Ms HOARE (12:36 PM) —The purpose of the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2002, which was introduced into this place on 21 March this year, is to amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to remove controls on the foreign ownership of television; provide for exemptions to the cross-media rules in certain circumstances; and ensure that local news services are maintained in regional areas, subject to exemptions from cross-media rules. As has been pointed out already in this debate, this proposal has been around since the election of the Howard government in 1996. We have been watching very closely the proposals that the government has put forward for public discussion. While we welcome that the government has finally produced legislation in relation to previous election commitments, we will still be opposing this bill in the House—and we call on the minor parties in the Senate to support us in that.

The coalition's cross-media ownership legislation seeks to enact many changes to the existing regime. It would empower the Australian Broadcasting Authority to issue a certificate exempting a media proprietor from the need to comply with the cross-media ownership laws if that proprietor could demonstrate that certain criteria regarding editorial separation were met. These criteria would require that the proprietor maintain separate editorial decision making responsibilities in the different parts of his or her organisation which, if not exempted, could not be owned by the one company under the cross-media ownership laws. The criteria would include a requirement to provide: evidence that separate editorial policies are maintained; organisational charts outlining editorial decision making processes; and evidence that news management, news compilation, news gathering and news interpretation processes are separate, consistent with the full separation of editorial decision making processes.

Under the new legislation, the media proprietor will have an obligation to continue to comply with the conditions in his or her exemption certificate. Where a proprietor who is granted an exemption certificate acquired a commercial television or radio licence in a regional area, he or she would have to provide a minimum of five daily local news and weather services per week and a minimum level of community service announcements. The specific restrictions on foreign ownership of television networks would be repealed, there would be no restrictions on foreign ownership of radio stations, and the restrictions on foreign ownership of newspapers would be the Treasurer's guidelines only. The provisions of the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act and the Trade Practices Act would continue to apply.

I want to take up the third purpose of this legislation, which I mentioned before: the provision of local news services and regionalism in media in this country. The linkage between local news obligations on regional television and radio stations and cross-media exemption certificates in this legislation is highly peculiar. The Australian Broadcasting Authority is currently inquiring into this issue. It seems it would be much more appropriate for the authority to develop a comprehensive solution to the delivery of local and regional news services and media provision. This legislation seems to be pre-empting an inquiry which is currently being conducted into local news services and regional media provision. It would have been more appropriate if the government had held off introducing this legislation until such an inquiry had been completed and comprehensive solutions to the provision of local news services had been found and tested.

In relation to local news services, the Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, Professor David Flint, has been reported as saying that it was unclear whether the authority had the power to force broadcasters to provide local news services, the ABA having received conflicting legal advice on the subject. However, at the time, he also noted that the authority could always approach the government and recommend legislative changes. This bill imposes the requirement to maintain local news services only on broadcasting licensees in regional areas that have the benefit of an exemption from the cross-media rules. The reason I particularly wanted to concentrate on the issue of provision of local news services and regional news is that it relates to a situation which happened in my local area just last year, which I will detail further.

Labor's communication spokesperson, the member for Melbourne, yesterday outlined the most recent amendments which the government has circulated on this bill. The three amendments are the reinstatement of a relaxed version of cross-media ownership in regional Australia; increased disclosure of cross-media holdings in certain circumstances; and the prohibition of contracts and arrangements which restrict the program format of commercial broadcasting radio services. As I have already indicated, I will be discussing the first one: the reinstatement of a relaxed version of cross-media ownership in regional Australia. This most significant amendment would mean that a cross-media exemption in regional areas could apply to two of the three types of media—television, radio and newspapers—covered by the cross-media rules. The previous amendment bill allowed common ownership of a newspaper, television station and radio station in any market in Australia. Under the current act, ownership is limited to only one of these three media types in a single market. I note that the previous speaker in this debate, the member for Grey, talked about having only one newspaper for each of the communities in his electorate. But he concluded by saying that most of the communities in his electorate have access to five television stations—so they do have more than one media outlet. I do not think that having just one newspaper is a valid argument in support of this amending legislation.

The government amendments limit this exemption to two out of the three types of media in regional areas only. Cross-media ownership of all three media will still be allowed in metropolitan Australia under the amended bill. We in the opposition ask why there is this difference between metropolitan and regional media. Do you not think all Australians should have the same access to a diverse media, whether or not they live in a metropolitan area or rural and regional Australia? This government puts too much emphasis on the differences between Australians living in metropolitan areas and in rural and regional areas and does not provide the same access to services for these two different groups of people.

