Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Assistant Minister for Social Services (Senator Fifield) to a question without notice asked by Senator Ludlam today relating to diversity in the Australian media market.

As we well know, Australia has one of the most concentrated media markets of any democracy in the world. And Senator Fifield took the time to stand up and read three or four minutes of verbal tranquilliser onto the record, as he is wont to do. Whether it is the Commission of Audit, whether it is what is going on behind the scenes in environment policy, whether it is what is going on with the efficiency review or whether it is cuts into the ABC, those opposite just tell people: 'Don't worry. Everything will be fine. Trust us.' I can tell Senator Fifield, through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that trust is in very short supply.

Why would this government even consider reducing those rules that do remain in protecting media diversity in Australia? We know that media companies have been circling and jostling for position on the understanding that maybe this government would be a pushover and withdraw those rules that protect what media diversity remains here. And now the fix is well and truly in. Senator Fifield could not provide us with a single fact or a single piece of intelligence as to what it is that the government would use to justify further reducing diversity. He mumbled something about the internet. And yet when you look at the top news and current affairs sites in this country, they are owned by the very same incumbents that run the biggest broadcasters and the biggest newspapers.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The ABC—the biggest internet presence going!

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will get to the ABC, Senator Fifield; don't worry about it. We know that the incumbents are using their market power to develop an entrenched position online—and good on them; that is what companies do to further their business models. But then just waving your hands and saying, 'Well, because of the internet,' as a reason to reduce or eliminate those laws that protect media diversity is, I think, completely deceptive.

We know as well that the companies are jostling to take those most lucrative properties off each other. For example, Channel 10 is a strong contender to the rights of the AFL. If there is a News Ltd-Foxtel merger with Ten, that would then potentially pass those assets behind the Foxtel paywall and take AFL, which was the example that I raised in my question, behind the Foxtel paywall as well. In response to that fairly serious question, Senator Fifield mumbled something incomprehensible and sat back down again. We are used to being treated with that kind of contempt in question time; I am not sure how people in WA will feel if they know that this government is orchestrating to remove those protections to media diversity, or those that remain.

I also put a question to the minister on the so-called reach rule, which I would be the first to acknowledge is being overrun by broadcasting over IP networks, and that it does not make a lot of sense within the next 10 or 20 years to restrict our radio broadcasters in regional areas to broadcast licence areas when, if you want, you can listen to digital radio in Afghanistan, you can listen to radio well outside licence areas. But as this so-called reach rule is overrun by the internet, what are we going to do to create legally enforceable undertakings to protect local broadcasting? Again, Senator Fifield stood up and went off on a wild tangent into the Tasmanian election, which was actually no help at all. It was of no assistance to people who are following this in regional areas who want to know that even as, on the one hand, you are attacking the independence and the funding base of the ABC, which is entirely likely to impact on regional ABC broadcasting, on the other hand you are removing one of the few protections that remain—or one of the few requirements that remain—for regional licence broadcasters to maintain a local presence, a local newsroom, local reporters. What we are seeing in Australian radio markets is the increasing prevalence of so-called rip and read, where people in Sydney or Melbourne just read the local newspaper headlines from a very long way away.

The Greens will protect media diversity. We are not beholden, as I would suggest those on the other side might feel they are, to particular media proprietors or organisations that might think they owe them favours. And we will do everything we can to protect media diversity, and indeed enhance it. We have seen that this government and Senator Fifield have just given us a wonderful demonstration of complete disinterest in protecting media diversity across Australia.

Question agreed to.