Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a delight to be able to contribute to the debate on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017. Like many of those who have spoken on the debate already, it is important to start off by pointing out that the reforms we're debating here that are included in this legislation are indeed landmark reforms, not only in respect of the changes that they make to the legislative regime that applies to this part of the economy and to this form of communication, but also the fact—and I think this is more important—that they have the unanimous support of the Australian media industry. That in itself is a massive achievement. I have to commend the Minister for Communications, Senator Fifield, for his amazing efforts in being able to secure this agreement and support right across industry. Without that, these reforms would not be the landmark set of reforms that they are.

In debating this, we have to recognise that the Australian media landscape has indeed changed significantly over recent years, and also over the longer term as well. It's important that regulation that was designed for a specific set of circumstances and a specific type of technology that was available at the time keeps pace with the technology that has evolved since laws were put into place. The rules, the laws and the regulations need to be dynamic, like the technology available to the media sector itself is.

The important point, going back to the ability to achieve consensus in the industry on this legislation, is the fact that the government has been listening and has undertaken extensive consultation with industry and the community in preparing this legislation. I think that is an excellent example to be set in terms of how to bring about landmark reforms. The fact that we have listened means we do now have a package that will genuinely modernise regulation for this industry. As I've stated, given that technology has changed and, therefore, the laws need to now reflect that, it's important that, looking forward, we ensure we have legislation that is able to keep up with changes into the future. This is not a static thing; it's a case of being able to manage the dynamic environment, the changing environment, and the changing technologies in this sector into the future. We can't just make laws for now; they have to be futureproofed as well.

Turning to the elements of the package of legislation in the broader media reforms, these are the abolition of broadcasting licence fees for TV and radio, the introduction of spectrum use pricing, the ban on gambling advertising during sports broadcasts and children's shows, the anti-siphoning amendments scheme and list, the review of the Australian and children's content, and the $30 million fund for broadcasting women's and niche sports, which I was delighted to hear Senator Macdonald speak at length about just yesterday. He spoke about the importance of investing in both of those areas to develop both women's sports and niche sports, which don't receive the media attention they otherwise could. That is an exceptionally important part of this entire package.

This bill goes to abolishing two of the five media cross-ownership rules and providing stronger local content protections for regional TV. Australia's media cross-ownership and control rules date back to the 1980s, a period when many great things occurred—including my birth!—but they haven't been substantially updated since 2006. That is why this piece of legislation today is so important. The laws as they stand, unamended, reflect the historic media environment, the traditional mediums and platforms available to media—TV, radio and print media—which of course are still important; no-one can deny that. But the laws as they stand today don't reflect the current environment, which now encompasses a great many more technologies in the way of social media, internet and the like. So we need to take stock of that and, again, this is why this legislation is so important.

We've seen massive changes in the ways Australians access information. The online world is where most people seem to turn to access their news, and social media is a significant part of that. Even many in this chamber would turn to Facebook and Twitter for breaking news rather than the TV and radio of days gone by, because it is more instantaneous, it is unfiltered and it is direct. That is a reality we have to accept, and that's why the amendments being proposed are important.

The challenges that face traditional media and how revenue is generated on audience shares is placing a burden on traditional media, which is leading to an uncompetitive situation. The ways in which our traditional providers of media operate and use of the existing platforms in this field do need updating so that they can remain competitive with these new and emerging technologies that are competing with traditional forms of media. A little bit later on I will come to the importance of these traditional mediums to regional Australia. Most of Tasmania is considered to be regional—almost its entirety. That's why they're important to my home state of Tasmania. Another reason it's important that this bill is passed is that it ensures that Australian media companies can compete against global media giants and maintain the local jobs, which is of particular importance, especially when you look at some of the smaller entities around Australia, and so that these companies can continue to provide the local content—again, something I will touch on in more detail when reflecting on the importance of local media to regional communities.

This bill will, as is the government's intention, strengthen regional local content requirements to ensure that communities continue to have access to local news and content that is relevant to their communities and to their lives and to ensure that the information they're receiving actually does provide some benefit to their daily lives. That's something regional media has been able to do over many years and will, under these laws, continue to be able to do. It's important, though, that we do strengthen the operating environment for regional broadcasters to uphold the regional content requirements, and, as I said, the bill before us is something that goes a long way to doing just that.

Turning to the media ownership and control rules and the current situation, we currently have five rules in place that limit the control of commercial broadcasting, being TV, radio and newspapers. These rules are somewhat outdated and don't reflect, as I've said before, the contemporary digital media environment which we now operate in. All of us have these great things, these smartphones and tablets, which provide us with so much more information. But the rules, while they need changing, also need to ensure that the traditional forms of media are protected and supported as well.

The rules as they stand, though, were developed in an analog environment that was dominated by only three platforms, as I've mentioned—free-to-air TV, free-to-air radio, and print. This was a time before smart TVs, internet radio and the technology of smartphones and tablets. The current control regime and the ownership rules regulate only those three platforms and are based on geographical areas, boundaries that have since been broken with the advent of the internet and the many other channels used to distribute and access online content.

The bill will repeal two of the five current rules, the 75 per cent audience reach rule and the two-out-of-three cross-media control rule. The 75 per cent reach rule applies to TV and prevents a person, either in their own right or as a director of one or more companies, from exercising control of commercial TV broadcasting licences whose combined licence area exceeds 75 per cent of the population of Australia. The rule was first introduced in 1987 as a 60 per cent rule and later increased in 1995 to a 75 per cent rule, obviously to reflect the changes at that time.

As at October of last year, the figures for combined audiences were as follows: Channel 7 covered 74.51 per cent of the population; Channel 9, 73.96 per cent; and Channel 10, 67.31 per cent. For regional networks, which are generally affiliated with these larger metropolitan counterparts, the audience coverage in 2014 was, for the Prime network, 24.33 per cent; WIN Network, 25.15 per cent; and Southern Cross, 34.11 per cent. Tasmania, my home state, is covered by the WIN Network and Southern Cross, which I have to say do an excellent job of providing very relevant local content in their news bulletins and other programming as well.

The rule has the practical effect of preventing mergers between any of the metropolitan networks, being Seven, Nine or Ten, and any of the regional networks, being Prime, WIN and Southern Cross. Any merger under the current arrangements would substantially exceed the 75 per cent rule, and the rule as it stands does little to support media diversity, as regional viewers—those who live outside of our metropolitan areas—essentially receive the same commercial TV programming as their metropolitan brothers and sisters due to the affiliation or content supply agreements.

