David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is where song began. Scientific findings show songbirds originated in Australia tens of millions of years ago and then spread across the world over time. The wellspring of the planet's songbirds, this singing country, became home to songlines and the sounds of the didgeridoo, or as the Yolngu call it, the yidaki, and clap sticks of this continent's First Peoples. The oldest continuing cultures in the world have been playing music for tens of thousands of years.

It is no surprise Australia has developed an authentic sound. It may be hard to put in words, but you know it when you hear it: Gang of Youths, Slim Dusty, AC/DC, Human Nature, Archie Roach, KLP, Silverchair, Peking Duk, the Living End, INXS, Powderfinger, the Presets, Baker Boy, Grinspoon, Yothu Yindi, Percy Grainger, Sherbet, Billy Thorpe, Glenn Shorrock, Guy Sebastian, Shannon Noll, Don Burrows, the Kid LAROI, Pete Dawson, Skyhooks, Cold Chisel, Peter Allen, Men at Work, the Seekers, Gurrumul, the Bee Gees, the Aston Shuffle, Paul Kelly, the Angels, Richard Clapton, Jimmy Little, Thelma Plum, Olivia Newton-John, Dune Rats, John Farnham, Little River Band, Split Enz, Renee Geyer, Smoky Dawson, Briggs, the Easybeats, Hunters & Collectors, Coda Conduct, Jimmy Barnes, Midnight Oil, Divinyls, Rose Tattoo, Dan Sultan, Helen Reddy, Daddy Cool, Icehouse, Lobby Loyde, Frank Ifield, Hoodoo Gurus, Marcia Hines, Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons, Ross Wilson, Brian Cadd, Radio Birdman, Nick Cave, Dragon, Max Merritt, Russell Morris, A.B. Original, the Triffids, Bluejuice, John Paul Young, Lee Kernaghan, Mental As Anything, Little Pattie, Big Scary, Boy & Bear, the Dingoes, Mallrat, Kev Carmody, John Williamson, Models, Johnny Young, the Loved Ones, the Church, Kylie Minogue, the Wiggles, Pez, Air Supply, Ruby Fields, Urthboy, Tina Arena, Daryl Braithwaite, Kasey Chambers, Jebediah, Hilltop Hoods, the Whitlams, Crowded House, Tame Impala, the Temper Trap, Gretta Ray, Hermitude, Drapht, Horrorshow, the John Butler Trio, Jet, Boilermakers, Sparkadia, Holy Holy, You Am I, Missy Higgins, Karnivool, Angus & Julia Stone, Birds of Tokyo, Josh Pyke, Hands Like Houses, Cut Copy, Wolfmother, the Avalanches, Regurgitator, Gotye, the Vines, Something for Kate, Middle Kids, Empire of the Sun, Eskimo Joe, Spiderbait, Cog, Washington, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Xavier Rudd, Bernard Fanning, Cloud Control, the Preatures, the Cruel Sea, the Amity Affliction, Sarah Blasko, Sia, Flight Facilities, the Rubens, Pendulum, the Panics, Art vs. Science, Sleepy Jackson, the Grates, the Saints, the Rions, Pete Murray, Nina Las Vegas, the Waifs, Lisa Mitchell, the Go-Betweens, Dead Letter Circus, the Butterfly Effect, Pnau, Children Collide, Gypsy & The Cat, Frenzal Rhomb, Augie March, Paul Dempsey, Alex the Astronaut, Dom Dolla, Genesis Owusu, Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, Hayden James, Boo Seeka, King Stingray, Fun Machine, Vallis Alps, Safia, Rufus du Sol, Lime Cordiale, Courtney Barnett, Budjerah, Violent Soho, Camp Cope, Jack River, Citizen Kay, the Terrys, Skegss, Vancouver Sleep Clinic, San Cisco, JK-47, Panama, Tkay Maidza, Allday, Bag Raiders and the Middle East.

We could go on. Across generations, Australian music has been the soundtrack of our favourite TV shows and movies, underpinned memories made at special events, kept us company on road trips and helped us remember friends and family who may no longer be with us.

The sound of our music has helped shape the character of our nation. We should all feel very proud of the music industry that has grown up here and continues to evolve as our shared culture does.

For these reasons, I was pleased to see the Australian government launch the National Cultural Policy earlier in the year.

The policy places a strong focus on supporting Australian artists, including through the establishment of Music Australia, which will have a mandate to support and empower Australia's contemporary music industry to realise its local and global potential.

There is one issue that has fallen by the wayside for too long, which is how artists and rights holders are remunerated for the use of their works on radio under the Copyright Act 1968.

