Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I noticed during the break that Senator Brown and the Australian Greens had been waxing lyrical yet again in the media, this time wanting the government to legislate to regulate newspapers to control content and ownership—shades, I might say, of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. So tonight I want to return to an issue related to the so-called independent media inquiry which is currently being conducted at the behest of the Australian Greens party, primarily as a payback to News Limited for its scrutiny of Senator Brown and his party—a scrutiny which, I might say, has exposed the Greens party for its hypocrisy and the contradictions between its policies and its rhetoric.

Senators may recall that late last year I drew attention to Senator Brown's advocacy to this inquiry of tax deductibility for not-for-profit journalism enterprises. In particular, I drew attention to the fact that this policy would benefit the Greens' major donor, Mr Graeme Wood, with whom Senator Brown negotiated the largest donation in Australia's political history and who is now backing former ABC reporter Monica Attard in a new 'independent' journalism enterprise, The Global Mail, to the tune of $3 million a year for five years. The Global Mail, senators might recall, was launched earlier this month.

Senators may also recall that I called upon Senator Brown to say whether or not he has had any discussions with Mr Graeme Wood about the need for such a journalism venture and/or the need for such ventures to receive tax deductibility status and to say what, if anything, he knew of the genesis of the letter to him from six academics advocating just such a policy—whether it was something out of the blue or whether Senator Brown had had any discussions about it and, if so, with whom. According to Crikey, which broke the story of Graeme Wood's support for The Global Mail, Mr Wood said, 'He's happy to cop ongoing businesses losses,' and also, 'I think eventually there will be a financial business model for this sort of thing, but it ain't there yet.'

In an interview with the ABC in July last year, Monica Attard said, 'I have a generous philanthropist in Graeme Wood, who is prepared to fund us into the foreseeable future whilst we attempt to forge a new model of journalism and perhaps even a new business model somewhere down the track.' At the time I thought to myself, 'What could Graeme Wood and Monica Attard mean by this talk of "new business models"'? We now have some idea and—surprise, surprise—it seems that The Global Mail's business model is that it should get tax-deductibility status, the status advocated by Senator Brown to the independent media inquiry.

In October last year, The Global Mail made a submission to the media inquiry which, in a section entitled 'How governments can help', urged the government to make donations to such ventures tax deductible by giving them deductible gift recipient status with concomitant fringe benefits tax and GST concessions. In addition, The Global Mail puts in bids for government subvention by way of direct funding, compensation and seed funding, as well as asking for relief from state based payroll taxes. Why is it that whenever the Greens and the Left talk about business models, what they are really talking about and what they really mean is taxpayer handouts?

Monica Attard concluded her submission to the inquiry by saying: 'This is not an exhaustive wish list. It is, however, a means by which government might assist in supporting media ventures aimed at producing high-quality, non-partisan journalism.' We will wait to see how non-partisan The Global Mail turns out to be. I would have my guesses, but it will have to guard against just being a more sophisticated Green Left media outfit dressing up a left-wing agenda in the guise of public interest—all the while wanting taxpayers to underwrite its operations.

In the meantime, Senator Brown—as all senators know—still has a lot of explaining to do about how he came to advocate a measure which would provide a tax windfall to his party's biggest donor to the tune of a million or more dollars a year. Senators will be aware that the Privileges Committee is currently investigating whether or not Senator Brown acted corruptly in using Senate or other fora to repeatedly push Mr Wood's commercial interest to secure the Triabunna woodchip mill for future property development and also to damage the interest of his competitors. The question arises as to whether anything untoward has occurred on this occasion.

As well as calling Senator Brown to come clean, I would ask Senator Rhiannon—who is known to hold certain views on political donations, particularly from property developers—to encourage her leader, Senator Brown, to say whether or not he discussed with Mr Wood the desirability of a journalism venture like The Global Mail or the desirability of such a venture receiving tax deductibility status.