In the changing media landscape, with broadband internet and the proliferation of tablets, smartphones and other devices, the rule is largely redundant. The ABC and SBS now are streaming their channels online to 100 per cent of the population, if they choose to access it, right across the country, including into regional markets where metropolitan networks don't currently broadcast other than through affiliates. The repeal of this rule would remove one burden on broadcasters, allowing consolidation and change in affiliation and ownerships, making such changes to relevant competition laws, as with most other industries. It would provide broadcasters the opportunity to build operations on a greater scale and compete in an environment where audiences can already access premium content online.

Going to the two-out-of-three cross-media rule, the rule provides that mergers can't involve more than two of the three regulated platforms of TV, radio and newspapers in any commercial radio licence area. This rule tightly regulates just TV, radio and newspapers and doesn't take into consideration the changing media landscape and the substantial online media offerings we have today, including the alternative news sources that exist. We're also seeing traditional providers now moving into these more modern platforms. A lot of our newspapers run things through social media newsfeeds and the like. They are doing their best under the current arrangements to compete, but it is important that we do support this legislation to give a truly level playing field. This rule is not suited to a contemporary media environment and it does restrict the diversity of content offered to consumers. It was introduced in 2006, which is 11 years ago, and we have to reflect on the technology we had back then versus the technology we have now. Smartphones, tablets et cetera were all in very juvenile stages of development and not as widely available to every man, woman and child as they are today.

There are three rules to remain. Firstly, the five-four rule applies to TV and radio and is known as the minimum voices rule. It is a requirement that at least five independent media operations or media groups are present in mainland state capital cities, and at least four must be present in regional commercial radio licence areas. Secondly, the one-to-a-market rule specifies that a person must not control more than one commercial TV broadcasting licence in a licence area. Finally, the two-to-a-market rule specifies that a person must not control more than two commercial radio broadcasting licences in the same licence area.

It is important to also point out that these specific broadcasting requirements, mergers and acquisitions in the media sector are subject to the general prohibition of anticompetitive acquisitions outlined in the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. So we can see that this sector is highly regulated—there are rules everywhere. The point is that these rules are to remain dynamic, to remain relevant and to foster growth in this area, to ensure that our media industry is operating at optimum levels in a competitive way, ensuring that all audiences—regional and metropolitan—get the content they are after. The operating environment for free-to-air commercial TV and radio broadcasters has changed substantially and is expected to continue to do so over the next five to 10 years, and I suspect well beyond that as well. The current rules on control and ownership constrain the ability of Australian media outlets to change the structure of their businesses and to respond to changes in the media environment. That's not okay in 2017. The sad reality is that that does have an impact on jobs.

In the time remaining to me, I will briefly turn to the matter of regional content, which is an important issue; it is close to my heart. As I said before, Tasmania is almost entirely a regional community, perhaps with the exception of Hobart. Online media services do provide a useful product for consumers, but they are no substitute for local broadcasters. Australia is a very vast country, with many, many diverse and disparate communities across its land, and Tasmania is no exception to that. We are small geographically, but we are broken up into many subregions: the north-west; the west coast, which is an entirely different community with different news needs and different activities taking place; the north-east, which is within a couple of hundred kilometres of the population centre of Launceston but, again, a very different community with different needs when it comes to news and current affairs; and then, heading south, within the Hobart region, there is the Derwent Valley, the Huon Valley, the south-east and the east coast. All these areas have their own unique communities and a requirement for specific news in each of those communities.

The local broadcasters that we have—be it our TV broadcasters in Southern Cross, WIN or indeed the government broadcasters, being the ABC predominantly, and also the radio networks and print media—do a great job of providing tailored local content, which is so important for local communities. Indeed, in times of natural disaster and emergencies, it is the local TV and radio that really do assist these small communities. Again, being close to one another doesn't mean they are the same communities. The Derwent Valley, a half-hour to 40-minute drive from Hobart, may be subject to emergency warnings that Hobart is not. That's why it's important that we do have regional content available through our local broadcasters.

Of course, local programming supports much-needed jobs in regional communities. This is also through advertising through our commercial broadcasters. It's amazing when travelling around the state of Tasmania—going into any workplace and hearing the local radio station blaring in the workshop, bakery or news agency. Local businesses advertise on local radio. It provides local jobs; it supports local jobs. That's why it's important. Local programming may be at risk where regional broadcasters merge operations and there are strong expectations of cost savings. You end up with syndicated content, which is not good because that is not what these small local communities are after.

It was disappointing to reflect on one of the iterations of the committee report a Senate inquiry has done into this legislation and note the dissenting comments of opposition and Greens senators to this, because it really shows that they don't have an understanding of what regional communities require when it comes to media, when it comes to local content and, indeed, as I've just demonstrated, when it comes to local jobs. I think it is incumbent upon senators in this place—opposition, Greens and anyone else—to support the measures contained in this bill: to support the Australian media to catch up with the 21st century, to ensure we have the best regulatory regime that we possibly can and, most importantly, to support regional communities and regional content and those who produce it to make sure our regional communities are not left out because of the inner-city Labor and Green people in this place.

Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the government's changes to the media laws—with some amendments that we proudly recommended, such as guaranteed funding for community radio. I speak today as probably the person in this chamber with the most experience working in the media and the most inside information about the media.

I spent more than 55 years as a working journo before I 'jumped the shark', as they say, and ended up at this place. I worked in all forms of media: newspapers, magazines, radio, television and online media websites. I have been a cub reporter, a foreign correspondent, a Sydney newspaper editor, a TV current affairs host on free-to-air and pay TV, a radio current affairs host and an internet website blogger. Let me give the Labor Party media experts and some crossbenchers some personal statistics—and not the one about being sacked 16 times!

I started out as a cadet reporter on a small town daily newspaper across the ditch in New Zealand—TheTaranaki Herald, circulation 11,000. It was the oldest daily newspaper in New Zealand. It started in 1852. I say 'was' because it closed in 1989. I then worked on the Christchurch Star. It was first published in 1868, and it stopped publishing in 1991. I then worked for the WaikatoTimes in Hamilton, New Zealand. It started in 1872 and six years ago changed from being an afternoon paper to a morning paper. It's really struggling now, having just been bought by Fairfax. Speaking of Fairfax, I crossed the ditch on the MV Wanganella in 1963 and got a job as a police reporter on the Sydney Sun. I worked there for several years before going to New York as a foreign correspondent and returned in 1975 to become editor in 1976.

The Sydney Sun no longer exists. Neither does our bitter rival, Rupert Murdoch's Daily Mirror. All those papers have gone. All have closed down. This is the media fact that I want to ram home. They couldn't all have closed down just because I worked on them! The Fairfax papers, TheSydney Morning Herald and The Age, are being circled by bottom-feeding sharks. Their print editions could cease any time—maybe even by the end of this year. That New York landmark the Daily Newswasimmortalised in Guys and Dolls'What's in the Daily News? I'll tell you what's in the Daily News.' I'll tell you what's in the Daily News. It was sold to the Chicago Tribune last week for $1.