Firstly, it's important to remember that the music you hear on the radio comprises two forms of copyright: the performance of the underlying composition of the song (known as the musical work), and the performance of the sound recording itself—being a particular recorded version of that musical work.

For the composition, licensing agreements are generally struck between the relevant copyright collecting society representing the publisher, songwriter and composer, and the broadcaster. The collecting society, APRA in this case, will then collect the agreed licence fee and distribute it to the songwriters, composers and publishers.

For sound recordings, there is a statutory licence, which means that the sound recording rights holders are unable to prevent radio broadcasters from using their recordings. PPCA, the relevant collecting society for sound recordings, and the ABC and other bodies representing commercial and community radio broadcasters will generally negotiate a licensing agreement, and then collect the licence fee and distribute it to recording artists and sound recording rights holders.

For any form of copyright, when the parties are unable to reach agreement on licence fees, the Copyright Tribunal is able to determine an appropriate rate, taking into account a range of factors including those raised by the parties, such as the regionality of a radio station, the economic climate, the cost of inputs and other market forces.

However, under section 152(8) of the Copyright Act, for sound recordings only, the Copyright Tribunal is precluded from determining a rate that would equate to more than one per cent of a commercial radio broadcaster's gross annual earnings.

For the ABC, for sound recordings, the Copyright Tribunal is unable to determine an annual rate that exceeds 0.5c per head of population in that year.

These are caps, and their presence has framed negotiations since the Copyright Act was first enacted in 1968. They do not apply to any other forms of copyright material, including the musical works performed each time a sound recording is broadcast.

This cap is unique in the Copyright Act. It doesn't exist for any other type of copyright; for all other types of copyright, the free market agrees the rate and can access the Copyright Tribunal if an agreement cannot be reached.

It's also quite unique globally; there don't seem to be similar caps anywhere else in the world.

Today, commercial radio, comprising 260 stations across the country, pays just 0.4 per cent of gross earnings to artists and rightsholders, which equates to around $4.4 million per year. The ABC pays around $125,000 for the broadcast of sound recordings across all of its radio stations.

Compare that to what is paid for composition. According to a 2019 House of Representatives inquiry, the licence fees for the broadcast of lyrics and composition were at that time at 3.76 per cent of gross earnings. The composers are being paid a lot more for the songs than the recording artists.

There have been at least five parliamentary inquiries over the last 30 years that have touched on the cap and its impact on the music industry.

The most recent was under the last government in 2019, in a review of the Australian music industry conducted by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts. In the final report, the committee stated:

The committee sees no public policy which is served by the cap and is concerned that it distorts the market in a way that disadvantages Australian artists.

The review of intellectual property legislation under the Competition Principles Agreement in 2000, sometimes referred to as the Ergas Review, commented of the caps:

… since the time of their introduction, the economic circumstances of the commercial radio industry have evolved, and the Committee does not believe capping remains warranted. No public policy purpose is served by this preference, which may distort competition … resource use, and income distribution.

…   …   …

To achieve competitive neutrality and remove unnecessary impediments to the functioning of markets on a commercial basis, the Committee recommends that s. 152(8) of the Copyright Act be amended to remove the broadcast fee price cap.

In 2013, the Australian Law Reform Commission also considered the pricing caps in its broader review of statutory licensing arrangements for sound recordings. It recommended that the statutory licensing scheme be repealed in favour of a voluntary licensing scheme, such as the one that exists for composition and lyrics. However, they also commented that if the scheme was retained, 'there appears to be a strong case for repeal of the one per cent cap'.

The findings of these reviews are clear. The mere presence of the cap is distorting the market to the disadvantage of artists, who we must remember are small businesses, often operating on a shoestring to brand and market and distribute their product.

This bill makes a small change that will have a big impact on our local music industry, walking in tandem with the national cultural policy.

It will allow artists and rightsholders to negotiate a fair market-based value for their work.

And it will bring the treatment of sound recordings on radio in line with how sound recordings are treated elsewhere in the Copyright Act.

This bill does not remove the protection of the Copyright Tribunal, which will still be able to make determinations on rates if parties are not able to agree, as they do now and as they do for other forms of copyright.

Removing these caps also won't automatically change any royalties. No decision taken by this parliament will come at a cost to any radio station. Passing this bill simply allows the market to decide a fair rate, and always with the safeguard of the Copyright Tribunal.

As mentioned earlier, for all music that is played across all of the ABC's radio stations, just $125,000 is paid each year to artists. The ABC pays its actors, its writers and its journalists a fair market wage. It should also pay its artists.

There are over 5,300 registered Australian artists that the collecting society collects for, and I believe they are entitled to a fair go at the negotiating table when looking at the value of their works.

