O'Connor MP, state member for Bonney, would be all over it. And, sure enough, he was. I want to quote from a Facebook post—a bit of irony there; I probably don't need to spell it out—on this issue from Sam O'Connor MP, member for Bonney, posted on 18 February at 10.49:

Like many of you, I get a lot of my news through Facebook.

It's even better when that news is written and fact-checked by actual journalists.

Sadly none of that reliable, trustworthy, accurate news will be on Facebook anymore.

As of this morning, Facebook has decided to block all Australian news organisations from posting on here.

…   …   …

They're clearly trying to bully the Federal Government into changing its proposed laws to make social media companies pay for news content.

This is where it gets interesting, because he actually lists some of the sites in Queensland that were blocked when Facebook adopted this strategy, which I think was totally unproductive. To continue:

Facebook has even banned and hidden all the posts of important sources of information like Queensland Health, Gold Coast Health, TransLink, the Bureau of Meteorology and domestic violence support service 1800 RESPECT.

Even the Betoota Advocate has been caught by the ban!

This means many people won't see alerts about breaking news or even live-streamed press conferences by these outlets.

With their absence, it adds fuel to the fire of misinformation that already runs rampant here.

Yes, I realise the irony of posting this on Facebook but that's kind of the point—Facebook is a vital source of information for most of us.

We need what we're seeing on social media to be from reliable and trustworthy sources now more than we ever have.

UPDATE—The pages I mentioned have thankfully all been unblocked but this still doesn't resolve the issue with our news outlets being banned from one of their main mediums of communication.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

I would also like to make a few comments with respect to the contribution from my good friend Senator Brockman. As is typical in this place, I agreed with everything Senator Brockman said; I don't have any divergence of opinion with what he said. One thing in particular he said which triggered something in my own thoughts was with respect to the importance of our regional newspapers. From my perspective, when the review of this legislation is conducted one year hence, one of the touchstones will be this: has this legislation worked for smaller, regional news providers and regional newspapers and news outlets? That is of key importance to me.

There are two outstanding publications in the vicinity of where my office is in Queensland, in the city of Springfield, which is part of the fastest-growing region in Queensland, the greater Ipswich region, and they are, firstly, The Queensland Times and, secondly, the Fassifern Guardian & Tribune. They are two outstanding local community newspapers. One of the touchstones, for me, as to whether or not this legislation is successful will be whether or not it gets the desired result for those smaller regional newspapers so that they can continue to provide—as they're doing at the moment to the utmost professional standards—local content for local communities. That is just so important, from my perspective, and that's something I'll be looking closely at with respect to the review of the legislation in 12 months time.

There are a few other comments I want to make with respect to the legislation. In particular, I would like to commend the Hon. Paul Fletcher MP with respect to the amendments which were made to the legislation. From my perspective, we have an absolutely outstanding minister for communications in the Hon. Paul Fletcher MP. I congratulate him for working through these issues with all of the stakeholders and making a number of amendments. I'd like to set those amendments out now. The first was to streamline the requirements for digital platforms to give advance notice of algorithm changes to make them more workable. It is a technical issue, but it is very, very important that that technical issue is sorted and it's effective, it's efficient and it's going to work in practice. The second was to clarify the arbitration criteria so that they consider the reasonable costs of both the digital platform and news media business and amend the legislation to remove any doubt that arbitrated remuneration is to be in the form of lump-sum payments. Again, this is an important clarification.

Before proceeding to the other two amendments, I want to say, in relation to the arbitration, that this legislation is extremely well crafted. The reason I say that is that it provides an incentive to the provider of the platform to negotiate with the news media organisation and come to an agreement. Then, if they can't come to an agreement, there is a process where they go to arbitration. But I can tell you, with my experience in matters of commercial negotiation, I would fully expect that both sides of that commercial discussion will want to come to an agreement rather than take the risk of an arbitrated outcome. So I think the appropriate tension is included in this legislation to get the right result.

The third of the four amendments that the Hon. Paul Fletcher MP made to the legislation was to clarify the role of the ACCC, ensuring its focus is on providing factual information to assist the arbitrator. I think that's an extraordinarily important amendment, because, in terms of this legislation and how it's crafted, the ACCC shouldn't be seen as an actor in the process. It's a regulator. So I think it's important that the ACCC's role and standing in this respect is protected. Again, the legislation is well crafted with this amendment to make it clear that the ACCC isn't an actor in this process; it's simply providing factual information to assist the arbitrator. That's important, because it's terribly important that the arbitrator gets all of the relevant information needed, if it gets to that—and, as I said earlier, hopefully it doesn't get to that; hopefully the parties can come to a commercial agreement. But, if it does go to arbitration, it's very, very important that the arbitrator gets access to all the information and analysis that the arbitrator needs.

The fourth and final amendment I'd like to speak to was to adjust the effect of anti-avoidance provisions so that they take effect from the commencement of the code and ensure that the government's policy intent of not interfering with existing contractual rights under the code is achieved. Again, that's important on a number of levels. There need to be anti-avoidance provisions in this regard, to keep all the parties honest in relation to this process, but there also needs to be a recognition with respect to commercial arrangements that have been entered into before the adoption of the code. Again, I commend the minister with respect to the changes which he has proposed in that regard.

Finally, I think that this legislation achieves the right balance, and I think we're seeing that in terms of the contributions from around the chamber. What I'm hearing generally is that there is broad support with respect to this legislation. I think the instances of overreach—if I can describe and characterise it as that—by Facebook over the last week or so have also led to greater community interest and public interest in this legislation. I'm quite happy to commend the bill to the Senate.