I had the HINCH program on the Ten Network. That network has been in receivership and has now been sold—it hasn't gone through yet. It has been bought by CBS, a foreign corporation. That's why I ask: are you getting the drift? Are the senators getting the drift? That is why I say to any crossbenchers who oppose the relaxation of draconian, Neanderthal, out-of-date media laws—including the two-out-of-three rule and including the 75 per cent reach—that you have rocks in your head, and the Labor Party, too. Labor's shadow minister for communications, Michelle Rowland, has said that the planned relaxation of the laws 'threatens media diversity'. She said:

Labor opposes removing the two out of three rule because it would achieve very little at potentially great cost - further media consolidation and a reduction in the diversity of voices across the media landscape.

Well, the two-out-of-three rule prevents media companies from owning a TV network, a radio station and a newspaper in the same market. That's what they're perpetuating. Ms Rowland also said that Labor does believe that the pragmatic course of action—one of them—at this time is to repeal the 75 per cent reach rule, and that is good news. She said that this would ensure that local content is bolstered following a trigger event and provide immediate licence fee relief to the commercial broadcasters. But her claim that removing the two-out-of-three rule threatens media diversity is patently wrong—Noddy Land! If we do nothing, if we play ostrich here in this house, with our heads in the sand, that is what will threaten media diversity.

I remember the days when the morning paper, especially on Wednesdays and Saturdays, weighed a tonne. Those were the days of the fabulous rivers of gold from classified advertising that made the fortunes of the Packers, the Fairfaxes and the Murdochs. But I believe that the shift of audience—and, more importantly, the advertising—to multinational giants, such as Google and Facebook, with all their tax dodging as well, threatens the very existence of newspapers and the viability of free-to-air and subscription television.

Scrapping the two-out-of-three rule will allow Australian media companies to compete on a more level playing field with global challenges. The Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, said that the sale of the Ten Network to CBS actually showed that change to the media laws are no longer necessary. Well, in my view, the sale of Channel Ten to CBS means an even more urgent need for a review of media laws. The way it stands at the moment, the way it stood when CBS got in and ambushed Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon—but leaving them out of it for a minute—no other Australians could have a level playing field and a chance to compete against CBS.

I believe all of this should have happened years ago. And I agreed with communications minister Mitch Fifield when he said awhile back that a few facts have escaped some of the knockers in the other place and in the Senate. He said that, No. 1, Kylie Minogue does not live on Ramsay Street anymore, and, No. 2, the internet does exist. He said that it is very important that our media laws reflect the second of these facts. Consider this: people no longer rush home to watch the six o'clock news—or shall I say, immodestly, the old Hinch at Seven. News now is 24/7. The current laws, the deliberately restrictive laws, were brought in years ago, long before we had pay TV, before the internet, before smartphones, before podcasts, before website editorials and before online newspapers—some of them, of course, behind paywalls. I must admit that my advice to Rupert Murdoch, as an ex metropolitan newspaper editor, was that he should never have posted anything on the website for free, because if you then start charging for stories people won't want to pay for them. Well, that's another story.

Getting back finally to this media package: as a former newspaper editor, as an old journo with more than 50 years of experience in the game, let me warn you that I have never known the Australian media to be under such a threat. Some will sink; that is true. Some will thrive. New platforms will appear that we have never even dreamed of. I, for one, want that diverse media freedom to grow and flourish around the country, in metropolitan areas and in the regions. And I say that today because I'm not going to just sit back and say, as somebody once said, 'That's life; good night'!

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017 forms part of a comprehensive package of reforms that have been put forward by the Turnbull government, announced in May this year, and it's aimed at sustaining, among a number of things, the free-to-air broadcasting sector. The other part of the package is the Commercial Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017, otherwise known as the tax bill. There are a number of components to the bill and I will run through those before I talk about some of the details and some of the reasons these reforms are important in today's media environment.

The bill comprises a number of measures—firstly, it aims to reform the outdated media regulation in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to better reflect the contemporary digital media environment, and that goes to the 75 per cent audience reach provision and the two-out-of-three cross-media control rule. As a few previous speakers have identified, the digital environment and where Australians are turning to to source their media, whether that be for entertainment or more particularly for news and current affairs, has led to a substantial change in the dynamics of the community. I will come back to address that in a little more detail. The bill will also amend and introduce some additional local programming obligations under the act for regional commercial television broadcasting licences because, at the moment, their licences can become part of a group commercial television licence, and there can be a change of control with the area affected by that exceeding the current 75 per cent rule. We are looking to amend the antisiphoning scheme under the act and the antisiphoning notice, and I will mention some of the key sporting events that people would be concerned about here in Australia in articulating what those changes may actually mean.

The legislation looks to permanently abolish annual television and radio licence fees and datacasting charges payable by commercial providers, and again you've got to keep this in the context of all of the overheads associated with establishing a broadcast facility, perhaps a local radio station. I think of Flow FM, based in Kapunda, that broadcasts to a network of country communities across South Australia. They do that at some considerable cost, compared to somebody who streams information on the internet and whose set-up and ongoing costs are really low. If we're keen to keep the free-to-air broadcast type of service going, we need to make sure these broadcasters remain competitive. Certainly people in the digital space don't have the same kind of licensing and regulatory fees that people in the broadcast area do, and so, given those people in the broadcast area have to wear these overhead costs, we need to make sure that they are competitive in terms of their cost base.

People tend to think of news or entertainment or talkback radio shows as being the sorts of things that free-to-air broadcasting provides, but free-to-air radio plays an important role in emergency management in this nation. Sometimes after significant events, whether they be floods or fires, the post-disaster analysis is done formally—for example, in Queensland after the floods in 2015—and at other times it's done as a result of community-led efforts, particularly after bushfires. Whatever the case is, people look at the infrastructure that has failed—and one of the areas that sometimes fails is communications. That might be because exchanges or the connecting lines that transmit data are burnt, or perhaps because the power has failed and there is no backup at the exchange or the mobile phone tower. So the communications often fail. Sometimes it's even just congestion; so many people are trying to use the network. One of the key measures for getting information to people about the often rapid development of natural disasters is free-to-air radio, and so it's really important that, for regional communities in particular, we have a sustainable base for those services so that they can be providing that information to communities who need it.