I commend this bill to the Senate.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on the Copyright Legislation Amendment (Fair Pay for Radio Play) Bill 2023. The coalition does not support the bill at this time. Our fear is that the bill proposed by Senator David Pocock would have immediate and adverse unintended consequences for commercial radio stations, especially in remote and rural areas. The potential second-order impacts on our commercial radio landscape in general and remote and regional stations in particular mean that this is not a bill that we can support.

What the bill actually does is overturn a rule that has been in place for 55 years. It is a very simple rule, and what it says is that if you are a radio station and you play songs covered by copyright then you must pay a fee, but the fee itself is capped. What the bill before the Senate does is remove those caps. Based on the available evidence, we are not confident in relation to what is proposed that the benefits of that change outweigh the risks that we have articulated.

It's worth spending a few moments reflecting on what copyright is, because copyright is an unusual concept to the extent to which it directly influences a range of economic relationships. Copyright, as many will know, is a form of property. It's not tangible, so you cannot hold it in your hand. Rather, it is a bundle of economic rights that allow a person to benefit from material that they themselves have created. It is a form of statutory recognition of the value of a person's creative labour and their artistic skill. It protects the original form or way an idea is expressed. It doesn't protect the idea itself. It is not the musical chord or the word or concept that is protected; rather, it turns artistic expression into something of tangible economic value and it gives authors and performers non-economic rights—rights that we usually refer to as moral rights.

In Australia, when we speak about moral rights we mean the right of integrity, the right of attribution and the right against false attribution. Again, it is the law stepping in to ensure the value of creative endeavours is respected by protecting the integrity and inherent value of artistic expression. Copyright law itself is hugely important because it is part of the bedrock on which our creative industries are built on in our great country. It recognises value and, when we talk about value, it recognises both the economic and moral value in the labour of our writers and our musicians and our creative workers. Importantly, it is fundamentally a creature of statute.

Copyright exists in Australia in its current form because successive governments have recognised the interest that we all have in protecting creative labour. But, as is always the case, the interest itself does not sit in isolation. It exists in balance and in tension with other rights and interests. For example, the right to prevent unauthorised distribution of your creative expression—one of the fundamental tenets of copyright—is in tension with free speech. As a society we have collectively arrived at the position that it would be inappropriate to allow an artist's economic interests to stifle the exchange of ideas. To do so would be antithetical to our democracy. That is why our copyright law includes exceptions to copyright infringement for things like news reporting, review and satire. Of course, there are other areas where a balance must be struck between the protection of copyright and competing interests. One of those competing interests is in the interest that we all have in encouraging a vibrant media landscape. That is the interest that is affected by the bill that we have before us in the Senate.

The balance between encouraging a healthy media landscape and the protection of artistic endeavour is at the heart of this bill. So let's look at the provisions that this bill would actually affect. If passed, this bill would repeal just four subsections in section 152 of the Copyright Act. On the surface, if you just look at the bill and what's being presented, these changes themselves appear to be straightforward. But they have essential work to do. Fundamentally, the four subsections, which would be repealed if this bill was passed by the Senate, set caps on the fees that radio broadcasters must pay for playing sound recordings. There is a cap that applies for commercial radio licensees which is set at one per cent of gross earnings for commercial radio stations. And there is a cap set for sound recordings played by the ABC which is set at 0.5 cents per head of population.

Broadly speaking, as I stated in my opening remarks, those caps have been in place since the Copyright Act was passed, and that is now 55 years ago. The simple reason that the caps have been in place for such a long period of time is because they play an important balancing role between competing economic interests. The caps take into account the balance between the direct economic interests that artists have in profiting from radio play and the broader economic benefit that those artists derive from radio play. That, of course, is a very complex balance. The act could have said, when it was first drafted, that no fees are payable. Doing so would have reflected some implicit judgement that radio play is economically neutral. That is, the economic cost that comes with the nonpayment of copyright fees is offset by the broader economic benefits to the copyright holders. But instead, by imposing caps, the Copyright Act strikes the balance in a way which says the artist must have some right to benefit directly from radio play.

One reason for that is that we as a society recognise that there is a second competing interest in play here: the interest in promoting Australian music. We advance the interest through Australian music quotas. The commercial radio code of practice, developed by the industry with the Australian Communications and Media Authority, sets Australian music quotas for commercial radio broadcasters. This is a matter that was inquired into by the House Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts, only just in March of 2019. We know from that report that many who are covered by the code do not see content quotas as a form of forced supply. Rather, they recognise that the analogue and digital spectrum of Australia is limited. For them, meeting Australian music quotas is an obligation that is inherently required to meet, to gain access to a finite public resource, and to use it to offer a commercial radio service. But crucially, the obligation to play Australian music is balanced by the cap on the fees payable. The caps go hand-in-hand with Australian music quotas.

