House debates

Wednesday, 2 September 2020

Bills

Broadcasting Services Amendment (Regional Commercial Radio and Other Measures) Bill 2020; Second Reading

6:19 pm

Photo of Libby CokerLibby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I rise to speak to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Regional Commercial Radio and Other Measures) Bill 2020, and I support the amendment moved by the member for Gellibrand. The bill amends the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and the Australian Communications and Media Authority Act 2005 to ease the regulatory and compliance burden on regional commercial radio and TV broadcasters. As in so many other portfolio areas, this government serves up minor regulatory housekeeping when major reform is needed. But Labor will not oppose this bill. We won't stand in the way of these minor amendments to reduce the regulatory burden, particularly in the face of concerns about the market failure of regional commercial TV. However, Labor is deeply concerned about this government's ongoing failure to support regional media and to deliver real reform in the context of ongoing regional job losses in media, a shrinking media market and cuts to our national broadcaster, the ABC.

In my electorate of Corangamite, we rely on the ABC. Instead of cuts, the Morrison government must recognise that regions like mine—which takes in Geelong, the Surf Coast, Bellarine, Golden Plains and the Otways—require a strong ABC presence to deliver quality news, analysis on local issues and, importantly, information when there is a crisis like the Ash Wednesday fires or COVID-19. I'll continue to fight for a strong local ABC presence in the form of a local bureau for our rapidly growing population. I'll also continue to be a strong supporter of a thriving local broadcast and print media industry. In my region, we're fortunate to have many good newspapers and radio: The Times News Group; K rock and Bay FM; Geelong Advertiser, one of Australia's oldest newspapers; Ocean Grove Voice; The Indy; and Queenscliff Herald, just to name a few.

These amazing organisations have been the training ground for many journalists, including me. Back in the day, I did a cadetship at the Geelong Advertiser. It was a time when the newspaper was king. We had a bustling newsroom with a large team of journalists, a team of photojournos and a darkroom where photos were actually developed. In the basement, compositors pasted bromides into place, and each night the massive printing press located out the back of the building came to life, printing the paper six days a week. How times have changed. The printing press has gone, and so too have the compositors and darkroom. But what remains is a newspaper with a proud history of providing local news on the issues that matter to local people. We know that our local media outlets are having to adapt. They are doing so, and we need them to continue to be a critical source of information and independent analysis about local issues. May they also continue to be a crucial stepping stone for our brightest and best young journos.

Schedule 1 of this bill does permit greater flexibility for regional commercial radio broadcasting licensees, with minor amendments to local content and reporting requirements. Crucially, this bill will not lower the amount of local content that is currently available to regional audiences on commercial radio. Schedule 2 of the bill permits regional licensees to be deemed to have complied with the multichannel transmission quota obligation even if they have not broadcast the required 1,460 hours of Australian content. This will assist licensees where they miss their quota as a result of programming decisions which are outside their control and made by their metro affiliates. These are relatively minor amendments, but Labor's criticism is that this bill is too late, it is inadequate and it sells regional Australia short. The bill is too late because it only now addresses local content obligations, which this government has known about since at least 2017. The department itself considers this to be an early warning sign of market failure. In the department's own words:

In order to fulfil the intention of its policy, the government will need to take action before market failure occurs, as this would limit regional audience's access to Australian content …

It is perplexing that this bill is being considered at exactly the same time as the government has this issue under formal review. Over three years ago, the government started a review of the Australian and children's screen content rules. The ongoing delay and uncertainty around this protracted process has caused frustration for the broadcasting industry and the production sector. When the government introduced this bill in June, the department had consultation on its review of the Australian content rules.

The review began on 15 April and ran until 3 July. But it would be remiss of me not to note that the government introduced this bill before it had even taken the time to respond to the consultation on its own options paper. This bill is inadequate, because it merely tinkers with a few provisions in the Broadcasting Services Act, when wholesale reform of the policy and regulatory framework have been necessary for years. This bill sells regional Australia short because it assumes the answer to meeting Australian content requirements is relaxing the rules rather than undertaking genuine reform to address structural challenges.

