Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always fun to follow Senator Brandis when he is in one of his Shakespearean, theatrical moods. He started his contribution with lofty quotes from a century and a half ago, espousing freedom of the press and challenging us about what has changed, putting challenges across the chamber to the minister. It is all fun stuff, Senator Brandis, but seriously: come on, get a grip! A century and a half ago is a century and a half ago. We on this side absolutely support free speech and we absolutely support a free media but what underpins a free media? What underpins a free media is in fact editorial independence. That is something you can pretend does not matter and does not figure in your quotes from a century and a half ago and in your theatrical presentation to the Senate today, but it matters in real life. It matters in the business models of today. It matters in the internet world of today, Senator Brandis, as you go back to your 1850s world where you think everything is wonderful and lofty, but it is not.

This is 2012. We have the internet world, we have different business models, we have different standards, we have different things applying to the way media works and does not work. Only yesterday—or it might have been the day before—we had Senator Brandis blaming all the problems in the Fairfax media on the carbon tax. He was not talking about editorial independence or anything else when he was making that accusation. He cannot quite get his lines right because he was reading from a script of a century and a half ago and putting all his effort into great challenges across the chamber, as if anyone pays attention to him any more.

Editorial independence is an important thing. It is something readers of the Age, in particular, and the Sydney Morning Herald have always appreciated. It makes reading a newspaper enjoyable because you know journalists are going out, researching things and reporting the news—not reporting the owner's views but reporting the news. Editorial independence is the cornerstone of a free media. The existing charter in the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald reads, in part:

... full editorial control of the newspapers within agreed budgets shall be vested in the editors. They alone shall determine editorial content and appoint, dismiss, deploy and direct editorial staff.

That is the way it should be if you want to claim to be a newspaper. If you want to claim to be free media, you ought to have editorial independence. If you want simply to be a spin doctor or an advertising person for different owners, you should declare that, but if you are going to be a newspaper, editorial independence is the cornerstone and what underwrites a free press.

Let us not misunderstand the importance that a genuinely free press has in our society. It is absolutely crucial to inform people so that they know what is going on, to do all those things Senator Brandis referred to about exposing difficulties, about informing the public about current affairs and different views within the community, and about views from this chamber itself. That is exactly what editorial independence, an independent charter, does in the free press. A system where people put their point of view and present it as news—that is not news and people ought not pretend it is. An important aspect of free media in this country is ensuring free speech. It is the cornerstone of editorial independence.

Were anyone to deliberately seek to breach the charter in the case of the Ageor the Sydney Morning Herald, that would lead to a crisis of confidence among the readership. If the readership deserts the papers, that will undermine the whole media industry and that would be a shame. It is of interest to the government and that is why we have undertaken the convergence review. It is why we undertook the Finkelstein inquiry and— (Time expired)