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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management (Senator Watt) representing the Minister for Communications to questions without notice I asked today relating to media ownership.

This was in relation to the disastrous performance of some in the Murdoch press over the last number of months, increasingly reaching a fever pitch of hysteria and, of course, craziness. This came to a head over the weekend. We had the results of the Victorian election, where, overwhelmingly, Victorians rejected the overt political campaign trumpeted by quarters of the Murdoch press. In fact, voters seemingly ignored what happened and what was being printed on the front pages of the News Corp papers or seen in the crazy shows late at night on Sky News. Front page after front page of the News Corp newspapers argued that voters should vote the other way. It seems that, overwhelmingly, Victorians ignored that.

The reason I asked questions around the need for media diversity is that, if a democracy is to be strong, if a democracy is to be robust, if a diversity of voices are to be represented in our parliaments and if we are to have good government policy in the interests of all Australians, we need a strong, reliable, trustworthy news media sector. What we've got in this country is a media sector that is overwhelmingly concentrated, more than in many other comparable countries in the world, by one particular corporation. That, of course, is the Murdoch empire and News Corp. That part of the Australian media has become a parody of itself: hysteria, lies, mistruths and more and more opinion over journalism and opinion over fact. Meanwhile, there are good journalists working across all parts of the Australian media who are just trying to do their job and do it well. They have good stories to tell—good investigative stories to tell—and want to be able to do their part in upholding a strong democracy.

Journalists should be able to question governments, hold governments to account and know that when they have a good story, when they are onto something, that they can have that published and believed. But what we have in this country is the Murdoch press dragging down every journalist in this country—even their own. There are some very, very good journalists who work within the Murdoch empire, don't get me wrong, and I feel increasingly sorry for them—that they work within an organisation that has become a parody of itself. It is seemingly uninterested in truth, uninterested in fact and uninterested in upholding democracy.

This is why we need to have a serious account of media diversity in this country. We do need a judicial inquiry with the powers of a royal commission to ensure we have media regulation that is fit for purpose and fit for the modern world. It's the dominance of the craziness that comes out of our social media platforms and the big media giants; without any control, without any regulation, they think they can do whatever they want. Just look at what Elon Musk is doing with Twitter right now. He has fired not just half his staff but the very people who protect everyday users and citizens from harmful and dangerous content. Twitter is becoming a cesspool and that is it—a cesspool of hate, trolls and misinformation. And on the other hand we have the other domination of the media in the Murdoch press, which cares little about facts and real information.

We need to fix the media landscape in this country; we need laws and regulations that are fit for purpose. And it shouldn't be up to the politicians to pick and choose. This needs to be at arms' length and that is why we need a royal commission, and we need one today. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.