There's another whole debate around analysing post-disaster activity to work out where the failure modes are within our communication system. I note there have been calls recently for all mobile phone towers to have backup batteries, for example, that exceed the capacity of their existing ones. Whilst I welcome the intent behind that, I merely point out that the loss of battery backup power is but one failure mode that can cause a breakdown in communication for a community in a given region. You might double the size and go from half a day to even two days, but when we look at some of the events that have occurred there have been multiple days without mains power. So the processes, for example, that Telstra has in place already, where it can provide either a complete mobile phone tower facility to replace a tower that has been damaged or burnt, or it can provide a generator—they have in recent events even flown in generators by helicopter to keep things like mobile phone towers operating—we see that there is a real role in national disaster resilience planning for all three levels of government to work together.

I was speaking yesterday in fact with Minister Keenan about some of the funding they've announced in South Australia, along with Minister Malinauskas there, for both community groups and organisations that are seeking to plug some of those gaps. It's an important measure to make sure we have communications available. I'd certainly be encouraging communities and also local government to be reaching out and seeing what services are already provided. In particular the Attorney-General's Department underpins some of the priority communication services that allow firefighters and first responders to have priority access through telephone networks. They can link in, at a very nominal cost to them, to some of those supports provided by the federal government, but also that resilience planning to work out ahead of time with communications network providers such as Telstra as to where the likely failure modes are and where the responses will be needed, so that, as the disaster progresses—particularly things like bushfires—we can put in place the appropriate measures. But right upfront one of those key ones is free-to-air radio. My message to people in rural communities is, 'Get involved with that planning at a community and local government level, but make sure you have a radio with batteries available to be listening to those warnings, because it's an important part.' It's a bit of an aside to this broadcasting amendment, but it just highlights one of the critical life-saving needs for free-to-air broadcasts into our regional communities in particular.

As well as abolishing the fees, the legislation also looks to remove the taxes on the equipment used by commercial broadcasters, establish tax collection and assessment arrangements for the new interim transmitter licence tax and establish a statutory review of the new tax arrangements in 2021 consistent with a broad review of spectrum pricing which is underway. It establishes a transitional support payment scheme for 19 commercial broadcasters to make sure no broadcaster will be worse off during this transitional period.

Before I come back to some of those digital things, I want to touch on the concept of spectrum again. People often wonder why we make so much fuss about spectrum. Coming from a defence background and chairing the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, what we see increasingly is that not only in the conduct of our day-to-day life but also in our banking, our national security and a whole range of areas, spectrum is an incredibly important issue that we need to be aware of. Not only is the allocation of spectrum important but also the price signals we send in terms of who can access and use that spectrum. In this case here, people are looking at how that spectrum should be priced, and I just want to make the point that it's not a free good. Every time you give up some spectrum that can be used in one area, you potentially limit the availability of that spectrum to be used for something that we think is critical. For example, in the national defence space, whether that be telemetry of data around aircraft and missile systems, whether that be communications systems, be it commercial or defence and government related, spectrum is not a free good. There is a finite allocation that can be made. These reviews need to take into account not only the commercial availability of spectrum to media broadcasters but also the broader considerations that government has.

The first reform looks at responding to the contemporary digital media environment, and it looks at repealing some of the outdated media ownership and control laws, such as the 75 per cent audience reach or the two-out-of-three cross-control rule. What opponents of that ignore is that many people now almost solely access their entertainment, their social contact and, more frequently now, their current affairs and news information through social media platforms that are internet based. Whether it's Facebook, Google or whatever site you want to use, there are providers reaching far more than 75 per cent of a population. That is changing, fundamentally, the dynamics in our marketplace. In some ways, that is good; it means that people can at very low cost access information or entertainment across a broad range of areas where, perhaps, a broadcaster previously didn't have the licence to distribute particular information.

There are also really negative aspects to it, which is why it's important that we make sure these alternative voices remain commercially viable into the future. What I'm talking about there is what is increasingly being known as the echo effect of social media. In the United States, the Brookings Institution, for example, has had a look at what President Obama did through his campaigns, and, more recently, at what President Trump did in his campaign. Demos, a cross-party think tank in the UK, has looked at the impact of social media and this echo effect in the UK in their most recent election. What has become increasingly apparent is that in the day of social media, where people are becoming connected predominantly through networks of like-minded people, the algorithms used by corporations such as Facebook and Google are looking at your preferences and then feeding news to you and directing you to news sites or articles that reflect your point of view.

I can see, for advertisers, why that kind of thing is appealing. If somebody does a Google search for, say, red hats, to then be able to present that person with information about people who are designing or selling red hats is really good marketing. It is very clever. A lot of Australians would be shocked to realise how much of their personal lives, preferences and habits—even where they travel—are actually known to corporations like Google and Facebook through the collection of data from their internet searches. There is the reporting back from things like Google Maps. It will predict, the next time you hop in the car, where you are about to go on a Sunday afternoon. I've noticed that on my own iPhone. When I turn it on, it pops up and guesses where I'm going to go, because it's obviously been tracking for some time.

That's fine, in some senses, from a commercial perspective. But the concern raised by Demos and the Brookings Institution is that where people only access news from a particular news source that already supports their perception, it actually reinforces their bias. So whilst it may be a valid perspective, it's really important—if our polity is to continue to work as a functioning liberal plural democracy—that the plurality of views is recognised and valued. One of the problems is, if you have a cohort who merely access their information from a subset of news streams that informs them from a particular perspective, they start to believe—this is what the studies are showing—that anyone who doesn't see the world through their own prism is not a reasonable person, that that person doesn't have well-founded or well-meaning interpretations of what's happening in the world. We see that in some of the current debates where people are being called racists, bigots and other things because they have a different view.

What we've seen in the UK around Brexit and parties like UKIP and in the United States around the Trump campaign is that there is an increasing division between groups in communities. There have been some quite fascinating papers written about why people who sit in one camp can look at another and go: 'Why is that person unable to actually see and appreciate my perspective? Why are they so wrong and stuck in their views?' 'The studies are pointing to the fact that this digital divide in our community, this echo-chamber effect, means that people aren't being challenged on a regular basis to recognise that there are other valid views around the same topic and that one set of facts can have a number of interpretations and can have a number of quite reasonable differences between people in our community.

The ability to have broadsheet newspapers, television broadcasters, broadcasting news and free-to-air radio that people will either deliberately or even accidentally interact with provides an alternate perspective to what they may have been fed through their Facebook feed or other feeds through digital media. That's really important for the actual continuation of a successful plural society where a diversity of views actually makes us stronger, as opposed to having everybody just believing that their point of view is the only right point of view and that, if you don't hold their point of view, you must somehow be morally bankrupt.