The issue of regional television services hit my area hard in 2001, as it did in a number of regional areas. I refer specifically to the Prime News services provided in my region around the Newcastle-Lower Hunter area, which in July last year were cut, cancelled, and workers were sacked when the Prime executive decided that they were no longer going to provide a local news service in the Newcastle area. The Prime studio is located in my electorate of Charlton.

To highlight this issue, I want to refer to some correspondence that I received. There was a lot of correspondence between members of parliament and the community. There were community meetings with the Prime executive television organisation, with the community expressing its extreme disappointment that the executives had decided to cancel local news services in our region. One young woman, Rebecca Dodds, who was in year 11 last year so she would now be in year 12, wrote regarding the closure of the Prime newsroom service. This young woman anticipates a career in journalism, so she has quite a keen interest in the provision of regional news services and regional journalism. She said of the Prime staff:

From that and other correspondence, I made representations. Prime local news had been an active participant in the Hunter region through sponsorship and promotion of local events and its coverage of regional issues. A local news service is a fundamental sign that a network is committed to a region. It was disappointing that Prime Television was not prepared last year to continue that commitment.

I was also extremely concerned that Prime's decision had seen a loss of 14 staff. The decision represented a terrible blow to media diversity for Newcastle and the Hunter. At that stage, I made representations to Senator Richard Alston, the Minister for Communications, Information, Technology and the Arts, and to Mr Brad Jones, the general manager of Prime Television (Northern). However, the responses which I received from the minister and Mr Jones did not indicate any willingness to reinstate a local news service out of the Prime studios in the Newcastle region.

The response I received from the general manager of Prime talked about it being a commercial decision due to the size of the audience in the Newcastle region. It is not the size of the audience that counts; it is the quality of the service that an audience appreciates in a local region like ours. In his response, Mr Jones said:

Any of the free-to-air stations provide this service. The people of Newcastle wanted a local regionalised news service from Prime. In the response from the minister in September last year, he said that he recognised the importance of local news services to regional communities. At that time, he publicly stated his disappointment with Prime's decision. The minister wrote to Paul Ramsay, the Chairman of Prime Television, expressing his strong concern at the announced closures. Unfortunately, the minister's representations did not make any difference and the Prime decision has not been reversed.

The minister identified a range of measures which had been introduced by the government in support of the ongoing viability of regional television services. Obviously, those measures introduced by the government were not enough. In this legislation, the government had the opportunity to strengthen those measures to ensure that viable, profitable, committed news services are provided to regional areas right throughout this country, so that those who live in regional areas do not have to rely solely on city-centric news bulletins when we want to know what is happening in our local region.

Earlier this year the Australian Broadcasting Authority came to Newcastle during its investigation into the adequacy of news and information programs in regional and rural Australia. I provided Rebecca Dodds's letter as a submission to that inquiry. I referred to that inquiry earlier, saying that the government should have waited until its completion so that any recommendations from that investigation could have been included in this legislation. I heard that the hearing held in Newcastle was quite successful. At the time—in February this year—parliament was sitting, so, although I was able to lend my support to the people expressing their views to the inquiry, I was unable to be there.

Just last month the Australian Broadcasting Authority released a partial report on the issue of news and information programs in regional and rural Australia. As I said, the investigation commenced in November last year following the closure of local TV news and news bulletins in the ACT, Northern Territory, Newcastle, Wollongong and Northern Queensland. So the inquiry began last November and in late August this year a partial report was released. We do not know what the time frame is going to be for the full inquiry to be completed and the final report released and recommendations made but, as I said earlier, maybe the government should have held off on this legislation until that inquiry was completed so that its recommendations could have been included in this legislation.

Labor is opposing this legislation as it represents a serious threat to ongoing media diversity in Australia. A diverse and pluralistic mass media is fundamental to the effective functioning of a modern, democratic society. The effect of the bill would be to allow the number of major commercial media organisations in Australia to fall to as few as three. The government's proposal to protect editorial separation is cumbersome and complex and is likely to be completely unenforceable. It will be administered by the ABA and Professor David Flint, who has recently called for media proprietors to be completely unshackled from the cross-media ownership laws. (Time expired)