Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee for inquiry and report by 8 August 2006:

The impact of proposed changes to cross media laws outlined in the Government’s media reform options paper, with particular reference to:

(a)

the likely effect of the changes on media diversity in urban and regional media markets;

(b)

whether the safeguards proposed by the Government are adequate to prevent an excessive concentration of media ownership;

(c)

whether editorial separation, or a so-called two-out-of-three rule, would effectively protect media diversity; and

(d)

the impact of the proposed changes on the advertising market, particularly for small business.

Two weeks ago Senator Coonan unveiled an options paper canvassing the most significant changes to media law that this country has seen in 20 years. The release of the paper came after nearly 12 months of closed door consultations between the minister and the media moguls. It is quite clear that the purpose of these negotiations was to work out what changes were acceptable to the big players. The Prime Minister and Senator Coonan stated explicitly that they wanted ‘broad industry consensus’ before they would proceed. While talks with the incumbents took place, the consumers of the media in this country—the readers, the viewers and the listeners—did not have a seat at the table.

Earlier this month the minister belatedly announced a public consultation process on the government’s plans for media reform. Shamefully, however, the time she is allowing the public to consider and comment on the proposals is ridiculously short. The moguls were given more than a year to lobby the government. In contrast, the Australian public has been given just one month to have its say. For Senator Coonan, consumer consultation is just an afterthought. It is something to be done for the sake of appearances. Well, Labor does not believe that this is acceptable. The issues at stake are too important. Labor is moving today to establish a Senate inquiry to redress this situation. The inquiry that Labor is supporting would focus on the proposals that are of most concern to the public. Without a doubt this is a plan to effectively abolish the cross-media laws which prevent the common ownership of a free-to-air television station, a commercial radio station or an associated newspaper in the same market.

This parliament needs to ensure that ownership laws protect and promote media diversity. A diverse media which gives expression to a wide range of views is fundamental to a healthy democracy. Australia needs to have a vibrant marketplace for ideas. This is the only way to ensure informed debate about public policy issues and good outcomes for the community. The diversity of ownership of media interests is important because the media is not just a form of entertainment. In our society, the media plays a vital role in informing citizens about key issues affecting the nation and their lives. Media proprietors occupy a powerful position in our society. History shows that they have been ruthless in using their media power to pursue their business objectives. This is why the media ownership rules are so important. This is something that is well understood in the Australian community. Research shows that 80 per cent of Australians oppose any further concentration of media ownership. They understand that in a democracy it is not healthy to allow too much power to go into the hands of just a few proprietors. They also understand that a diverse media is essential if governments are to be held accountable. To work effectively, democracies need an independent media that is prepared to rigorously scrutinise matters of public interest.

We already have one of the most concentrated media markets in the world. Under the minister’s plan, the number of owners of major commercial media in Sydney and Melbourne could halve. That is right: halve. In Brisbane and Perth the number of owners could fall from eight to five. In Adelaide two owners could disappear, leaving the city with just five owners. Under Senator Coonan’s proposal, Hobart could be left with just four owners of the major commercial media.

Despite the minister’s claims to the contrary, this is not just an issue for the state capitals. Senator Coonan’s proposals have the potential to gut media diversity in regional Australia, and I welcome the fact that Senator Boswell has stayed in the chamber. I hope to hear you contribute to this debate, Senator Boswell, because I know it is dear to your heart. I know you have been having discussions that I have seen reported in the press.

Yesterday in question time the minister was unable to deny that under her plan the number of media owners could fall from six to four in many regional markets. These markets included places like Albury, Wodonga, Ballarat, Bundaberg, Dubbo, Gladstone, the Gold Coast, Mackay, Maryborough, Mildura, Nambour, Newcastle, Orange, Rockhampton, Shepparton, Toowoomba, Townsville and Warwick. That is right—all of those towns face the prospect of a greater concentration of media ownership. Independent Regional Radio Broadcasters, a body representing 73 commercial radio services in regional Australia, predicts that the government’s proposal will result in a single, dominant media company emerging in 47 areas of rural and regional Australia.