These provisions around media ownership are far from decreasing the number of voices. What they're trying to do is make alternate voices commercially sustainable. That's because, if these other providers aren't out there and the echo effect continues, we will get to the point where the only voice that people will interact with, unless they very deliberately make an effort to escape the algorithms of Facebook, Google and others who feed them information, will be these free-to-air-type broadcasters. It's important that those voices are commercially sustainable so that, in years to come, they will still be here in our community.

Just very quickly, there are some other areas of Australian content that I think are important. Again, it comes back, in part, to this culture. We're being told constantly that we are part of a global community, and that's all great, except for the fact that not all cultures are the same and not all communities are the same. Whilst it's wonderful to see what other countries are doing, it's really important, also, that we celebrate what is uniquely Australian, particularly by having our young people exposed to views of Australian life and Australian attitudes so that they actually grow up having an understanding of what it means to be an Australian, as opposed to somebody living in the suburbs of an American sitcom and all the things that go along with that.

The review that was announced in May, for example, looking at both Australian children's content production and distribution incentives combined with audience demand to find ways to actually help Australian content to be delivered and be successful is really important. In South Australia, for example, McLeod's Daughters was a very famous and successful series for a number of years. The town of Freeling where that was produced was actually in my electorate of Wakefield when I was a member in the other place, and it was not only a source of local work in South Australia but also provided a great tourist opportunity for businesses in Freeling with people constantly wanting to come through to see the pub, the sets and everything that happened in Freeling. But, importantly, it also gave a glimpse into, albeit a dramatised view, Australian life. It was an Australian situation, as opposed to a situation somewhere in downtown New York in an American sitcom.

Recently, the creator of McLeod's Daughters, Ms Graeme-Evans, wrote another script for a new miniseries. Channel 9 is looking at potentially supporting that but hasn't committed. The kinds of incentives that we're looking for—the media ownership rules that we're looking for and the relaxation of things like fees to make it more commercially viable—are the sorts of things we need to encourage people like Channel 9 to actually commit and say, 'Yes, we'll get behind a new miniseries of McLeod's Daughters.' There was actually quite a significant financial impact for the community in South Australia from the production of that series, and that could happen again. So these media reforms are welcomed for the long-term benefit of our broadcasters and the long-term benefit of our society by having a range of voices and Australian content to inform all Australians of the future of our nation.

Stirling Griff (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A review of Australia's media environment is long overdue. Our current broadcasting and media ownership laws have been overtaken by the commercial realities of the digital age and are now serving to undermine, rather than underpin, a strong Australian media. Traditional media businesses are haemorrhaging profits. The once rivers of advertising gold have become a trickle, with online giants such as Google and Facebook now taking the majority share. With limited revenue from their digital pursuits, media organisations that are keeping their heads above water are doing so through ongoing cost cutting, by selling off assets or by tapping into shareholders that have very deep pockets. But, as we saw with the Ten Network, deep pockets can't be relied on indefinitely.

Ironically, to save itself, the industry is eroding its core product. It is trying to do more with less, with varying degrees of success. Nowhere is this pressure more evident than in the newsrooms of our free-to-air broadcasters, daily newspapers and commercial radio stations. In the past few years we have seen wave after wave of redundancies across print and broadcast media. The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance estimates that since 2011 an estimated 2,500 journalists, photographers and subeditors have taken a package and left the industry. Most of these were seasoned staff with a wealth of skill and contacts. Their loss represents a loss of knowledge and depth for newsrooms across the country. Their loss is a collective hit to broad-ranging, hard news, serious investigative journalism and intelligent, objective analysis, as opposed to opinion, which is flourishing in its place.

Obviously, no-one in this place wants to see the industry depleted any further than it has been. That is why this bill and the debate is so important. For politicians there are many occasions when we don't like what we read, hear or see in the news, particularly about ourselves, but we all accept that a robust, independent and free press is fundamental to a well-functioning democracy. Anyone who believes otherwise is very much deluding themselves. And anyone who thinks that mainstream media can survive and deliver quality and insightful news—as opposed to dumbed down, populist clickbait—without urgent legislative intervention is suffering an acute case of blind optimism.

Newsrooms are already using online clicks to determine what gets priority on their online sites. This is not a healthy trend. We already have enough stories about the Instagram photo Kim regrets most or the 12 practical uses of avocado oil that will blow your mind. Civic journalism needs to be safeguarded. We need a thriving media to bring important news, no matter how boring it might be, to a good chunk of its audience. We need to loosen the straitjacket that once served to protect diversity but now serves to shackle the industry to outdated operating models. We need to rein in the uncompetitive advantages that global internet giants, such as Facebook and Google, are exploiting. At the moment, these market-distorting digital dominators are appropriating unique, Australian-made content and profiting from it while also enjoying the lion's share of advertising revenue. They need to pay a fair price for unique content that is not their own.

If media organisations stop producing unique content, where does that leave the likes of Apple News and Facebook? They will probably have to put their hands in their own pockets to pay people to make shareable news and entertainment content, and that is way more expensive than pilfering it for free or for below-market rates. Their market-distorting powers are such that 2,000 news organisations in the US and Canada recently banded together to seek permission to negotiate collectively with Google and Facebook. What they want is simply to have a fairer share of the revenue and customer data that these giants collect in return for using their journalism. The Nick Xenophon Team agrees wholeheartedly with the industry that these online giants need to be called into account. That is why I and my NXT colleagues have pushed very hard for an ACCC inquiry that will lay bare, for once and for all, the tactics and conditions that search engines and social media platforms have imposed on Australian media organisations.

We have in-principle support from the government for an inquiry by the competition watchdog that will probe into the impact of these platforms on the media and advertising landscape and determine whether their practices impede media organisations from recouping their own costs. We hope that the government will proceed with the ACCC inquiry, regardless of the outcome of this bill, as it will be a very important tool for levelling the playing field and, ideally, making these digital giants pay their fair share for the valued content made by others.

Anecdotally, these digital platforms have media organisations over a barrel. The media businesses I have spoken to don't like the terms they are forced to accept. They receive very little, if any, benefits from them but feel very much powerless to challenge them. These obligations and conditions will now finally be weighed by the competition watchdog, and, unlike media and other third-party organisations, the ACCC actually has the power to address any uncompetitive behaviour it finds. I do hope these digital platforms are, in a way, sweating over this prospect. Their days of somewhat ripping off media organisations and disingenuously claiming that it's all fair play in an open market are hopefully very much numbered.