So in terms of the impact of the removal of the caps, which is what this bill proposes to do, our concern is that the removal of the caps would strike at the critical balance in the world of commercial radio. They would upend the delicate relationship between the obligation to play Australian music and the obligation to pay for it. At its heart, the purpose of removing the caps is to allow the fees to go up. In the current environment, with all of the competitive pressures that commercial radio stations face from digital platforms, a sudden increase in costs risks creating significant unintended consequences, and we are cautious about changing those relationships. Our concern is that, if the bill were to pass, those consequences would be immediate and adverse because what you risk is a sudden unanticipated increase in the operating costs associated with playing Australian music.

In particular, our concern—and I know Senator Davey will elaborate on this in more detail—is in relation to what happens in remote and regional areas. Roughly 220 of the 260 commercial radio stations across Australia are in remote and regional areas. It is in the interests of all of us to set the conditions for those radio stations to continue their operations because they provide vital services for the community. They can be a hyperlocal platform that brings locals together in a way that is simply not possible on any other medium, and that is reflected in the local content and present rules that apply to regional commercial radio stations. We all know what happens in remote and regional areas when you impose a sudden cost on a service. It is very simple, unfortunately. There's a very immediate impact: it closes. We can see and we have seen that happen time and time again.

Our theory on this side of the chamber is that the second-order impact of this bill would be to drive the closure of commercial radio stations in remote and regional areas. What this bill unfortunately does, despite what Senator Pocock is trying to do through this bill—and I understand what he is trying to do—is the bill would adversely affect every commercial radio station across Australia. The 85 per cent or so of Australian commercial radio stations that are in rural and regional areas will feel that pressure acutely. You risk losing the bits in between the music. The hyperlocal content that tells you about the school fete or the local shops is then put at risk, and, instead of a local radio station, our fear is that radio stations would increasingly end up with syndicated content coming out of our big cities. Quite frankly, that is just not acceptable.

As I stated, the coalition is unable for those reasons to support this bill. The bill creates economic risks for commercial radio, especially, as I have said, in rural and regional areas. But we are acutely conscious of the risk of second-order impacts on communities, particularly for remote and regional communities that benefit from those stations. So, at this point in time, on all of the available evidence, it is not a risk that we are prepared to take.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of this private senator's bill put forward by Senator David Pocock, the Copyright Legislation Amendment (Fair Play for Radio Play) Bill 2023. The Greens are wholeheartedly in support of dealing with this issue. In 1968, when the original deal was done to cap the amount of earnings and licence fees paid to performers for sound recordings, it was a sweetheart deal done for the commercial radio stations and the big media companies across the country. That's what happened in 1968, and 55 years later it is what is still occurring.

I found it extremely interesting to hear the arguments put forward by the opposition just now. They know that this is a problem—it has been a problem for 55 years—but they are also under extreme pressure and lobbying from the commercial radio industry. I want to dispel one of the myths or one of the fears that has been put forward this morning, and that is that if this bill were to pass all of a sudden there would be an immediate hike in costs for commercial radio stations, and in particular, as we have just heard from Senator Cash, those in rural and regional areas. That is simply not true. This bill removes the cap and allows for both parties—the commercial radio sector and the recorded music sector—to negotiate. There's no imposition of a particular fee. There is no percentage by which current licence fees would be paid. There is no dollar amount that is enforced. It simply allows a fair and balanced playing field in order to ensure that there is fair negotiation. This is about creating a set of regulations that can oversee the negotiation for a fair market rate. That's what this is.

Senator David Pocock spoke eloquently about the heart and soul of Australian music. If we think about our most treasured and loved musicians in this country, most Australians would expect and understand that they should get fair pay for their performances and fair pay for their recorded and played music. Unfortunately, the current rules, as they are, are just not fair. The radio caps are legislated limits on what radio pays for the use of sound recordings. Let me explain this clearly. The cap doesn't apply to songwriters; it is for the use of the sound recording. Take Cold Chisel: Jimmy Barnes, as a performer, has his royalties restricted by these caps, whereas Don Walker, as the songwriter, doesn't. That is not fair. We need to rebalance the playing field.

A cap is set at one per cent of gross revenue for commercial radio. But, in fact, under those conditions and just in the last 2021-22 financial year, the entire radio market paid a measly $4.4 million for the use of all sound recordings. Think about all the musicians that radio stations play—all the wonderful songs that, as Australians, we're singing along to in our cars as we drive to work or do the school pick-up or drop-off, or the songs we're humming to while we're in the supermarket and the radio is playing from the speakers above our heads. All that was paid by the commercial radio sector to broadcast and play those songs and that music was $4.4 million.