Senator Coonan claims that the big players must be able to merge in order to generate economies of scale. What will this mean in practice? Will newsrooms be merged? Will local reporters be sacked? What will happen to local content, particularly in regional Australia? What guarantee is there that dissenting voices will be able to be heard? Now that the National Party has been publicly expressing concerns about these issues, Mr Neville, the member for Hinkler and chair of the coalition’s backbench communications committee, told the ABC’s AM program yesterday that under the minister’s plan:

Someone could effectively dominate a regional market by owning the local newspaper, perhaps the best two radio stations and perhaps even the pre-aggregation television stations that still have the local news service. That would create, I think, a very unhealthy concentration of media in one ownership.

Mr Neville is dead right. He went on:

One thing is absolutely certain. In its raw form, there’s more potential for abuse in this system than there is in the current system of radio, television and newspaper.

Senator Joyce has also raised concerns that, in concentrated regional media markets, small businesses may not be able to get access to affordable advertising. Senator Boswell has expressed fears about the effect of media mergers in the Cairns market. Cairns currently has seven independent media owners. This could fall to just four if Senator Coonan has her way. I congratulate Mr Neville, Senator Joyce and Senator Boswell for speaking out on this issue. They have correctly identified some of the real dangers inherent in Senator Coonan’s plan. However it is not enough for the National Party to just talk tough. If they want to do something for the people that they claim to represent, they need to act. I do hope, though, that the media reform debate will not mirror what we saw in the Telstra debate.

In that case The Nationals talked the talk but ultimately failed to deliver and sold out the people who voted for them. With the Telstra sale we saw a lot of posturing and threats to cross the floor but ultimately when it came to the vote the National Party did not have the ticker to stand up to the Liberal Party. It is no wonder Senator McGauran walked. No wonder he says that there is no difference, that he may as well join the Liberal Party. Barnaby backed down, Ron rolled over and Fiona folded. And, after that, Julian jumped. Senator McGauran decided that he would rather give the orders as a member of the Liberal Party rather than be a member of a subservient and cowed National Party. How does it feel, Senator Boswell, to take orders from Senator McGauran now?

Today Labor is not asking Senator Boswell and Senator Nash to cross the floor and defeat a government bill. Today all they have to do is say: ‘Wait a minute, Minister. We have serious concerns and we want the media ownership proposals properly examined by open and transparent Senate inquiry. We want to hear what the people of Australia have to say.’ Senator Boswell, that is all you have to say. The government is proposing major changes to the media laws. They have significant implications for how our democracy operates. They have the potential to gut the amount of local content that is received by the people that the National Party claim to represent.

Some Nationals have put forward ideas for additional safeguards like editorial separation, where merged media companies would be required to have separate newsrooms. Another suggestion that has been made is the introduction of a rule where proprietors are only permitted to have two out of the three of the traditional media, namely TV, radio and print. Calls have also been made to put local content requirements on regional radio operators. If The Nationals are serious about any of these proposals, they should support Labor’s plan to establish this inquiry so that they can be properly examined.

Of course, the minister claims to be interested in protecting diversity. Senator Coonan says that her plan contains safeguards. Labor believes that the inquiry should closely examine the safeguards proposed by the minister. The government has claimed that we can rely on the scrutiny of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to prevent excessive concentration in media markets. There are serious doubts, however, about how the ACCC will perform this task. The Productivity Commission is on the record expressing reservations about the ability of the Trade Practices Act to protect media diversity. Ultimately, regardless of the approach taken by the ACCC, the fact is that it does not make the law. The courts will interpret the Trade Practices Act.

If the ACCC frustrates the ambitions of powerful media interests, the matter is sure to end up before the High Court. The ACCC has itself conceded that there are difficulties defining news and information markets. Last November in Senate estimates, I asked Graeme Samuel if the prohibition on anti-competitive mergers in the Trade Practices Act would operate to stop the two giants of the Australian media, News Ltd and PBL, from merging if the cross-media rules were removed. Mr Samuel was not able to rule out that possibility. How can the minister pretend that the ACCC is able to safeguard media diversity if there is no guarantee that it would be able to stop the two giants of the Australian media landscape from getting together?

The ACCC has talked about issuing guidelines on its approach to media mergers. Parliament should be given the opportunity to scrutinise its thinking. If the minister is confident in her claims that the ACCC can protect media diversity, she should have no objection to allowing the Senate committee to question the ACCC.

The other claim made by the minister is that in this age of the internet the media ownership rules do not matter. It is claimed that the internet has opened up a universe of diverse content. There is no doubt the internet has added a great deal of diversity in terms of international news and entertainment. It is fantastic that Australians are now able to access services like the BBC, CNN and the New York Times for coverage of international events, but for local and national news the traditional media remain the most influential.