Getting fair compensation for the use of their content will assist the traditional media business model in an environment where they are fighting for every advertising dollar. According to figures in ACMA's most recent communications report, print media has been capturing less and less of the national advertising dollar. It attracted $5.3 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, but this collapsed to $2.3 billion by 2015 as more and more advertisers shifted away from traditional platforms in favour of digital. Digital advertising now accounts for almost half of the Australian advertising market. According to the Commercial Economic Advisory Service of Australia, online ad share grew by six percentage points last year to make up almost 49 per cent of the total Australian advertising market. This came partly at the expense of traditional media. For instance, the advertising spend on free-to-air television dropped by 21 per cent last year from 24 per cent the previous year.

The digital advertising sector is getting stronger and stronger. According to IAB Australia, the total online advertising spend grew to a whopping $7.4 billion last year, up a substantial 23 per cent on 2015. But this has proven to be a double whammy for media organisations not only because it's such a competitive space but also because the returns generated from online advertising are generally lower. Interestingly, the ABC is contributing in a small but arguably unnecessary way to this struggle. It spent $1.5 million last year on digital marketing to push its editorial content through social media and on search engines. Given the public broadcaster's main website is already ranked amongst the top sites in Australia, we question whether the public broadcaster should be using its scarce resources to essentially compete against commercial news sites. It is clear that action needs to be taken. Australian media companies cannot produce quality content with dwindling resources.

We are also particularly pleased that the government listened to us and industry and has scrapped licence fees for commercial television broadcasters and radio broadcasters. Licence fees were becomingly increasingly burdensome at a time when falling network advertising revenues has forced broadcasters to make difficult decisions about how to fund their operations. They were also increasingly unfair with commercial free-to-air broadcasters paying around $127 million a year in licence fees whilst their digital competitors paid absolutely nothing. The licence fees will be replaced with an interim transmitter tax regime, which will be levied to reflect spectrum use. It will not end the disparity with digital providers, but it will at least cost commercial free-to-air broadcasters less—about a third of what they are collectively paying now. They are very much the positives in the bill.

In turning to the rest of the bill, I acknowledge that there have been concerns by some in this place and in the community that scrapping our media control laws may harm diversity. In reality, the greater threat to diversity is the industry's steady erosion. We need to remember that the current rules were drafted for the analog era, and that time is forever gone. Our world has dramatically altered. Ongoing dynamic change in the media landscape is our new reality and there is no use pretending that laws made 25 years ago are still relevant today.

When the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 came into being, it would still be another four years before Google would surface as a PhD research project and 12 years before Facebook would come onto the scene. It was a time when most people only watched free-to-air television, listened to radio and read the daily newspapers. There were no podcasts, no on-demand content streaming, no online news sites, no social media, and advertisers flocked, in a big way, to mainstream media. The laws drafted then did not unfairly restrict competition or prevent media organisations from succeeding.

These laws no longer reflect the reality we all operate in, which is one where the internet is effectively the fourth unregulated media player. The net covers 100 per cent of the country, 100 per cent of the time, and makes a mockery of the 75 per cent audience coverage rule. The 75 per cent reach rule threshold came into force in 1993 and was established to prevent metropolitan commercial stations from merging with or buying the regional networks Prime, WIN or Southern Cross, thus having blanket coverage across Australia. However, affiliation agreements between the major and regional networks mean that, in practice, almost identical programming extends across metro and regional areas. Ten, Nine and Seven also allow viewers to stream much of their content for free, and let's not forget that pay television providers are at liberty to broadcast their content across the entire country without any similar restrictions.

The two-out-of-three rule is especially redundant considering consumers are no longer stuck with whatever their newspaper, local television station and radio stations decide to offer. There are no borders or barriers. You can find pretty well any kind of information you need, seek out whatever opinion resonates with you and stream or download a wide variety of entertainment, as long as it is legal and your internet plan allows it. In the end, it all comes down to choice, your choice.

Every major commercial broadcaster and publisher has an online presence, and whilst the majority of Australian online news services are still owned by the dominant players—namely, News Corp and Fairfax—there are plenty of alternatives out there. You can go straight to the source often on Twitter. There are citizen bloggers and eyewitness accounts in real time. There are a number of new players not associated with the majors, such as BuzzFeed, The Conversation, Junkee, or InDaily in my home state of South Australia and its affiliate The New Daily in Victoria. So consumers have no shortage of options, irrespective of the mainstream media licences covering their area. By the same token, the two-out-of-three ownership law was designed to protect media diversity by preventing ownership of more than two of the traditional regulated media platforms—namely, newspapers, commercial radio and commercial television—in the same market.

We understand the argument that it now risks inhibiting the ability of media companies to restructure or find economies of scale that will enable them to survive and hopefully thrive. However, we cannot simply repeal this rule and walk away. The so-called minimum voices test will maintain the diversity floor, and it is worth pointing out that the ACCC has oversight of mergers to ensure there is no detrimental market impact. Section 50 of the Competition and Consumer Act prevents mergers that are likely to substantially lessen competition. Even so, we can still be more proactive about protecting what we value. We can help protect diversity by taking some of the financial pressures off smaller players in order to help them thrive. We will keep negotiating with the government in good faith in order to achieve this aim.

To conclude, what we don't want is for the current laws to assist in the slow death of Australian news media. We need to act to provide Australian media with a more level playing field and a legislative environment that is more responsive to the modern operating landscape. If we don't, we may eventually be left consuming little more than mindless clickbait and fake news with our morning cornflakes or smashed avocado. My NXT colleagues and I agree it is time to substantially reform our existing media laws. This bill makes a sound start, but we believe that there is more that can be done and we reserve our final position for now.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to commend and applaud the Turnbull government on the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017. Before I get into the reasons why I particularly support this bill, I would like to commend the speakers who have just preceded me, in particular Senator Hinch. There is no-one in this chamber, and very few people in this nation, who have more experience in more platforms of the Australian media landscape than the human headline, our wonderful Senator Derryn Hinch. I think he made a very compelling case as to why this legislation is so necessary. He said himself, just now in this chamber, that he's never known the Australian media to be under such threat. In his own inimitable way he also said that you have to have rocks in your head to actually oppose these reforms. He very clearly, and I think very cogently, destroyed the ALP's claim that these changes will restrict diversity. As he said, it is patently wrong. In fact, Senator Hinch also argued, again very cogently, that not supporting these changes in this bill will actually further restrict the media. Those who believe otherwise, he said, are in Noddy Land. I could not agree more with what Senator Hinch just said.

I'd also like to congratulate Senator Griff on his comments just now in the chamber. Again, Senator Griff put a very cogent, clear argument as to why media reform is necessary, and I would like to thank him for his very considered words. He pointed out very clearly the unfairness that has now arisen in relation to legislation that was drafted in 1993 in a very analog world. Today it is distorting the market to such a degree that those who operate in the digital world have a great advantage over the traditional media, which is so important, as Senator Fawcett said, in regional Australia. As Senator Fawcett also said—and I congratulate him for making these points in relation to confirmation bias—all Australians need to have as much diversity as possible in the information that they see and hear through all the various platforms of communication, rather than just the one point of view, to avoid the echo chamber that Senator Fawcett mentioned.