Music is the underpinning foundation keeping commercial radio alive in this country. Commercial radio that plays music has the biggest ad revenue, the biggest stars and the biggest audience numbers. If they didn't have music to play, no-one would listen. It's time they started paying for the right to play the music. They don't do it out of the goodness of their hearts. It's not a charity. They play music on their radio stations because it makes people listen. It's what audiences want to hear. When you think about the impact over the last few years, Australian artists broadly but particularly Australian musicians have copped it hard. We know that, when COVID hit, musicians and performers were the first to immediately lose their gigs and have their business models and their jobs shut down literally overnight. Festivals were cancelled, gigs were cancelled and pub shows were gone. And they are still struggling from that March 2020 deadline to get back up on their feet.

Of course, the business models of the music industry have changed significantly over the last few years, notwithstanding COVID, with the trend towards streaming of music rather than buying individual albums or singles. More and more musicians are forced to have to get paid for their music through those performances and touring, and it has been extremely hard to do because of COVID. But this particular issue relating to the radio caps has been a problem for 55 years. It is not new, but it is time we fixed it. There has been review after review of this issue. There have been five reviews and all found that there was no reason for the cap to remain in place.

I know the Albanese government have a new-found interest in the creative industries in this country. That is a good thing, because under the previous government it felt as though the Prime Minister and his frontbench couldn't even say the words 'art', 'music' or 'artists'. So the bar was pretty low. But what we have had in Tony Burke is an arts minister saying he wanted to reimagine what Creative Australia looks like and who has ushered in a new cultural policy. Part of that includes Music Australia, which the Greens called for. We are very proud that that has occurred. We took that as a policy to the last election and we are happy that it has happened.

But it can't just be policies on paper. We actually need to make the legislative changes required to ensure that we look after our artists, that we give them their rights and that we fundamentally ensure that they have the best environment for them to do their jobs. We've heard some of the fearmongering from those in the commercial radio sector already that this is going to cost money and therefore cost jobs. What about artists' jobs? What about the jobs of musicians? What about the jobs of performers? Do their jobs count? Well, they should. That is why we need this legislative reform.

We'll hopefully soon have the establishment of Music Australia. They are simply going to be a body to advise and to implement the policies that are set by this place, and so we will still have some heavy lifting to do. Australian artists and musicians have been left out in the cold for far too long. Not only are they not getting fair pay for when their song is played on the radio; they don't even get a minimum fee for a performance. What other job in this country can you rock up to not knowing whether you're going to get paid or not and there is no legal enforcement?

Musicians and artists keep us full of spirit. They're essential for the heart and soul of our nation. They inject joy and light into our homes, into our workplaces and into our social occasions. They enable us to tell stories about ourselves that we're proud of and that help us feel and understand. Artists' jobs are real jobs and we need them, and it's time we ensured they got paid fairly.

Removing this radio cap is just one small step in helping to balance the playing field and ensure a fair market rate can be negotiated, and a fundamental indication that this parliament, and, if the government were to adopt this change, the government, actually understands the importance of artists being paid for their work. Jimmy Barnes deserves to be paid because Cold Chisel is playing on the radio, and he deserves to be paid a fair rate for it—as does every single Australian artist in this country. I know the commercial radio sector, which of course is becoming more and more concentrated and more and more influential, is knocking on the doors of politicians in this building this week demanding that people don't vote for this bill. Don't be hoodwinked by the fearmongering and the resistance of change. For 55 years the commercial radio industry have had a good go, and it is time now they started paying a fair share. Australian musicians deserve better, audiences expect better, and it's time this parliament did something about it. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on the Copyright Legislation Amendment (Fair Pay for Radio Play) Bill 2023. From the outset I have voiced my support for Australian artists and the Australian music industry, and all they do for our culture in this country. My concern, however, is that this bill is premature. In fact, Senator David Pocock himself pointed out that, while the cap is one per cent of gross annual earnings, the current agreement with the PPCA and commercial radio is 0.4 per cent—so they're not even paying to the full cap. I want to point out that the PPCA, the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia, who negotiates these arrangements with commercial radio, launched a Copyright Tribunal action in May this year. That action is still underway. Let the process take its course. Let's see what the Copyright Tribunal comes back with and let's see the outcomes of that before we try and rush through a bill that may have unintended consequences.

I get it; I totally understand that our singers, our performers, the principal artists, deserve fair pay. I am someone who spends literally hours in the car listening to both commercial and ABC radio, and local radio. A big shout-out to 2BS Bathurst, 2MG Mudgee and 2QN Deniliquin—if you can't tell, I am an AM band person—and every local radio station across rural and regional New South Wales. If it wasn't for local radio I would be a very frustrated driver.