Every night nearly 2.5 million Australians watch the news on Channel 7 or Channel 9. Every day more than 1.6 million people read the Herald Sun. Over 700,000 people read the Age. The No. 1 broadcaster in Sydney, Alan Jones, has an audience of 182,000 listeners every morning. In contrast, the leading new internet source of news and opinion, crikey.com.au, has around 9,000 subscribers. There are thousands of blogs on the web, but it is just silly to compare their influence on public opinion with that of a major media operation like Channel 9 or the Herald Sun.

It is true that Australians are turning to the internet to keep themselves informed. However, when Australians turn to the internet for news they overwhelmingly turn to the sites operated by the giants of the so-called old media. Nearly 90 per cent of the hits on Australian news websites are on sites owned by Fairfax, News Ltd, PBL or the ABC. The minister’s claim that the rise of the internet means that we do not have to worry about increasing media concentration really does need some close examination.

I am sure that the government will argue that this inquiry that Labor is moving today is premature. I look forward to hearing the debate. It will argue that the government has only released a discussion paper and that the Senate should wait for media reform legislation to be introduced into the parliament. I would caution senators, however, that the government’s form since taking control of the Senate means that this is a dangerous path to follow. Time and again on contentious issues, it has used its numbers to ram legislation through. The government has not allowed the Senate and its committees to perform their constitutional role of scrutinising government legislation.

Senators should cast their minds back to the farce that was the committee process on the Telstra sale bill and the new telecommunications regulatory regime. Upon the introduction of the legislation, the government allowed only one day of scrutiny of five extremely complex bills. The terms of reference of the Telstra inquiry excluded any discussion on the question of privatisation. Only one day of hearings was permitted. Hearings were restricted to Canberra. The public were given only 24 hours notice to come and have their say. The opposition was given just 12 minutes to question key witnesses like the ACCC. This is not how the parliament, the Senate, is meant to operate.

The industrial relations legislation was another case which exposed the government’s determination to avoid scrutiny by Senate committees. Major aspects of the legislation, such as ending unfair dismissal for firms with fewer than 100 employees—not the 20 that was the election promise—were not included in the terms of reference. The committee had just five days to question 105 witnesses and to process more than 5,000 submissions. The committee then had just one day to prepare a report at the conclusion of the hearings.

With that sort of track record, the Senate cannot afford to wait until we see the legislation before scrutinising the government’s plans. These are the most significant reform proposals for the media in 20 years. They should be rigorously examined by this chamber. They should be considered by each and every senator before the vote is put. The public must have an opportunity to be heard. I urge the Senate to support Labor’s call for the communications committee to be able to examine the impact of the government’s plans for media ownership. Stand up and be counted today, National Party. You talk a big fight, but when it comes to a vote in this chamber you roll over to the Liberal Party and the vested interests, and you sell your supporters down the drain every time you do it.

Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to put forward the Democrats’ view on Labor’s motion to refer the government’s proposed changes to cross-media laws to the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee. Before I do so, I want to remark on how quickly technology and the market have moved and how important it is for media law and regulation to keep pace with rapid change. That change can often mean that, on media in general, we parliamentarians need to be thinking differently than we have. For many people, telecommunications and media have been seen as separate fields, but both are about the gathering, transmission and receipt of information. Telecommunications and media are absolutely intertwined and have to be considered in tandem.

For telecommunications and media, we need to establish what we think must be essential, guaranteed, affordable services available to all but the remotest Australians and enforced through legislated customer service obligations. For the rest, the market needs to be as free and open as possible. We need to distinguish between consumer needs and political or societal needs. Consumer needs are satisfied by a free rein being allowed for new technology and a maximum variety of product types. That is best guaranteed through few barriers to entry and through encouraging real competition.

Consumer needs are best looked out for by competition and consumer regulators—the ACCC and ASIC.  Political and societal needs, on the other hand, mean that we must promote a genuine diversity of economic, political and social voices, serviced by properly resourced and diverse information and news-gathering abilities. That is where a much stronger special regulator, the ACMA, comes in. We need to let the market run free in as many aspects as we can, regulated by the ACCC and ASIC, always provided that the Trade Practices Act is really strengthened. Where limited spectrum or channels or media voices are available, in return for having a scarce good we need to require regulation and enforcement of local content, editorial independence and a high level of news-gathering and current affairs capacity.

