Mr TANNER (12:48 PM) —The legislation before the parliament today is a rerun of legislation put to the parliament and rejected in the Senate some months ago. The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2002 [No. 2]seeks to radically alter the existing arrangements in Australia with respect to media ownership laws. In particular it seeks to substantially water down the requirements limiting cross-media ownership in Australia and to eliminate the restrictions on foreign ownership of Australian media. We have had this debate before. These matters were debated at length in this House and in the Senate earlier in the year. The government is now putting what is in effect the same legislation to the parliament, with the aim of creating a double dissolution trigger by having the bill rejected again in the Senate in the same form in which it was rejected on the previous occasion on which it was debated.

The original bill that was put to the parliament, by the then Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Alston, proposed to effectively remove all existing forms of regulation of cross-media ownership and foreign ownership of Australian media. It proposed to impose a safeguard regime of editorial separation and certificates associated with mergers or acquisitions in the media sphere, designed to ensure in theory that, although one owner might own two outlets, the outlets would continue to function separately and independently of each other and would more or less compete with each other and would certainly not run the same line or merge their activities.

The bill has been substantially changed and I will turn to those changes in a minute, but I wish to make some observations about the origins of the bill and the original content of the bill. Senator Alston, the then communications minister, was initially unable to obtain even his own party room support for his proposals and had particular difficulty obtaining support from The Nationals for his proposed abolition of cross-media ownership and foreign ownership rules. There were a number of stumbles in the process of eventually even getting the bill into the parliament and, in the wake of the parliamentary debate and committee consideration of the legislation, a number of amendments have been accepted by the government. Unfortunately, however, the government has decided both to persist with the bill and, extraordinarily, to persist with its editorial separation regime, which is the fig leaf that is provided within the bill to, in a sense, guarantee notional protection of diversity of media ownership and diversity of public debate in Australia in spite of the effect of the provisions of the bill.

The editorial separation regime provides that the Australian Broadcasting Authority must issue a certificate where there is a merger or an acquisition involving media organisations that would otherwise be in breach of the cross-media ownership laws. Only upon the issue of such a certificate, which designates that there is an appropriate level of separation between the editorial activities of both organisations, do the cross-media ownership laws cease to have effect and the merger or acquisition is able to proceed. It is the kind of thing that looks vaguely plausible for about 30 seconds but, when you start to think about how media organisations actually operate and how the real world of business actually operates, it is clear that it is nothing but a fig leaf and would have no significant impact in protecting diversity of media ownership, diversity of public opinion and diversity of employment opportunities for Australian journalists.

In effect, we would have a public servant or a statutory body issuing certificates to media organisations after scrutinising their organisational arrangements—the way their editorial processes work, the flowcharts, the organisational charts, who is responsible for what, how news is gathered, how comment is analysed and put together and how material is broadcast or published in newspapers. All of these things would in theory be subject to a process of analysis and scrutiny by the Australian Broadcasting Authority. Of course, this would be a one-off event and there is no adequate provision whatsoever for any return to the issue should there subsequently be a change to the arrangements. For example, when the Murdoch empire acquired the Herald and Weekly Times, it acquired two newspapers in Melbourne—the Herald and the Sun—and, of course, these two newspapers subsequently merged.

If something of that kind were to occur under the editorial separation regime, there is no effective way that a subsequent event can be dealt with after the editorial separation certificate has been issued, because you are dealing with commercial realities. You are dealing with businesses that have taken over other businesses—merged—and all their processes and activities have been merged together and a demerger would simply be unrealistic. So the system of editorial separation is purely a fig leaf designed to present a facade of regulatory involvement in order to protect the integrity of Australian public debate and the diversity of media ownership.

But not only is it ineffective and transparently a cosmetic exercise designed to assuage concern in the community about the excessive concentration of media ownership; it also contains within it the seeds of a very significant threat to the freedom of the press. The Australian Press Council is not renowned as a radical or interventionist body. In my view, it has a history of being a very cautious and conservative organisation. But early last year it felt sufficiently concerned about these proposals to write to the minister indicating that, in its view, the editorial separation regime in the cross-media ownership repeal laws that the government was seeking to put forward did, in fact, constitute a very severe threat to freedom of the press.

The reason for that is that, although the provisions regarding the issue of editorial separation certificates would inevitably be ineffective in guaranteeing genuine media diversity and genuine diversity of media ownership in Australia, they would provide a very useful mechanism for a future malevolent government seeking to harass or intimidate a particular media organisation that was critical of that government. It would open up the prospect of the government of the day, through a tame Australian Broadcasting Authority, deliberately hounding and harassing a particular media outlet or media organisation, using these mechanisms as a means to put pressure on that media organisation.

These things might sound fanciful but if you look around the world at areas where media is under threat—where you have authoritarian governments that are interfering in the media or intimidating the media—methods of licensing are almost invariably the first things that governments that seek to intimidate or interfere in the freedom of the press choose to use in order to achieve their aims. So any regulatory device that provides an excuse or a mechanism for a government to interfere in the day-to-day running of a media organisation would provide that potential for a future government. I make no claim that the Howard government will seek to use the provisions in the bill in this regard. It is conceivable that it might, but I certainly make no accusation against the current government. None of us can see into the future and I believe that the Press Council is absolutely correct in rejecting these provisions as containing within them the seeds of a threat to the freedom of the media in the future.

As I indicated, the government has substantially amended the legislation since it was originally presented to this House some time ago. Initially, it was amended to provide that it is not permissible to own any more than two of the three types of media outlet—radio stations, television stations and newspapers—in the same market, whereas the original legislation allowed open slather; you could own all three if you so desired and if you obtained the editorial separation certificates. The government moved to amend the legislation to make it only two out of three in regional markets—from memory that was in about October last year. More recently, in the debate in the Senate, the government decided to amend it to only two out of three in all markets—metropolitan and regional.

