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

I rise to contribute to the debate on this hours motion and concur with the comments made by my colleague Senator Shoebridge in relation to the defence committee bill. What a disgrace! I know what's going to happen here. The coalition is going to squawk about what they want, the government will fold, and, low and behold, we will have a committee that looks after the two big parties rather than looking after the actual defence of Australians and transparency.

I want to raise, in particular, the egregious addition of the prominent anti-siphoning bill to this guillotine list. We know why this is in here. This is in here because both the government and the coalition are doing the dirty work and the bidding of the Murdoch press and News Corp. That is why this is listed in this hours motion today. It will ram through a bill that is going to make it harder for millions of households around the country to be able to access sport for free, to be able to watch their favourite sporting teams on their phone or their smart television without having to pull out their credit card and pay Mr Murdoch for the privilege of barracking for their own team and to participate in the joy that is part of a national religion in this country, which is celebrating the wins and commiserating the losses of our key sporting moments, our key sporting teams and our incredible athletes.

I thought the coalition may have had a bit more spine than simply ramming this bill into a guillotine motion and think that no-one would notice. We are noticing, and we have noticed that you've done nothing to ensure that everyday Australians have access to sport for free and that people in regional areas, in particular, will have access to sport for free.

What this bill does is say: if you've got a television with an old-school aerial, yes, you'll be able to watch key sporting moments on your television, but if you happen to be one of the millions of Australians who use a smart television or your phone or your tablet, bad luck. Why? Because the big corporations and the big streaming corporations—like the American companies Netflix, Amazon and News Corp—want you to be forced to hand over your credit card details and to sign up and spend hundreds of dollars a year just to be able to watch your favourite footy team or the cricket.

We've got the Olympics coming up over the next month. Imagine if this bill goes through unamended, in a few years time Australians will be locked out of being able to access the Olympics because Amazon decides to buy up the rights or Kayo—by the way, it's owned by Murdoch—decides to buy up the rights. It is just unthinkable that a Labor government is doing this to everyday people. And young people in particular are going to cop the brunt of this, because we know that our younger population doesn't sit at home wondering about how the aerial works. If they want to watch something, they whack out their phone or they pull it up on their laptop. This is the way of the world. It is 2024. Everything is moving digital, and we need laws in this country that are fit for purpose.

I saw the National Party went weak and went to water. They pretended they cared about this issue for five seconds, and then they went to water. They are gutless. They couldn't stand up to Dutton, couldn't stand up to Mr Murdoch and have now just rolled this in for the Labor Party.