The Democrats will support this motion for three reasons. Firstly, we believe there is no doubt that the current government media policy is outdated. We need to work out where we need to be going. The current media policy does not allow open competition in the marketplace and does not provide conditions where sufficient diversity and independence of voices can be heard. However, we believe that the government’s media reforms as they are currently proposed have the potential to have a profound and often negative impact on our democracy and the ability of Australians to access a range of views and voices. The Democrats believe that the government are exaggerating the impact that the internet has on media diversity and that concentration of the market is inevitable under the government’s current package. In fact, I have yet to hear any credible commentator agree with the government that these reforms will not lead to a concentration of the media market.

If you want to hear a clear message on these proposals, listen to the stock exchange and the market. However muted the commercial media have tried to be in an attempt to keep this policy unopposed, the stock exchange movements and the analysts are telling us their real expectation—greater media concentration. The big will have more power, more profits, more concentration. And that is what the market says.

Change in cross-media ownership rules and lifting foreign ownership restrictions may notionally increase competition but in the way they are presently constructed the reality will be different. It will not, in my view, increase the diversity of views and voices. The reality, as the shadow minister outlined, is that the majority of people still get their views from traditional sources of media—predominantly television and newspapers. In November 2005, a Roy Morgan poll found that 48 per cent of Australians get their main source of information from television—which might be why they are not as well informed as they might be—22 per cent from newspapers, 19 per cent from radio and only eight per cent from the internet. The internet market share data from ACNeilsen shows that Australian content on the internet is now more concentrated than in the old media of newspapers, magazines, radio and TV.

Minister Coonan’s assurances that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will protect competition are worthless. I wish her assurances were true but in reality the Trade Practices Act is weak, it is out of date and it badly needs strengthening. If the Trade Practices Act was strong, there would already be forced divestiture in over-dominant media companies and more competition than there is at present. Instead, under the coalition package, big media business will get the chance to accelerate the oligopolisation of the media market.

Because of big business pressure, the coalition has not had the courage to implement the March 2004 recommendations of the Senate Economics References Committee inquiry into the Trade Practices Act. Those recommendations include: introducing effective divestiture powers; clarifying the meaning of a ‘substantial degree of power in a market’ and ‘take advantage’ in section 46 to overcome existing deficiencies; introducing a financial power consideration; and strengthening the ACCC’s powers to prevent creeping acquisitions. Those recommendations, if implemented, would give the Trade Practices Act real teeth and afford us enforceable protection from anti-competitive abuses of market power. If those recommendations were implemented you could loosen up the present media rules quite considerably.

Australian experience clearly proves that market forces alone will not guarantee competition or the service that we are looking for in highly concentrated or very vulnerable industry sectors. But I acknowledge that these TPA recommendations alone will not be enough to ensure diversity. The current view of a media market has tended to focus on advertising revenue rather than diversity of views and voices and on a commercial imperative rather than a societal imperative. The new media will also force policy makers and regulators to change the way they think about the media market, and so it should. In this respect Australia can learn from the United Kingdom’s use of a plurality test when considering mergers and acquisitions. There are critics of this approach. Some think it is not transparent enough and it should be a more open public process. But these are issues that this parliament should be exploring and they are issues that a good Senate inquiry would explore.

Regulatory powers are necessary safeguards for efficient, effective and diverse competition. This is particularly important where the government is introducing media reform changes in an environment where it feels politically vulnerable to vested interests and so feels obliged to be beholden to those interests. In many respects I feel sorry for the government. They are so frightened of losing power that many of them are going to act in this matter in ways which are actually contrary to their personal views and interests. They are going to react to big business pressure in a way which seems to suit the political self-interest but which does not address the national interest.

I also have concerns about journalistic independence, resources and editorial separation. I must confess that I have not been able to solve this one yet but one idea I have had is to require editorial independence mechanisms to be developed by the company to the satisfaction of ACMA and then be enshrined in the company charter or constitution and be subject to periodic independent audit. However, I am still thinking about that one, and that is the sort of concept I would like to see explored in a committee such as Senator Conroy is recommending.

