Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been over a year since Bob Brown slammed the so-called hate media, also known as the Murdoch press, declaring:

… we need news in our papers but we're getting opinion far too much.

It is also just over a year since former Senator Bob Brown, as Leader of the Greens, wrote to the Finkelstein media inquiry advocating tax deductibility for not-for-profit journalism enterprises, a measure which if adopted would substantially benefit the Greens's major donor, Graeme Wood, with his Global Mail venture. It is therefore ironic that recently there was an expose in Crikey, a media outlet which, as far as I am aware, survives without any taxpayer subsidies.

This expose was entitled 'Fear and loathing at the Global Mail: what went wrong?' The Global Mail was heralded as a new kind of journalism, but Crickey details how the Global Mail had treated its workers poorly and fostered a 'culture of bullying, nepotism and incompetence'. It seems that as far as hate is concerned, the Global Mail has it by the spadeful. In an interview with Fran Kelly on Tuesday, Graeme Wood labelled the Crickey story 'lies' and the problem at the Global Mail as 'a storm in a teacup', declining to go into any detail. But Crickey tells how the editor, Monica Attard, was 'boned'—I think that was expression—less than three months after the site was launched. 'The way they knifed her was so brutal and so lacking in due process that a lot of us never recovered from that,' a former Global Mail reporter said.

According to Crickey, the former copy editor was being installed as editor, someone whose prior career highlight was editing the Vineyard Gazetteof Martha's Vineyard. Half the original full-time reporters departed following a rash of resignations and redundancies late last year. Most apparently left angry and demoralised by what they describe as a culture of incompetence, nepotism and cruelty. One of the worst excesses seems to have been the treatment of the Global Mail's Middle East correspondent, Jess Hill, whose position was made redundant two weeks after she had brain surgery to remove a tumour. 'I was absolutely beside myself,' Hill said. 'I still had staples and stitches in my head.' With Hill under instruction from her doctor to rest for a month, her husband begged that she be allowed until after Christmas to decide whether to take redundancy or a position in Sydney, but to no avail. After deciding not to take redeployment, Hill said she was offered two redundancy options with less than 24 hours to decide. The first offer, more than double the monetary value of the latter, came with a gag on speaking publicly about her experience. To her credit, Jess Hill rejected this crude attempt to buy her silence. Hill, who disputes her final package, describes her treatment and that of several other colleagues as 'shockingly callous'—talk about a rogue employer!

According to Crickey, the journalists union is liaising with SACS staffers about taking a case to Fair Work Australia. The coalition trusts that the Fair Work Ombudsman will investigate any allegations that are made to it and that the Fair Work Commission will duly consider any cases brought before it in relation to conduct at the Global Mail. Crikeyhas also documented the incestuousness of the Global Mail staffing arrangements: 'A building full of married couples and old friends in the late stages of their careers doesn't exactly equate to a visionary tinderbox,' Jess Hill observed. Here we get to the nub of the issue. According to Crikey, the Global Mail's salary bill is quite significant. Some writers are paid in the region of $140,000, with senior managers said to be on salaries more than twice that amount—in other words, close to $300,000. All this for what? I cannot personally remember the Global Mail breaking one major news story. It seems to be a retirement home for a privileged coterie of armchair socialists who can boost each other in the twilight of their careers, courtesy of Graeme Wood's munificence.

But hang on—hold the presses! The Guardian has launched its digital Australian edition, commercially backed by none other than Graeme Wood. Wood says that his investment in the Guardian is 'all about making money'. This is not a sentiment that the Guardian is used to. Its ownership structure sees it run by a trust, which allows it to run at a loss as it invests in developing its digital offering and in overseas expansion. Meanwhile, the Global Mail was seeking millions of dollars of subsidies last year from Australian taxpayers by way of tax deductibility status, direct funding, seed funding and payroll tax concessions. I ask you: how could any government responsibly subsidise a group of rent-seekers like this?

Some of the commentary on the recent disclosures about the Global Mail has been spot on:

Like most lefties, they … see themselves as visionaries but couldn't run a chook raffle. Imagine if they were in control of the country? Oh wait…

Seriously is anyone surprised? The answer is always content. Poor content, low readership.

… it sounds like TGM is run like a student newspaper where a bunch of kids waste a great deal of someone else's money pretending to produce serious journalism.

I have to wholeheartedly agree. I have yet to hear the Greens condemn these disclosures of an unacceptable culture at this online media organisation funded by the Greens' biggest donor. Where is the Greens' deputy leader, Adam Bandt, when you need him? He was very quick to accuse Qantas of being a rogue employer, but where is he now? Or are the Greens compromised again by their receipt of the biggest political donation in Australia's history?

Finally I should note that former Senator Brown departed this place without explaining his advocacy of tax deductibility for not-for-profit journalism enterprises, like the Global Mail, and without saying whether or not he had any discussions with Mr Graeme Wood, or anyone else connected to the Global Mail, about the need for such a journalism venture. I would also like to say that, given the disclosures about the practices at the Global Mail, the government—which has yet to fully respond to its own media inquiry—should firmly reject the concept of tax deductibility for not-for-profit journalism. Imagine taxpayers subsidising an outfit like the Global Mail. I think not!