For years, Labor has been calling on this government to implement a real plan to support Australian content, public interest journalism and regional media in a landscape transformed by digitisation and convergence. Years ago, this government itself criticised the current regulatory framework as 'analog era', yet it has failed to produce a digital-era replacement. We need reform that addresses news services, the shift in advertising revenue and the uneven playing field. In 2017, former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described his government's changes to media law as 'a new era for Australian media'. But less than three years later the department stated that it was of the view that the broadcasters' difficulties in meeting content requirements can be taken to be an early warning sign of market failure. A transformation from a new era to market failure in under three years is what we've seen under the Liberal government—all headline, no delivery. The government has numerous reviews and recommendations at its disposal to assist with media reform. Yet they continue to ignore them, or they cherrypick them in a lopsided manner.

Australia's media was already in crisis before COVID-19. This government's many failures on regional media have left the sector exposed, and COVID is exacerbating those changes already underway. The ACCC data shows that 106 local and regional newspaper titles closed across Australia between 2008 and 2018, a 15 per cent net decrease in the number of these publications. The sector needs urgent help and all it has received is silence. My colleague the member for Greenway wrote to the Minister for Communications in April urging those opposite to consider the regional and community media sector to be part of the government's $1 billion regional and community fund. She received no response.

On top of these closures, this government is actively making things worse by cutting funding to the ABC, which is vital to regional Australia. Since 2014, and in breach of their 2013 election promise, the coalition has continually cut the funding to the ABC. Around 1,000 ABC staff have lost their jobs, and community funding cuts total over $780 million from 2013 to 2022. The ABC managing director confirmed that the ABC will have to absorb cumulative budget cuts amounting to $105.9 million per annum by 2022. The hours of ABC factual programming have dropped by 60 per cent, drama has dropped by 20 per cent and documentary has dropped by 13.5 per cent. This will mean even fewer programs and services.

In times of crisis, Australians turn to our national broadcaster for trusted news and information on bushfires, on droughts and on COVID-19. So, instead of cutting the ABC when we need it most, I urge this government to support our national broadcaster. Indeed, the digital platforms inquiry report found that public broadcasters are not currently resourced to fully compensate for the decline in local reporting previously produced by traditional commercial publishers and recommended that stable and adequate funding be provided for the ABC and the SBS. And yet the cuts have continued. Labor continues to call on the Morrison government to reverse these cuts, many of which have deeply affected regional Australia. I would remind those opposite that it was our current Prime Minister who made these cuts when he was Treasurer, in 2018, and then claimed that there were no cuts to the ABC. The ABC chair herself, Ita Buttrose, was forced to release a statement clarifying the facts of the cuts. Even the New South Wales Nationals leader and Deputy Premier has contradicted the Prime Minister's claim.

Finally, the RMIT ABC Fact Check came out to clarify the situation. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts have been caught red-handed misleading the Australian public about ABC funding cuts. RMIT ABC Fact Check found that the government's claim that there are no cuts to the ABC's budget because ABC funding is rising each year to be misleading. In the face of devastating ABC job cuts and service reductions, both the Prime Minister and the minister for communications repeatedly claimed on multiple occasions that there are no cuts and that the ABCs funding is increasing every year. Fact Check found that the budget shows a year-on-year decline in real funding over four years set out in the 2019-20 budget. Budget Paper No. 1 for 2022-23 shows a 10.6 per cent decline in real operational funding, while the portfolio budget statements show a 7.7 per cent decline. So Fact Check concluded that ABC funding decreases year on year in real terms. It therefore can be, and should be, referred to as a cut. This government's arrogance, poor judgement and contempt for the truth are on full display. The Prime Minister's cuts to the ABC are irresponsible, and his denial of ABC cuts is misleading.

The ABC is an essential service that keeps Australians safe and our democracy secure in our cities, in the bush, in the Asia-Pacific region and in my electorate of Corangamite. Cutting the national broadcaster is reckless and irresponsible. Labor will support this bill, but, as I've said, all it does is tinker at the edges. It does nothing to fix the major structural problems besetting our whole media landscape. In particular, it does very little to give regional Australia and my electorate of Corangamite a diverse, reliable, frank and fearless broadcast and print media.

(Quorum formed)

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