On that theme, in 2003 the Democrats successfully moved an amendment to the then media ownership bill that required media companies owning television stations and other types of media such as newspapers to cede editorial control of their television news to an independent internal news editor. The aim of the amendment was to protect diversity of viewpoints, even if ownership in media companies was concentrated under the bill. The Democrats were successful in that debate, with an amendment establishing an independent editorial board to guide the editorial content of a cross-media company’s television station. The three-person board, which would include a journalist-appointed member and an independent chair, would have to ratify the appointment or the dismissal of a news editor. The news editor in turn would appoint the staff. The news editor, under the guidance of the board, would be responsible for the editorial content of news and current affairs rather than the media company.

However, those Senate amendments came to nought because the government abandoned that bill. The government have decided to abandon those amendments in this latest media reform package as well. I think this issue of editorial independence and editorial separation from corporate motivations needs to be revisited and investigated, because it goes to the heart of what I would describe as the political or societal needs, rather than the commercial needs of the corporations.

Our view is a simple one, and that is that further concentration of power in television and newspapers would be devastating to the society we want to see Australia enjoy. Democracy works best with a strong and diverse media: one that is unafraid to tackle big and small interests, whatever they are; one which has a resource base which enables it to do proper investigation; and one which is imbued with a public interest and is not just commercially driven and dictated by profits and by the particular views of the board. I would argue that these reforms as they stand—that is, Senator Coonan’s recommendations—only seem to benefit the coalition government. That is a situation Australians cannot afford if this is a government that believes that it already has a stranglehold on the federal parliament and will continue to have that stranglehold. It is important, therefore, that these issues are properly examined.

The second reason we support this motion is because we do not trust this government to give the parliament adequate time to analyse and scrutinise the media reform legislation once it is introduced into parliament. Since the Liberals and the Nationals have had control of the Senate, the role of the Senate in scrutinising legislation has been negatively affected. I will remind the chamber of some of those abuses. A motion moved on 6 September 2005 to allow a Senate committee to inquire into and report by 10 October on the very complex legislative measures of regulation, licensing and funding attached to the sale of Telstra was opposed by the government. It was instead replaced with an amendment for a one-day committee inquiry. Senators had to start the second reading debate five minutes after the bills were introduced without having sighted any of them and before the Senate inquiry had begun. The public had less than two days to be fully across all the potential issues or implications in the bills, make submissions to the inquiry and appear before the committee. The committee and other parties had the weekend to write the reports. The chamber had two hours to debate amendments—which, I might add, were not actually debated because government members asked dorothy dixer questions. It sounds familiar to us all these days.

The government’s behaviour on the Anti-Terrorism Bill (No. 2) 2005—a significant bill which, in my view, attacked the rights and freedoms of all Australians—was not much better. The government moved without warning, late on the afternoon of Thursday, 13 October 2005, a motion to refer the proposed antiterrorism legislation to a committee for a one-week inquiry. A subsequent delaying move by the Democrats forced the motion to the next sitting period and the government accepted the slightly later reporting date, which was 28 November 2005. The bill itself was guillotined through the chamber over two days, with a total time of six hours of debate. Similar abuses of Senate process and scrutiny occurred for the Work Choices, Welfare to Work and voluntary student unionism bills, just to name a few.

If there are any Queensland listeners who either voted for the coalition or put their preferences in such a way that it benefited the coalition and knocked off my colleague Senator John Cherry, this is what you achieved. If we had had Senator John Cherry in this chamber and the coalition did not have the numbers delivered in Queensland, this would never have come to pass. That is the effect when you allow the government to dominate this chamber. Given the government’s recent and autocratic track record, we in the non-government seats are concerned about potential threats to our democracy and public policy and need to be sure that the government would give due process to scrutinising media reforms. We do not have any faith that that is likely to occur. That is the second reason we support this motion.

The third reason we support this motion is we think it is about time the Nationals followed through on their words and their various media assurances. Some Nationals members have, I think quite honestly, expressed concerns that concentration of media will result in generic programming and a lack of local input, may push up advertising rates in regional areas, may reduce the sort of media service which they get at present and will damage small business as well as the community in the process. Here is a chance for the Nationals to have a Senate committee examine these and other concerns. Personally, I am bit sick of the hype that the media give the Nationals on these issues when, in the past, they have often failed to deliver. When the Telstra sale was under way, the Nationals were so busy haranguing Senator Joyce and trying to present a unified conservative front with him being painted as a maverick that they missed their chance to come through with a very strong negotiation on the sale of Telstra. It was only a lot later that as a group they finally realised that a more independent stance was in their interests, but that was after the deal was done.

