Mr WAKELIN(6.19 p.m.) —I noted with interest the comments made by the member for Corio (Mr O'Connor). I would just observe on the issue of tariffs that the car industry tariffs were quite a hot topic here a few weeks ago and now it is the TCF tariffs. But cabinet has made a decision and life moves on.

The point I would like to make in the South Australian context is that the agricultural export industries of South Australia are responsible for about $3 billion worth of exports. By a very large margin, they are the most significant export products of South Australia.

More importantly, in the context of the tariff debate, there are just as many jobs and, in actual fact, a lot more commerce created by food processing in South Australia. In the balance of this debate, I really wish that the parliament would look at the wider context of employment, not just at single industries. I think that is a very important point. Nevertheless, I move to the matters of the day.

Tonight, in this grievance debate, I would like to talk about the media and the parliament. I would like to begin by reading into the Hansard what I would regard as a brilliant piece of prose attributed to R.G. Menzies in the New York Times Magazine on 28 November 1948. For those who are interested, this quotation is actually in the cabinet at the House of Representatives entrance for all to see. It reads:

I believe that politics is the most important and responsible civil activity to which a man may devote his character, his talents, and his energy. We must, in our own interests, elevate politics into statesmanship and statecraft. We must aim at a condition of affairs in which we shall no longer reserve the dignified name of statesman for a Churchill or a Roosevelt but extend it to lesser men who give honourable and patriotic service in public affairs. It is true that most men of ability prefer objective work of science, the law, literature, scholarship, or the immediately stimulating and profitable work of manufacturing, commerce or finance.

The result is that our legislative assemblies are a fair popular cross-section not a corps d'elite. The first class mind is comparatively rare. We disadvantage young men of parts by confronting them with poor material benefits, precariousness of tenure, an open public cynicism about their motives, and cheap sneers about their real or supposed search for publicity.

The reason for this wrong-headedness, so damaging to ourselves, is that we have treated democracy as an end and not a means. It is almost as if we had said, when legislatures, freely elected by the votes of all adult citizens, come into being, `Well thank heaven we have achieved democracy. Let us now devote our attention to something new'. Yet the true last of the democrat only begins when he is put in possession of the instruments by which the popular will may be translated into authoritative action. In brief we cannot sensibly devote only one per cent of our time to something which affects ninety-nine per cent of our living.

I like to quote those words of Sir Robert Menzies, because I think that he summarises the role of the parliamentarian as well as anyone that I have known who has worked in this place or in the institution of the national parliament.

I move to what I believe is the role of the journalist. It is a somewhat more tenuous issue, because I do not have experience in it. I would have thought that the role of the journalist and the media is to report honestly and to respect honourably our institutions of democracy and the constitution. That may be a little too high-minded and too high-principled for many. Nevertheless, I think that the main aim should be the seeking of truth and its reporting to the general population.

Since the Menzies era, and particularly since the time of the above quote from 1948, the media industry has no doubt moved on considerably to television, to radio—in all its talkback guises—to the modern printing press, to the tabloid, and to a technological process of instant information which is way beyond that of the mid-20th century heading into the 21st century.

Nevertheless, I believe there are significant problems for our democracy and for our country, if we do not have a greater look at the balance between the parliament and the media. I have some personal interest in the matter, because I became involved in a minor skirmish with my own metropolitan daily, the Advertiser. It is quite interesting to note the view of a leading journalist from the Sydney Morning Herald, Mr Mark Riley, when he was addressing a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association seminar on 1 October 1996. He said:

If a politician fails to act as a contact, or refuses to talk, either on or off the record, then—and this may seem cruel—

and I am quoting—

but this has happened to me a few times—I think he or she has no right to complain about the stories that a journalist writes. It is simply no good to ring the journalist the next day and give him or her a spray about what he or she has written that day. If a journalist is writing a story, and the politician is aware of that and decides not to talk to the journalist, not to give certain information that may provide a broader understanding of the issue and a more complete story, then, as I say, the journalist is perfectly at liberty to put it all on the politician, not on himself or herself.

That is a leading journalist's comment about his right to print whatever he thinks is appropriate, regardless of the politician's position.

In my own case with the Advertiser, a Mr David Penberthy and a Ms Miranda Murphy decided that they would take me to task on similar grounds. The basis of their story was that certain federal sources had said that my wife and I were planning a seven-week trip at the taxpayers' expense. This was certainly shown subsequently to be incorrect, but it did not stop Mr Penberthy and the Advertiser printing the story. I took some exception to that.

That is by the way. What I really want to try to explore here is the balance between the parliament and the media. I make a few observations. In Australia today we have two main contenders. I apologise to others who have significant interests, but I think we know that there are the Packer group and the Murdoch group. It is probably no coincidence that these gentlemen and their associated organisations are amongst our wealthiest citizens.

There is nothing wrong with that—I am quite happy to accept that as part of our free enterprise system. But I do pose a question to the parliament in the context of what I was quoting from Menzies. Where is the balance, where is the fairness, and where is the truth? And I quote again my journalist friend, Mark Riley, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald:

Any law passed by a government, or any regulation imposed on an organisation by itself, is only as good as its enforcement. We have to be seen to be enforcing our rules, otherwise we will not be taken seriously and the rules will not be seen to be an effective mechanism.

Of course, we are talking there about the general issue of the media policing itself. I believe that the country has a serious issue in front of it in terms of the way that media proprietors, their editors and their journalists report the news in the best interests of the country. I think that it is time the parliament had a good, hard look at it to ensure that the interests of the people, not just the interests of the profits of a few but of the general community, are fully considered.

Sitting suspended from 6.29 p.m. to 8 p.m.