Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Goldstein for bringing attention, through this motion, to the woeful state of our media landscape, and I thank the many constituents of Hasluck that wrote to me, sharing their concern and support for this debate. The motion calls for a judicial inquiry. A judicial inquiry is an option where there are objects that cannot be attained in any other way. They are serious inquiries with serious powers and occasion serious expense. A serious government is sometimes a better option.

If the Morrison government had won the May election and the then Prime Minister—by now also probably communications minister—was continuing to fail in this policy area, then perhaps an independent inquiry would be the only alternative. I'm still not sure what the novel objects of that sort of inquiry would be. Election results like we saw in Goldstein, and indeed in Hasluck, and in electorates across Australia indicate to me that the voters really do want a government that is committed to looking forward, to action, and not backwards at problems already well understood, and the voters have spoken, and we have such a government now.

Prior to the election, the now Prime Minister made it quite clear that a further inquiry was not part of this Labor Party's agenda. We went to the election on that basis. The then communications spokesperson and now minister, the member for Greenway, likewise made it clear that she did not see any point in an inquiry into an established fact. Minister Rowland identified the problem as one of a failure to act, not a failure to inquire.

We know there are pitfalls in self-regulation. We know the emergence of online platforms has destroyed the traditional business models underpinning the production of high-quality journalism from diverse perspectives. We know that the bargaining code initiated by the previous government to have social media platforms compensate news producers for the content only worked to further entrench the power of Australia's media moguls. We know that small mastheads are being squeezed out of the market. We also know the diabolical state of media literacy across the entire community. Media consumers—like you and me, my mum, my dad, their friends, the next generation of school students—all require the skills to discern fact from fiction and from spin. This is what most concerns me. A study in 2020 by the Australian Communications and Media Authority found:

It appears news literacy in Australia is quite low. One study—

by Park et al from 2018—

found that only 51% of Australian news consumers 'understood that the ABC is free of advertising and funded by taxpayers'. This study also suggested that 'news consumers with higher literacy can distinguish humour from other types of fake news such as poor journalism, political spin and advertising'.

We need an educated citizenry who are able to recognise what is real and what is not in a world where the virtual and the real are convergent, where deep fakes undermine faith in the media and where opinion masquerades as fact. We know the issues that plague Australia's media landscape and what we need is to deliver policy solutions to rectify them. Instead of spending millions re-establishing the facts, let's put that money to work in all the areas that have been raised here in this chamber by you and those that I've touched on, including media literacy.

A great example of our government already taking action, as the member for Pearce referred to, is the Regional and Local Newspaper Publishers Program. Small and diverse media organisations are facing rising printing and distribution costs. This is a major issue facing local, cultural and community press outlets across the country. Let there be no doubt about our appetite for action on media diversity in Australia. In my first speech only a few weeks ago, I made particular mention of my desire to see a cantankerous press void of influence from government and vested interests. A judicial inquiry or a judicial inquiry with the powers of a royal commission—or even a royal commission—would end up identifying the same issues. We would find ourselves in the same position, needing a government and a minister with the resolve to do the hard policy work and make a difference in relation to each of these issues that we are all aware of. The communications minister is on record as saying:

… it's time to implement a program of work that is principles-based, evidence-informed, expert-led and consultative—one which delivers.

I support that and I invite all members to contribute to that work. I'm sure the government will welcome the input of the crossbench in that work which will take many years and which has already started.

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