Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great sadness that I pay tribute tonight to the more than 100 regional newspapers which will no longer be printed from 29 June. It follows the recent closure of online sites 10 daily and BuzzFeed News Australia this month and mounts on top of more than 150 Australian newsrooms that have shut down since January 2019. Local journalists play an essential role in breaking news and telling the stories that matter to their communities, particularly in regional Australia. These newspapers have a rich connection to their community, in some cases going back further than a century. North Queensland mastheads like the Daily Mercury, Whitsunday Times, Whitsunday Coast Guardian and Bowen Independent will cease print publication after this month. The Tablelander, The Northern Miner, Port Douglas & Mossman Gazette and The Burdekin Advocate will disappear completely. The loss of these regional media jobs will be a devastating blow for regional communities, journalists, printers and sales staff. The natural consequence of these cuts is that regional Queenslanders will be less informed about the issues impacting their lives. Fewer reporters will be available to perform their watchdog role covering council meetings and court proceedings. Many have noted that regional papers are also a training ground for Australian journalists.

More than that, what we know is that we have great journos in regional Queensland that love to call regional Queensland home. And they do a great job writing the stories about local government decisions and shining a light on community news. Without them, many stories simply wouldn't get told. When decision-makers are less accountable to the public, this leads to poorer community outcomes. But these cuts won't just impact journalists. These regional media cuts will see the Rockhampton print centre close on 26 June and the Warwick print centre close on 17 July. Eighty-four hardworking print workers will lose their jobs; 45 of them were permanent staff. Some of these workers found out that they were going to lose their job on breakfast TV or on radio news while they were on their way to work. That is not good enough. These workers deserved better than that.

I know how important these jobs are to regional communities and I know that these workers work hard, and have done for so many years, to get the news out. When I was young, my dad worked the night shift as a printer at Fairfax, so I know that print workers don't turn up day after day simply to do a job; they do it because they love serving their community, and getting the news out is important work. Sadly, so many regions are missing out on these vital news services.

We have heard a lot from this government during this crisis about supporting manufacturing workers. But they are not supporting these manufacturing workers. We also hear a lot from the members opposite about how they represent the regions. But when it comes to regional media they have gone missing. What is the point of a Liberal-National government if they cannot save regional newspapers? They are very happy to head out there with their Akubra hats and do a press conference and make an announcement, but when they do that there will not be any regional journos there to hear them. These cuts, as we know, started a long time before the COVID-19 pandemic. The government simply cannot hide behind COVID-19 for letting these cuts unfold.

Labor warned that the government's Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund, announced in 2017, was ideologically motivated and inadequate. This government also wasted precious time in failing to provide timely and effective support for a media sector in crisis. And now we know that the minister's Public Interest News Gathering Fund, announced in the middle of this crisis, is scant on detail, inadequate and too late to save regional Queenslanders' jobs. Delays on this government's watch mean that essential funding is yet to flow to media organisations in their time of need. These jobs needed this government to step in, but they have turned their back on regional Queenslanders once again. (Time expired)