Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Lyons, you might want to talk to the Leader of the House about the arrangements between the opposition and the government, because it has been made very clear to us in the opposition that because of the chaotic nature of the treatment of these bills in the parliament tonight members of the opposition have been told that they can speak to all of these bills in a cognate debate, in spite of the fact that we will be voting on them separately. So I am speaking to the bills, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I am talking about freedom of speech.

One of the most important attributes of a successful democracy is the freedom of the press. We have not always been grateful for the press coverage we have had as politicians in this country. Both sides of parliament have had their fair share of opprobrium from the free press. But the free press is one of the most important structures in our democracy.

The press—whether it is Fairfax, Seven, Nine, Ten or News Limited—are united against this attack on their freedom to publish without reservation, without fear or favour. The Daily Telegraph had a two-page spread today about what the newspapers will look like in the future under the Public Interest Media Advocate. They had a satire of what the press would look like if this legislation were passed, and it made for very sad reading. I read it, and I could have been reading Pravda; I could have been reading a North Korean newspaper. And that is the future for this country if the Labor government get their way: if they suborn the cabinet, if they ignore the caucus, if they demean the committee process and if they gag the parliament.

If this legislation passes tonight and then passes the Senate, the future for this country is in the hands of the committee of public safety, otherwise known as the Public Interest Media Advocate. In fact, the grubby deal this government has done with the crossbenchers is not to have a government-only-appointed public interest media advocate; it is to have a panel. It is sounding even more like the committee of public safety. It will be a panel of three, just like the committee of public safety, who will decide who is appointed the new media tsar, the PIMA, who will determine the content of publications in this country, and who will determine the public interest.

I know that former senator Bob Brown is looking for a job. He is the kind of person that the Labor Party would want to have as the Public Interest Media Advocate. He, too, hates News Limited, just as the minister for communications and the Prime Minister do.

The Prime Minister has been threatening News Limited for months. She hates the press coverage she gets. She hates the truth that the press talk about this government and this Prime Minister. She has been threatening News Limited for months. Last year she said that News Limited had questions to answer. Yet she is yet to put one of those questions to the parliament. She has yet to even argue in favour of her media regulation. We have not had the UK phone hacking scandal that Britain saw last year; we have had nothing even approaching it. She has not been able to detail one question that News Limited is supposed to have been able to answer. She has not been able to describe what mischief this legislation is designed to deal with or to remove. All she has done is to come in here with her hate and her bile and her viciousness towards the free press and say, 'Before this government falls, let's introduce media regulation so we can muzzle the free press.'

I know there are good Labor people on that side of the House. They are few and far between, but I know they are there. And why are they going along with this extraordinary legislation? Why are they supporting legislation that would make Lenin proud? Lenin, when he was in control of the Soviet Union in 1920, said: 'Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticised?' It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinion calculated to embarrass the government? And I see the member for Werriwa is nodding. Thank you, the member for Werriwa.

Mr Laurie Ferguson interjecting—

The member for Werriwa is nodding—he agrees with Vladimir Lenin in 1920! He cannot understand why the government did not act sooner: 'Why didn't the government act sooner?'

But I can tell you one thing: the opposition will oppose this legislation root and branch. We will fight it right through to the election day. It will not just be that we will abolish the carbon tax and the mining tax; we will bring back integrity and transparency to government, respect the parliament and have a Prime Minister who leads by example in his treatment of the parliament and the press. We will repeal this legislation. We will do everything we have to do to bring back a free press in this country. And the government will wear this around their necks like a millstone, right through to 8 o'clock on election night when the results are finally announced and far too many members, amongst them good members, on the Labor side will lose their seats, because of one thing—because of their inane desire to support, their obsession with supporting, Julia Gillard as Prime Minister through to the election.

You are laughing at that, Member for Reid, but you have not supported the Prime Minister for a very long time. I know you think that is terribly funny. But, unfortunately, you are being tarred with the same brush as every other one of your colleagues.

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