Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would also like to acknowledge the presence in the chamber of Senator Slade Brockman, who has chaired the Economics Legislation Committee so ably through this process. Indeed, I acknowledge all of the senators who have been a part of the Economics Legislation Committee hearings on this issue of considering a news media and digital platforms mandatory bargaining code. As a member of that committee, I had the opportunity to see firsthand the quite extraordinary behaviour of Google and Facebook. It was, in many ways, a terrific example of just why this legislation has been considered and why it's so important. The churlish actions of both companies prior to the hearings and during the hearings into the Australian media landscape and, of course, Facebook's latest actions show that the attempts by the Morrison-McCormack government to bring fairness to the sector are exactly the right thing to do.

In Australia we have a relatively small population, and this is not the only example where we've had to address a market imbalance through the introduction of a code. There are many agricultural industries and supermarkets that have benefited from a rebalancing of the market. The evidence from the ACCC and Professor Allan Fels was quite startling in its directness about how there was a market failure and how important it was to have a mandatory code in this space because it was only the threat and then execution of a mandatory code that would force these digital megacompanies to come to the table and negotiate with Australian media businesses.

I want to clarify again, for anybody who is unsure, the purpose of this code. It is a world first, and we will have much of the world looking at Australia and the success of this binding code that will address the bargaining power imbalance between news media businesses and digital platforms. The bargaining code has been developed after extensive public consultation, which has gone on for nearly three years. The code will ensure that news media businesses are fairly remunerated for the content they generate, helping to sustain public interest journalism in Australia. It is the role of the fourth estate, the media, to hold business, the government and other politicians to account as well as to manage the very important process of informing our communities. The idea of hyperlocal media is so critical to the success of our communities. If there's something that's come out of COVID, it is our desire to feel more connected, to understand more of what's going on in our streets, suburbs, towns, regions, states and nation. In a world of increasingly global events, it is so important that we have a media capable of doing that. The code will support a diverse and sustainable Australian news media sector, including Australia's public broadcasters. The most important part is to encourage the parties to undertake commercial negotiations outside of the code, and I am very pleased to note they have commenced.

One of the things we heard during the evidence was a lack of connection being made by these digital platforms around what their impact has been. They were proposing that they were merely a platform that provided media to be read, but what they failed to address was the number of Australian businesses who have been lured away from traditional advertising media. By that I mean advertisements in the local paper, advertising on the local radio and this move to advertising and promoting on Facebook and buying Google ad words.

I've spoken to so many businesses that have invested a significant amount of their marketing dollars into these global tech giants but it has come at a price, and that price has been that our local media outlets have lost that advertising revenue which then allowed them to pay for their journalists, pay for the news content. What we have to understand is what percentage of the market that Facebook and Google have now obtained of the digital advertising space. We have to exclude things like billboards but understand, of the marketing dollars being spent in Australia, how much it is and where it is going.

Senator Chandler made some terrific points as she spoke just then, particularly around Facebook making commentary around how difficult it was for them to manage content on their pages and yet they were so quick to shut down so many pages just recently. Charities; emergency services; important weather information, like the Bureau of Meteorology; women's legal centres; community noticeboards—all of these have been in the situation of providing really important local news and media to their communities. That was a really unfortunate own goal. To Facebook's credit, much of it has been quickly rectified, but it has demonstrated the extraordinary power and reach that these businesses now have. I know how important these pages are in my regional parts of Queensland. Senator McCarthy talked about the Facebook groups and news groups that connect her across her people around the north and it is the same for me. The shared joy and despondency as people read the 'who got the rain' Facebook page. Those who have got it are very happy and those who don't manage to contain their despair. In some ways it's no different to the old phone party lines where people used to ring up and share news of rain.

I personally know Queensland journalists who were made redundant in recent years as advertising dollars went from regional newspapers to the big tech companies and offshore, instead of being reinvested into the industry. As advertisers devoted more of their budgets to Google and Facebook, News Corp made the decision to stop printing newspapers in the smaller centres—Charters Towers, Bowen, Whitsundays, Port Douglas, Atherton, Mareeba and Innisfail just to name a few—resulting not only in job losses but in the loss of key local information sources in those communities.