I absolutely respect Senator Pocock and what he is trying to do, what his intentions are with this bill. I recognise the importance of valuing and supporting homegrown artists. Their creativity, their dedication deserve our appreciation. But I also support my local regional radio stations. And while this bill might seem like a very simple change, removing caps on fees for playing copyrighted songs on the radio, we must also remember that this cap was put in place in return for Australian content quotas. Senator Hanson-Young and I both support Australian content quotas. We'd like to see Australian content quotas on streaming platforms, so we need to ensure that when we have content quotas that are working, we don't inadvertently undermine the system by playing with other linked legislation. The caps and the content quota ensure we hear Australian music on our Australian radio stations. If we lose that content quota, we have the potential to only hear the Americans. As much as I love Taylor Swift, I certainly thoroughly enjoy hearing Fanny Lumsden on my radio. I don't want to lose that.

This bill is not just about copyright. It is about the harmony between the different rights and interests. We've long understood an artist's right to profit must coexist with the public's right to exchange ideas. It is this balance that has allowed us to nurture a thriving media landscape, a space where diverse voices contribute to the beauty and the strength of our national identity. And I fear removing these caps will have a significant impact, particularly on regional radio stations—and I accept Senator Hanson-Young's concerns that commercial radio has been condensed. I certainly, as someone living in the regions, am always concerned when I turn on my local radio station just at the end of the local program and hear it switch straight over to something being streamed from Sydney or Melbourne, and it does happen.

However, we also must acknowledge there are still rules and regulations about the commercial radio licenses throughout Australia. As Senator Cash said earlier, 260 licences throughout Australia and some 220 of those are in regional or remote areas. And there are still requirements for a minimum of three hours locally produced content. Those stations, those three hours of local content, they keep us informed. Turning the radio on and hearing how the Murray cod are biting along the Edward River, hearing how the snow's falling in Cooma—they make us realise how they play a very important role in our local fabric and in our local regional communities. When we have the CEO Sleepout in Deniliquin, 2QN and Edge FM bring their outdoor broadcast tables down to interview the people who are sleeping rough for the night to promote not only the cause, but also because they are part of our community. These radio stations are part of our community, but they are now operating in a vastly different and more competitive environment than when this cap was first put in place and when some of these reports that Senator Pocock mentions in his bill were done.

One of those reports said that commercial radio was doing very nicely, thank you very much. Well, fast forward to today. In this digital age, competition is fierce. Commercial radio is competing against the likes of Spotify and others who don't pay a fee to the PPCA. That is my understanding. Commercial radio needs income via advertising, and they constantly have to prove themselves to the advertisers and improve their listening audience while still battling to get that audience, to get their ears on. And they're battling with car manufacturers—just as our free-to-air television is battling with television manufacturers—for prominence. We need to make sure that we keep our radio in our cars and that we keep our free-to-air television on the televisions that we buy.

My biggest concern is that there are processes underway at the moment. The PPCA has its Copyright Tribunal action ongoing. We need to see the outcome of that. We need to be able to investigate and understand exactly what the impact of removing these caps would be on our Australian music quotas, on the requirement for regional radio to produce local content, on the requirement of regional radio to keep staff and not move licences from location to another. We need to ask those questions and have answers and be satisfied that we won't get perverse, unintended consequences from what is a well-intended position. We can't rush this through and risk the wellbeing of our communities who get a vital service. We saw last year, with the multiple floods, that it was regional radio that provided that lifeline of emergency announcements. If we undermine that and put that at risk then what do those communities do?

While I thank Senator Pocock for bringing this bill to the chamber, I do think it is too early. I think it's premature. I want to see what happens through the Copyright Tribunal. I want to have further conversations with the PPCA, APRA, AMCOS and commercial radio. I'd also like to hear what the ABC thinks, because this will impact the ABC. It is odd that the ABC pays even less, but it is a taxpayer funded agency. I certainly would not want to see the last bastion of regional radio—that being the local ABC—being undermined or squeezed any tighter than it already is.

We've heard from Senator Pocock and from Senator Hanson-Young that the caps are unfair and anticompetitive, and I do agree that it seems odd that songwriters and composers are paid at different rates. But the caps, which are not reached at the moment—payments are still well below the actual cap—were put in place in conjunction with an Australian content quota. I want to make sure I continue to hear Australian music on my Australian radio as I drive the five hours from Deniliquin to Canberra, which I do every sitting fortnight, or as I drive the eight hours from Deniliquin to Mudgee to go and see family and friends up there. As I said, I think it's premature. I think more questions need to be asked and I want to see how the Copyright Tribunal process plays out. I want to have further conversations, and I think that this bill is being presented too early.

Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the value of artists and musicians, whose contribution to society is currently being undervalued and whose work is exploited. Senator Pocock's bill will remove legislated limits on what radio pays for the use of sound recordings like songs. I support artists and musicians getting paid properly for their work, and I support this bill going to an inquiry so that all the issues relating to artists' exploitation can be addressed. I support what this bill is seeking to do, though I will be advocating to make sure that it is done properly, without unintended consequences such as negative impacts on community radio, which is already running on a shoestring while commercial radio stations bring in huge profits at the expense of the wellbeing of artists.

The value of art in society is incalculable. Music is disarming. It allows us to feel seen and heard. Music speaks truth to power. It helps us hear messages we otherwise would not listen to. As First Peoples, we have music woven into the very fabric of our existence. Music is knowledge, transmitting stories of creation, spirituality and connection to the land and to each other. Music acts as a bridge between the past and the present, a testament to past resilience—to current staunch resilience. For many mob, music is a way to learn and reconnect with language and culture, and my people are still telling our truth through stories. For many blackfellas, it is a lifeline that keeps us connected and able to survive the ongoing violence of the colony.

I will now read out some lines from songs from First Peoples artists. This is No Fixed Address and their song, 'We Have Survived':

We have survived

The white man's world

And the horror and the torment of it all

We have survived

The white man's world

And you know

You can't change that

This is Barkaa's 'Blak Matriarchy':

Can't colonise my blak mind

I'm from the Dreamtime, I go back

They committed genocide through my tracks

They raped our mothers lessened my black

They brought the violence when they attacked

I ain't here to start trouble, I'm just here to state facts

This is Uncle Archie Roach's 'Took the Children Away':

Said to us, "Come, take our hand"

Set us up on mission land

Taught us to read, to write and pray

Then they took the children away

This is Briggs in 'Locked Up':

They put our kids in the system

Findings, reports and royal commissions

Numbers, statistics when they're making decisions

Assess the risks and build another prison

This is Ziggy Ramo's 'Little Things':

Is that your law? 'Cause that's invasion

That's the destruction of five hundred nations

The genocide of entire populations

Which planted the seeds for the stolen generation

And grew into my people's mass incarceration

Now we pass trauma through many generations

The lord can't discover what already existed

For two hundred years, my people have resisted

Yothu Yindi—treaty now!—Thelma Plum, Kutcha Edwards, Shane Howard, AB Original, Briggs, Denny, Warumpi Band, Coloured Stone, Uncle Archie Roach, Auntie Ruby Hunter, Kev Carmody, King Stingray, Ziggy Ramo, Baker Boy, Dan Sultan, Lajamanu Teenage Band, Emily Wurramara—these artists and many more paved the way for future First Peoples artists to imagine and create a radically different country, to stand up and speak out, to bring public attention and understanding, to shed a light on racism, land rights, incarceration, genocide and police brutality. They deserve to be properly paid for their work. For decades, the Western colonial system has undermined and undervalued artists who create and play music. While governments like to harp on about their support for the arts, we know that so much of this money goes to big industry and event companies, leaving the artists, who are the bedrock of the industry, struggling for scraps.

Around 17 million Australians listen to commercial radio and audio each year. Audience numbers have grown by almost 14 per cent in the five years to 2023. Radio is brought to you in three main ways. Firstly, and most importantly, there is community radio. Community radio is such a core foundation of the world of radio, and it is where the best independent artists, activists and thinkers are usually found. On it are the likes of my uncle Robbie Thorpe, presenter of Melbourne community radio station 3CR's Fire First program, where some important truth-telling occurs every week to educate people about historical and ongoing black struggles for justice. Community radio operates under the same regulations as commercial radio but undergoes separate negotiations. Community radio does not have anywhere near the same revenue as big commercial stations.

Secondly, it is through the ABC and SBS, which includes triple j, ABC Classic FM and local services. The ABC pays $0.005—half a cent—per person in Australia for all the songs you listen to. Multiply this by 26 million people and you see that the ABC pays only $130,000 per year for all of the songs it plays—no matter how many times it plays them per year on your behalf.

Thirdly, you have Commercial Radio Australia, an industry organisation that represents the 260 plus commercial radio stations around the country. Who owns most of the industry? It's not surprising to learn that people like Kerry Stokes and Murdoch have their fair share of the pie in their continued monopoly over the information we read, the music we listen to and the voices that are amplified. Commercial radio is a highly profitable industry with annual revenues in excess of $1 billion. Advertising revenue in the last financial year for metropolitan commercial radio stations only was around $700 million per year. Where does this money go? Not to the artists. Last year commercial radio paid only $4.4 million approximately for the use of all recordings across its 260 plus stations, with only half of this going to artists, and that is shared between thousands. Standing in the way of money flowing to artists is a 55-year-old law from 1989 that currently protects commercial radio and the ABC from paying more. The effect of the cap is to impose a substantial penalty on recording artists and record labels by forcing them to provide a significant annual subsidy to the commercial radio sector.

