Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy. I remind the minister that yesterday the Joint Select Committee on Broadcasting Legislation heard from WIN Television that they have serious concerns over the future of their 25 regional news bulletins if the 75 per cent reach rule is removed. CEO of WIN Television, Andrew Lancaster, said that removing the reach rule would be 'the end of regional television'. Given this, isn't it now obvious that the government's media reforms will not only restrict freedom of the press but also restrict the provision of local news, local sport and local weather to regional Australia?

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for her question. The senator has asked me about the 75 per cent reach rule which, as all senators would know, has been part of discussions by a joint parliamentary committee to look at this issue specifically as, for the last two or three or four—probably even five—years that I have been talking about and advocating that we repeal the 75 per cent reach rule on the basis that there is this incredible new invention called the internet! When TV stations—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! On my right and on my left! Senator McKenzie is entitled to hear the answer. If you wish to debate it, debate it after question time.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is this incredible new invention! When TV stations start streaming online they will be reaching all Australians—those that are on the NBN will be reached an awful lot better than those who will be trapped on the copper if those opposite get elected. But the basics are that they will be reaching all Australians. The 75 per cent reach rule was a rule introduced many years ago before the internet was a serious platform for television. Technology has run over the top of this particular piece of legislation.

Now because at the last minute a number of new concerns—or old concerns—had been raised, I said, 'Look, let's take it out of the package and let's have it considered separately because we don't want there to be any misconceptions about it.' I am not in a position yet to reveal what the deliberations of the committee are. I am waiting to read the report, like everybody else. Like everybody else, I watched with interest yesterday some of the testimony. I watched with interest some of the proprietors talk about the need for diversity—why there should be no further concentration of ownership. I saw owners describe the problems that that could create in this country. I endorse those views.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I refer the minister to the 2012 Finkelstein report recommendations:

… one area that requires especially careful monitoring is the adequacy of news services in regional areas. There is some evidence that both regional radio and television stations and newspapers have cut back substantially on their news gathering, leaving some communities poorly served for local news. This may require particular support in the immediate future, and I recommend that this issue be investigated by the government as a matter of some urgency.

Minister, how do your media laws actually address that recommendation?

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did note yesterday in the hearings that the word 'draconian' was tossed around a little bit. We saw draconian media legislation introduced in 2007. I do remember particularly—and Senator Joyce can take a bow at this point—that Senator Joyce crossed the floor. To give him credit, he understood the diversity question. But he also, along with his National Party colleagues, demanded that the legislation include the most draconian set of instructions to radio stations that have ever been put into legislation. They are so draconian that they just about dictated where the news ones were going to be, how many staff they could have.

We recently—as you would know, Senator Joyce, because you also voted for it—did ease back some of those controls, because they were so draconian. The industry has been coming to me for five years, saying, 'We cannot believe the legislation. It interferes in our business in a way we have never seen before.'

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. I refer the minister to evidence provided by Kerry Stokes, chairman of Seven West Media, at yesterday's Senate select committee hearing that he first heard of the government's decision to remove the 75 per cent reach rule last Monday. Why hadn't the government consulted directly with the television broadcasters before proposing such a significant change to Australia's media regulation framework? Doesn't it just highlight that this government's approach to these reforms has been incompetent and bordering on negligent?

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The 75 per cent reach rule was on the agenda of the convergence review. It went around the country and it took submissions from all organisations, including free TV, including possibly individual proprietors. I have advocated that, with the advent of internet TV, a 75 per cent reach rule is outmoded and ultimately will be bypassed by the technology involved. I have argued long and hard that it is time to modernise this law. I absolutely stand by that. I am absolutely confident that this law will be made to be a joke, if it is not already a joke, very shortly when companies start streaming online. But for anybody to have been unaware of my strong views on this, unaware that the convergence review was debating it, unaware that the convergence review makes some recommendations in this area or unaware that the laws that stand today and would still stand are the very laws introduced by those opposite— (Time expired)