Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, go the kangaroo! During the time that parliament was supposed to be sitting and we were on the break, I took the opportunity to travel to some of the regions in Western Australia that rarely see a federal politician. My team and I were warmly welcomed in Geraldton, Esperance, Corrigin, Merredin and Northam. We had the chance to meet with a huge range of community organisations, local government and dedicated individuals who are all contributing such important services and resources to their towns and regions.

In Merredin, I visited the community resource centre, which is a one-stop shop—very dynamic. They provide a whole range of services for the community. The Merredin CRC, as it's known, publishes a fortnightly newspaper, The Phoenix. The reason they do that is that, like many local communities, they were left high and dry when their internationally-owned newspapers shut down. Merredin Wheatbelt Mercury, a Fairfax publication, had operated in Merredin for 103 years and was shut down. The community were left without their own local newspaper, so the CRC came to the rescue. They were not journalists, but they put together a really quality paper that picks up news, community information and regional information. More recently, they have gone to publishing classifieds so that they can try and get the newspaper on an even keel. It's available online, and they post it to you if you subscribe. So for a group of women, mainly, who are not journalists, they are doing an amazing job.

Similarly, Esperance, which is WA's most south-eastern town, also lost its print newspaper—the Esperance Examinerearlier this year. I met a very talented young woman who has taken on the role of offering the community a new print and online option. Esperance Tide is a beautifully designed monthly print and online publication that showcases the area's stunning landscapes and provides an important line of information and updates for the local community in the form of long interviews, reviews and news on events that are going on around the town. They too have just moved to classifieds in an attempt to make their newspaper break even. Again, in Collie, in WA's south-west, the editor and staff of the town's previous newspaper have started their own newspaper, called the Collie River Valley Bulletin.

Obviously large newspapers with corporate and international ownership don't have a commitment to WA's regions and our small towns, and it's been fantastic to see that local organisations and individuals have stepped in. But—here's the but—although the federal government has offered small grants to local community newspapers, it shows you how out of touch the Morrison government is that they don't go to publications like Esperance Tide or The Phoenix. That is because those newspapers don't have an established record, haven't been operating long and can't show last year's financial assets, because they are start-ups. Given the way the Morrison government has handled print media in this country—it's got to take some of the responsibility for what's happening to print media in this country—I would have thought it could make these grants much more flexible. That way quality publications such as those we have seen in Collie, in Merredin and in Esperance—that involve local people and are locally owned—could get the resources they need to help them flourish even more. So I urge the Morrison government, which is out of touch with what is happening in the regions, to actually look at these publications and talk to the people involved with them—an amazing group of talented people who are very enthusiastic—and make sure that grant money actually meets the needs of these local regional community newspapers that are doing a fantastic job.