But you know who does get paid a handsome sum? Commercial radio's Kyle Sandilands, whose salary is around $5 million per year. Yet commercial radio, who have built their entire business model on music, say that they cannot afford to pay more money to artists. They threaten to scrap funding to regional radio stations instead of cutting the salary of a man who is as obsolete as the coal and gas projects that this government keeps approving.

Stakeholders have told us that the decision of whether the cap get scrapped could end up being a captain's call. This means it could be in the hands of the Prime Minister, who went to the wedding of Kyle Sandilands earlier this year. But, luckily for the government and PM, this decision should be easy. Firstly, this bill aligns with the current Revive cultural policy, and the Labor government said it is committed to maintaining a strong copyright framework that works in concert with other legal and policy mechanisms. Secondly, no decision made by the parliament on this bill will directly cost radio a single dollar. It will simply remove a cap on payments and allow parties to negotiate a fairer industry rate. This is just one of the issues in what requires a whole-of-industry solution that covers all of the issues and properly pays all of the players. The music industry as a whole is fraught with issues, and the exploitation of artists is pervasive.

Income from radio is even more important as other sources of revenue have dwindled to nothing. Streaming platforms like Spotify can end up costing artists more than they earn. The live music industry was left to crumble by government's lack of support through COVID and thereafter. Live music in cities has been demolished by urbanisation. Government policy has created conditions that destroy creativity, with a reliance on a gig economy and labour exploitation to fund functions that could be full-time positions. Australia is one of few countries that doesn't pay session musicians ongoing royalties, driving talented musicians overseas.

We need new media monopoly laws, government advertising subsidies, investment in regional radio, startup funding for new communication technologies and proper funding of community radio. Research shows that the people in this country care about music, care about art, care about culture and are willing to pay for it. It's time to scrap the cap and support our artists.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a strange place we come to, but one of the great things I love here is the knowledge you get. There are many downsides, but then there are the things you're exposed to that you didn't know. Prior to the environment and coms committee inquiry, led by Senator Hanson-Young as the chair and Senator Grogan as the deputy chair, I didn't know a lot about the disbursement of funds for music, and it opened my eyes. As previously said, we on this side won't be voting for the Copyright Legislation Amendment (Fair Pay for Radio Play) Bill 2023, but what we can do from the crossbench and the opposition benches is raise legislation like this that puts a light on problems, and Senator David Pocock has done that very well with this bill.

We need a bigger look at how we fund our artists and our recording artists. What came out of the committee, when I was there, is that there is a lot of money going around every aspect of this industry, but very little is getting to those people who make it. Senator Davey spoke about some of these things earlier. She mentioned she was a Taylor Swift fan, and, when I was going back through the Hansard of the committee, I noticed I dissed Taylor a little bit in that committee, so I apologise to all the Tay Tay fans out there. But here we are now.

Let's look at some of the numbers. We have the ABC—that is, triple J and every aspect of ABC radio—paying $136,000 for their rights to play songs as much as they want, so $136,000 all across Australia for all the stations. We had, as Senator Thorpe said, commercial radio paying $4.4 million last year for every song going out there across Australia. We have that money, as I think ARIA put to our committee, Senator Hanson Young, and that was $39.6 million being distributed in total to artists by ARIA. That's under $40 million going to Australian artists, and half of that goes to the record companies. Australian artists end up with less than $20 million being distributed to them. Is that good enough? No, it is not. We heard from APRA AMCOS, on behalf of rights holders, who don't have this cap. They have a turnover of $670 million for rights holders, not the performers. And, believe it or not, APRA AMCOS retained 13 per cent of that money to run their commissions, so the people administering who gets the funding in Australia end up, on my calculations, with about $87 million in fees. That is around about four times what the artists get from ARIA. If you are working in the industry to work out who gets what for the right holders, your area gets four times as much as that.

I know we're coming to the time when the debate will be interrupted, but it is not right. We have streaming platforms like Spotify and others, and all these laws come in before there was a digital media music industry out there, when tick-tock was a noise clocks made and twitter was a noise a bird made. These things have to be looked at, and although we are not supporting this bill, it has shone a light on a problem in Australia because we are not supporting Australian artists. We need to get that message out there, and we need to do this soon. If you have a look at even APRA AMCOS rights holders—

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for this debate has expired. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the senator will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.