I just want to call out a few of those incredible community leaders who have continued, people like Colin Jackson, the tireless editor of The Longreach Leader newspaper, who by his own admission has made his life so much tougher by expanding into other towns in Central Queensland. The leader now covers a vast area from the Western Queensland border right down to the south-west corner. Now with papers operating in Emerald and elsewhere in Central Queensland it's great to see that local news is still a hot commodity in the bush. Colin's brother David has also started a paper in Home Hill in North Queensland and each edition is voraciously consumed by the town's folk. You'll be all be interested to know that there is a North Queensland businessman by the name of Scott Morrison—not our own Prime Minister but a very active businessman who recently started the Burdekin Local News. I acknowledge Carl Portella at the Mareeba Express, who has weathered the storm and continues to service the Atherton Tablelands. I'd also like to acknowledge the commitment to local news of Al Kirton, the group general manager of North Queensland radio, which covers Innisfail, the Gulf of Carpentaria and all points in between. I couldn't go on without mentioning Ben Dobbin, who on his Rural Queensland Today show covers so many of the important issues that stretch across our state. Derek Barry, at The North West Star in Mount Isa, is one of the most committed newspaper editors I've seen when it comes to ensuring that everything, from the very important to the very trivial local events, is covered.

We heard evidence from Country Press Australia, a terrifically important organisation which represents more than 160 independent, regional and local mastheads across Australia. This organisation is more than a hundred years old and has mastheads within its membership that are more than 160 years old. So it is terrifically important that as part of this process we continue to consider regional newspapers and other regional media and the role that they play in holding local members, local organisations and local issues to account and that, when the code is reviewed 12 months after its introduction, we also consider how those community papers and media organisations are being treated.

Google and Facebook have now negotiated to pay Australian media outlets for the content they promote on their sites, and the ABC will be a beneficiary of this. During the hearings, the ABC said it was committed to spending extra revenue on regional journalism, which is so important. The ABC likes to promote itself as covering weather events and other important issues around the nation, but, of the ABC's 3,273 content makers, just 537 are located outside of capital cities. This is a staggering disparity and it brings into sharp relief the work that is being done by journalists such as Charlie McKillop and Tom Major in Far North Queensland. I never cease to be amazed by the miles they do and the important events they cover. There are also ABC North Queensland's Michael Clarke and ABC Far North Queensland's Adam Stephen, with whom I have regular contact through their radio shows, as well as Krystal Gordon and Zara Margolis at ABC North West Queensland, Shirley Way from Resonate regional radio, Paula Tapiolas in Townsville and Eric Barker—just to name a very few more.

These journalists epitomise the commitment to regional journalism that must be admired and respected. They are the ones who act as the photographer and the sound producer. They write and edit their own stories. They drive thousands of kilometres every year to get around, yet they are so poorly resourced by the ABC. I make it very clear that, as part of the Senate inquiry, the ABC made a commitment that this additional revenue would flow to these kinds of content makers and journalists. I intend to hold them very carefully to that commitment. During the hearings, the ABC said it wanted to move 75 per cent of the Ultimo Bay staff out of Sydney within next five years. But, given that Parramatta in Western Sydney is considered regional, I am not holding much hope of them getting too far. But, again, I'm sure that they will be making a very valiant attempt to commit to genuinely regional Australia.

The government running this agenda during COVID was terrifically important, because we know how important it is to know what happens in your local community and we need qualified and trained journalists to gather this information. We need it distilled, we need it presented, we need it fact-checked, and these journalists need to be paid for this important work. The code provides a framework for parties to reach commercial agreements so that news media businesses are fairly remunerated for the content they generate. The central feature of the code is that it encourages parties to undertake commercial negotiations outside the code. It's encouraging to see recent reports that that is exactly what's happening. The code, as I said, will be reviewed by Treasury one year after its operation to ensure that it is delivering the outcomes that are consistent with the government's stated policy intent.