For all their talk on getting a great deal for regional Australia, they failed in important respects. With the sale of Telstra, the Nationals squibbed a golden opportunity to insist that the Trade Practices Act be strengthened with antitrust powers and to attack the issues of creeping acquisitions and section 46 deficiencies. That reform alone would have curtailed excessive media and excessive telecommunications power. They did not even have to do the work, because the Democrats and Labor had a host of amendments that addressed the industry’s and the regulator’s concerns. The Nationals also failed on broadband. In the 21st century one of the most important delivery systems of media content is the internet, which is why I say telecommunications and media are absolutely intertwined. It provides access to the most diverse range of media content, but rural and regional Australia will miss out on this access because of the lack of telecommunications infrastructure to deliver high speed broadband access.

When the Nationals sold Telstra, instead of negotiating that rural and regional Australia would be able to access video on demand, video streaming and audio streaming from down the street and around the world, most rural centres will be unable to even get a public telephone. It is a pity that nobody advised the National Party that telecommunications is the way to deliver media diversity in the 21st century. That is a shame, because I think the Nationals’ hearts were in the right place but their political heads were not at the time. All they could see was that Senator Joyce was being a maverick, when in fact his independent voice was saying, ‘This is a way in which we can exercise some meaningful power.’

If we are to have a fair and open society, this government must pursue policies to increase diversity of views and voices. It must improve use of and access to new technology, such as digital and broadband; it must ensure open access to media content; it must ensure that there is an adequate level of local and Australian content; and it must protect the independence and freedom of journalists and the media. Failure to protect diversity of viewpoints is a failure to protect the necessary public debate that makes our democracy function—and, as Democrats, we intend to fight hard on this issue.

Before I close my remarks, however, in case everyone listening thinks I have been unfairly hostile towards and critical of this overall package, I would say that it does have one major redeeming feature, and that is a recognition that we cannot persist with the present media regulation and policy. It is outdated and it needs to be addressed. I do not think that any serious person examining this area would think otherwise. That is another reason that we should be supporting this ALP motion. I would not mind at all if the government were to suggest improvements to the motion. That is not the issue. The issue is how we devise on a cross party basis a media policy which is genuinely in the national interest instead of a media policy that is promoted by just one side of politics and will be pushed through to the great misgivings of all the other political players who are not part of the coalition.

For those reasons, I do support the Labor Party’s bid for a comprehensive inquiry into cross-media reforms. I hope those many Nationals and some Liberals who feel concerned about the direction this is going in will apply some internal pressure to perhaps recognise the wisdom of going down an inquiry route and coming to more consensus and a better compromise on this proposed package.

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has committed to reforming Australia’s media ownership laws while protecting public interest in our diverse and vibrant media sector. As is well known, the government recently released outline proposals to reform our media ownership laws as part of a broader reform package relating to new digital services and other key broadcasting issues. In this paper, it has been proposed to remove the current cross-media and foreign ownership rules, with diversity protected by a floor under the number of media groups permitted in a market to prevent undue concentration of ownership.

The floor of four voices in regional markets and five in mainland state capitals seeks to find a balance between establishing too high a threshold that would prevent any mergers taking place and ensuring protection for a minimum number of voices and media outlets. However, this would not include national daily and out-of-area newspapers, the ABC and SBS, pay TV, the internet and other potential news services over other platforms, which will all continue to supplement the commercial platforms to deliver a wide variety of information, entertainment and opinion to the Australian people wherever they may be.

Under this approach, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, would have the power to grant an exemption certificate where a cross-media transaction does not breach the floor. The Trade Practices Act 1974 would continue to apply to media transactions, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission would play a critical role in assessing competition issues associated with mergers, including in regional areas where media markets operate on lower revenue and higher costs.

There was a comprehensive inquiry into the issues surrounding cross-media ownership, which I chaired several years ago, in which all of the issues surrounding this matter were examined. The government will be introducing legislation on changes to cross-media ownership in the near future. When that happens, the legislation will be referred to the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Legislation Committee. Accordingly, referring this matter to the ECITA references committee at this stage would unnecessarily duplicate the inquiry the legislation committee will be holding in the not too distant future. Therefore, the government will be opposing this motion.

Question put:

That the motion (That the motion () be agreed to.