I believe that, in our Australian society, media outlets continue to play a crucial role in reflecting and representing our culture and providing information to our local communities, and they are, ultimately, critically important to our democratic processes. As the former chair of the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee I heard very compelling evidence in the inquiry on this legislation. That inquiry left me in absolutely no doubt that broadcasters and publishers are operating in an increasingly challenging environment, with intense competition for audiences and advertising revenue and also from other media companies, including the ABC, which, I believe, has a distorting impact on the ability of commercial broadcast media to make a profit and be competitive in this current environment.

To pick up Senator Hinch's words, I think anybody in this place that does not see Network Ten's announcement of voluntary administration in June this year as a concern is in Noddy Land. It is indicative of the current instability and the obstacles that are hindering the performance of our traditional broadcasters. They are hamstrung by analog-era legislation which digital media are clearly not subject to. This bill provides the necessary and appropriate reforms to ensure that our media outlets are equipped and the regulatory framework in which they operate is appropriate for today and also for tomorrow's media environment. There are many new challenges, and it is outrageous that we are hamstringing these organisations to the point where some are going into voluntary administration or, as Senator Hinch said, have simply closed their doors, reducing diversity. This bill provides the necessary and appropriate reforms to ensure that our media outlets are equipped with the regulatory framework that they need to survive in a digital world, and not only survive but, hopefully, prosper.

Similarly to the Electoral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill, which I spoke to yesterday in this chamber, the bill before us, in many of its amendments, seeks to modernise aspects of an act which is severely out of date and is now having many contrary impacts on our democracy. In terms of the Electoral Act, it was in relation to the types of communications we receive on electoral matters, in campaigns. In this case, if we don't change, if we don't update our laws so that all of our media outlets, no matter what and how they broadcast, are able to do so, our democracy will be the poorer, because people simply will not be getting the information they need to make informed choices and to be getting alternative points of view, as Senator Fawcett so eloquently pointed out in his speech on this issue.

I commend the minister on his stakeholder and industry engagement and on gaining unanimous support from all sectors of the media industry, many of which consider this media reform package and this bill as vital to their longevity and their viability. Again, if the Channel 10 insolvency doesn't sound alarm bells for those opposite, I don't know what will. Let me share with the chamber some of the comments by industry. First of all, Network Ten CEO Paul Anderson stated:

… it is blindingly obvious that these pre-internet era laws are now achieving the opposite of what they were intended to do.

In 1993. He went on:

They are now working against a strong, viable and diverse media sector, and they must go.

News Corp Australian Executive Chairman Michael Miller—

Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're the old filibuster notes!

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left!

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Dastyari might not like to hear what these people are saying—

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Reynolds, please address your comments through the chair.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

However, they are important. These are the people who are impacted by the position of those opposite. News Corp Australian Executive Chairman Michael Miller said:

… the passage of these two pieces of legislation will allow the local media players who have vested interests in local communities to compete with the internationals that are coming into the market—

Primarily straight into rural and regional households through digital communication platforms that are not subject to the same rules as some of the other longstanding organisations. Free TV Australia has said unequivocally that the government's media reform package is:

… crucial for Australian jobs and our ability to continue creating great local programming that is watched by millions of Australians every day.

The CEO of Prime Media Group, Mr Ian Audsley, said that this bill is critical to retaining regional broadcasting jobs and:

There has been a lot of talk about the threat to diversity if the two-out-of-three rule is repealed. We would argue that there is greater threat to media diversity if the media reform bill is not passed …

Which is exactly what Senator Hinch has just told this chamber, with all of his years of experience—that there is a greater threat to media diversity if these bills are not passed, because the risk is that even more journalists will lose their jobs in regional Australia, more newsrooms will be forced to scale down and, in a worst-case scenario, some businesses will close.

This bill will provide the Australian media industry and sector stakeholders with the necessary stability, assurance and support to embrace the modern media environment, the digital media environment, which this act never even conceived of back in 1993. Free-to-air broadcasters play a vital role in providing access to high-quality Australian content. What do they provide? They provide current affairs, sport, drama and children's programs to all Australians, all over this nation. However, as we all know and many speakers here have said, the broadcasters are operating in a very different environment, against increasingly competitive and challenging circumstances, due to the entry of online service providers, who are simply not subject to the same rules and restrictions as the broadcasters are.

Although Australian audiences have viewing opportunities across many platforms, I'm sure over the next few years there will be many more platforms to come. To make sure that the Australian industry remains competitive, the Senate must pass this bill. We can no longer shackle traditional media outlets with laws that do not apply to the new organisations and those that will come in the future. It is a fact that, if passed, the majority of broadcasters will be better off. Although it may take time for businesses to transition to the proposed new fee model, the minister has made it clear that a transitional support package will be available. The support package will ensure broadcasters are no worse off as a result of these changes in the bill. In turn—and importantly for broadcasters—it will provide them with certainty for the next five years that their fees will not increase. This is a very responsible thing to do, and it is yet another example of this government taking responsible actions and making responsible decisions that are in the interests of all Australians.

In addition to the government's media reform package, this bill will modernise regulation and help position the industry as a sector to deal with existing and future challenges and changes in communication platforms. This bill will not only ensure that the act is relevant today; it will also ensure that the operation of the act does not hold industry back or impose regulations that are no longer relevant or applicable—the time came and went for the current legislation many, many years ago. The minister lamented that the regulations governing our media companies do not allow them to meet the challenges on a level playing field, as a result of the increase in online, on-demand operators and the many foreign technology companies that now operate here in Australia.

Again, as the chair of the environment and communications committee—which looked in detail at this legislation and heard evidence from many different sectors in this industry—I firmly believe this bill, with the reform package that was announced in May this year, provides a sensible suite of measures. The package provides the necessary reforms to modernise media regulation and to position the Australian media industry to deal with existing and future challenges more effectively.

The first—and probably one of the most significant—reform that this bill will introduce is the repealing of the 75 per cent audience reach rule and the two-out-of-three cross-media control rule. As you've heard from senators on the crossbench and on the government side, these rules are completely and utterly out of date. They are distorting and killing some of our regional TV stations and other broadcast media. They were written in 1993. As Senator Hinch said, we are no longer in a world where Kylie Minogue lives on Ramsay Street, among many other things—for example, 1993 was the year Meatloaf released his song 'I'd Do Anything for Love' and, given his recent performances, he'd probably have done better to stay with that song in 1993. But that is the world that this legislation was introduced to regulate—an analog world, which no longer exists.

This 75 per cent audience reach rule is a classic example of why this bill is required. It prohibits a person, either in their own right or as a director of one or more companies, from being in a position to exercise control of commercial TV broadcasting licences whose combined reach exceeds 75 per cent of the Australian population. This rule is clearly redundant and, as has been said by Senator Hinch and Senator Griff, is grossly distorting, particularly on rural and regional media. It doesn't protect diversity anymore. In fact, it is doing quite the opposite; it is further restricting media diversity, and it has to change. Audiences across the country today receive essentially the same broadcast content due to affiliation agreements between metropolitan and regional networks, and all three metropolitan TV broadcasters and the ABC stream some or all of their channels online to 100 per cent of the population. This rule takes into account none of that. It is an outdated analogue-era requirement. It takes into account none of the digital access to news, stories, programs and children's entertainment that most Australians now have.

The second thing that this bill does which I think is very important is amend local programming obligations to introduce additional obligations for regional broadcasters. This bill includes a welcome range of measures to ensure the availability of local content in regional areas and strengthens links between local content and the communities it is broadcast to. In the absence of such regulation, the high cost of local content production and structural changes underway in the media more broadly will create further incentives for broadcasters to achieve efficiencies, placing even further pressure on the supply of local content programming genuinely at the local level.

The third thing that this bill does—again, having heard all of the evidence in the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee—is amend the antisiphoning scheme and antisiphoning notice. This scheme was established in 1994 and regulates the acquisition of broadcast rights for sporting and other events of cultural significance or national importance. This bill seeks to ensure that events on the antisiphoning list remain freely available to all Australian viewers. This government continues to support the principle that nationally significant events should be available to free-to-air television. The antisiphoning scheme is outdated and needs reform. Again, it does not cater for the new digital media communications environment. The bill will remove the multichannelling rule, which prevents free-to-air broadcasters from televising events first or exclusively on their digital multimedia channels. Repealing the multichannelling rule will provide flexibility for free-to-air broadcasters to optimise television coverage of listed events to the benefit of audiences right across this country.

The fourth great thing that this bill does—and, again, having heard a lot of evidence on this in the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee when we looked at this bill—is abolish TV and radio licence fees and other charges. The committee heard overwhelming evidence that these licence fees and datacasting charges have absolutely no place in a modern regulatory framework in the digital age. They were designed for a very different nation and a very different type of media. This bill will repeal the unwarranted taxes, starting with the payment that would be otherwise due in December 2017. Instead, the government will establish tax collection and assessment arrangements for an interim transmitter licence tax and will establish a statutory review of the arrangements in 2021—a very sound idea. The introduction of a transmitter licence tax and the abolition of the broadcasting licence fees will result in the vast majority of broadcasters paying considerably less in terms of their overall fee and tax burden. Again, I point out that these are fees and tax burdens that their digital competitors, who are streaming right across this country into their markets, are not subject to. It is grossly unfair that we are saddling certain broadcasters with these outdated fees and taxes and not subjecting them to those who now broadcast the same content or similar content directly to our homes.

Finally, the government will establish a transitional support payment scheme for commercial broadcasters—again, a very sensible and sound measure. This five-year transitional support package will provide financial relief up to 30 June 2020. It supports 19 individual commercial broadcasters to transition to the new spectrum tax model, helps optimise their business structures and supports growth over the medium to long term. And, as I've said, importantly, that will help them also provide much more genuinely local content in rural and regional Australia.

As part of this package, the legislation will require the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, to, after 30 June 2019, undertake a review and report on whether the new tax laws should be repealed or amended. Again, this is a very sensible measure. ACMA will consult on the review, enabling broadcasters to input into the development of the future tax arrangements.

We have a historic media package that has the support of the entire media sector. We have heard very clear and cogent arguments of why this reform is so necessary to retain the diversity and the richness of, and the commercial viability of, this sector in our community. I commend the government for this package.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government wants One Nation support for this package so badly that it has agreed to invite a razor gang into the books of the ABC. And it wants Nick Xenophon's support for the package so badly that it has agreed not to embarrass him into being forced to vote in support of One Nation's proposal. But make no mistake, voting for this bill means voting for One Nation's deal. I know that, One Nation knows that and you can bet your last dollar that Nick Xenophon and his team know that, too.

As for what the details are, we still don't know. The government won't tell us and they won't tell us. All we know is that it commits the government to review the ABC and ask if it is reducing the profitability of its commercial rivals. Guess what? The job of the ABC isn't to make money for its commercial rivals. Its job is to guarantee all Australians have access to news, programming and information that affects their lives, no matter where they live or how wealthy they are. The deal the government has made isn't designed to improve the ABC; it is designed to defund it. It's a deal to set up a rigged kangaroo court that is determined to find the ABC guilty and lay the groundwork for slashing the budget of the most trusted news source in the country—or, as I like to refer to it, the eighth great wonder of the world.

That is the deal that is before us. That is the vote we are taking—to defend the ABC or to defund it. No amount of tax breaks or inquiries into tech giants can change that. As the old saying goes, if you don't know all the details of the deal, don't vote for it. If you knew all the details of the deal, you probably wouldn't vote for it anyway. A vote in favour of this package is a vote in favour of all the strings that come attached to it. The government could have opted to put the full details of the deal in the legislation, but it decided not to because it is embarrassed by what it has agreed to. And if something is so embarrassing that not even this government would be willing to put its name to it, then it says something about all those who are voting to support it. No matter what else is said, no matter who says it, there's only one thing you need to remember: if you are proud of something, you don't hide it.

The deal that has been made between One Nation and the Turnbull government doesn't go ahead unless this vote passes. What we're doing by voting for this media reform package is actually voting for a dirty deal, because the government decided to link the two. We are voting for something on paper and another thing altogether in practice. We're choosing whether to defend the ABC or to defund it. I will not endorse this deal. I am willing to vote to help the commercial players by doing away with outdated media ownership regulations but I refuse to vote for a package that hurts journalism in rural and regional Australia.

The bill before us is only half the deal. The other half will not be put to the vote. This is the vote—for the visible half and for the invisible other. It is the only opportunity we will have to oppose the dirty deal the government has made to let loose the razor gangs on the budget of the ABC for the crime of doing exactly what the public needs a public broadcaster to do.

I won't be supporting this bill and I am disappointed that I can't. I'm disappointed that I can't support this bill, because I support what it's trying to achieve in principle. The media landscape is changing fast and—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Lambie. You are in continuation. It being 2pm, we move to questions without notice.