This of course is a tacit and very powerful admission by the government that there is still a need for cross-media ownership regulation in this country. This is something that the minister was denying all the way through and it is something that all the arguments the government was putting were based on—namely, that the days of any need for cross-media ownership regulation had gone, that the market and the emerging technologies would deliver sufficient diversity and competition, and that what really mattered was diversity within media organisations not between them. That argument has been shot out of the water by the government's own action in conceding that it is still necessary and appropriate to regulate cross-media ownership in Australia and to prevent any one proprietor from owning all three forms of mainstream media—television, radio and newspapers—in the one market.

So there is a tacit admission by the government, in the amended form of legislation that is now back before the parliament, that there is a need for cross-media ownership regulation and that the editorial separation regime that was put in place in the legislation, and which is still there, is not sufficiently effective to ensure that genuine diversity of media ownership and diversity of public debate—public discourse—can be guaranteed in the way that the government originally argued.

The issue underneath all of this is the Senate amendment which the government ultimately rejected and which is the reason why the bill is back before this chamber today. One amendment, moved by Senator Harradine and supported by the minor party senators and the Labor Party, got to the very heart of this bill and to the very heart of the government's intentions. That amendment provided that ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the one market would continue to be prohibited.

The two out of three provision that the government has backed away from does not preclude the ownership of a TV station and a newspaper in the one market but ownership of both of those and a radio station. It is entirely open for an existing newspaper or TV station proprietor to acquire the other form of media without breaching the government's proposals. Senator Harradine's amendment in contrast said directly that you are not allowed to own both a newspaper and a TV station. That got to the absolute heart of the issue and to the nub of why the government is pursuing this legislation. The bill that got through the Senate contained about three-quarters of the proposed deregulation and reform that the government was supporting, but the government still rejected the amendment. Why? The net effect of the bill that passed the Senate was to take radio out of cross-media ownership altogether—so anybody can own a radio station—to reduce the scope of the cross-media ownership laws dramatically to that newspaper and TV in one market parameter and to eliminate all restrictions on foreign ownership of Australian media. The bulk of the government's original reform package was accepted by the Senate but one crucial point was not: the capacity of a media proprietor to own both a newspaper and a television station in a metropolitan market.

Why did the government choose not to proceed with the bill when it got three-quarters of its agenda? Why did the government decide that the bill was no longer of any value? The answer is very simple: the key media proprietors, in particular PBL and News Ltd, have made it very plain that they would rather have no change than the bill that passed through the Senate; the bill does not suit their interests. Radio stations are of relatively minor significance to major media empires. They could conceivably acquire the odd radio network here and there perhaps, but the real issue is newspapers and television. Because the bill was amended in a form that precludes News Ltd from buying a TV network and PBL from buying a newspaper, particularly Fairfax, it is no longer of any interest to them.

The bill is a bit negative because it proposes to allow foreign competition. It proposes to expose organisations like PBL, which have been able to luxuriate in a nicely protected restricted local market, to foreign competition, so they do not like it. That message, no doubt, was conveyed to the government and Senator Alston. Lo and behold, the opportunity to get three-quarters of the government's reform agenda to get substantial deregulation and liberalisation of our media ownership rules through was abandoned by the government. Their real agenda and real reasons for putting this legislation to the parliament in the first place were completely exposed.

This debate is ultimately all about something that is of fundamental importance for all Australians. Not everybody is excited about the debate; not everybody is interested in it. It does not figure.

Mr Murphy —I am excited.

Mr TANNER —The member for Lowe is definitely excited about the debate—there is no argument about that. There are many Australians who are barely aware that the debate is occurring. But it is of fundamental importance to them, because the health of our democracy depends on diversity of media ownership, on there being a diversity of voices in public debate and on there being a good range of different forms of media and different players in the media market who are competing vigorously and who are owned by different organisations and different people. That is fundamental to the health of any genuine democracy.

We have a highly concentrated media industry in this country. There are about half-a-dozen major players in the commercial media in Australia—realistically, only five. If this bill proceeds and is passed it will allow five or six media organisations to shrink to three. Three giant media organisations, courtesy of the merging of the various interests that will flow from the abolition of these regulations, will completely dominate our commercial media, airwaves, newsprint and public debate. We will have a very small number of gatekeepers in the process of public debate in this country. If this bill passes it will have a profoundly negative impact on Australian democracy.

If you have a particular cause, issue or point of view that you as a citizen or an interest group wish to pursue in our community to influence public opinion or change government policy, it is almost impossible to do that without significant exposure in the media. There are only a very small number of choices. There are only a very small number of organisations that control our media and a very small number of media organisations that employ journalists. This bill will severely restrict not only the options for people seeking to get a point of view across to the Australian community but also the employment alternatives for Australian journalists.

The government responds by arguing that we are entering into a new world in media. We are seeing the proliferation of a vast variety of new forms of media: the Internet and digitisation—all sorts of things are occurring. In a narrow sense, that is correct. We are seeing the very early stages of major change in how we communicate with each other, particularly on a mass audience basis. But we are at a very early stage of this process and there is no question that today, and for the short-to medium-term future, the old traditional media and the players in that media continue to dominate overwhelmingly. Although there are web sites and other mechanisms of communication emerging, they are very tiny, on the fringes and have very minor impact in public debate and very limited influence now and for the likely short- to medium-term future.

Mr Ciobo —Don't you read Crikey?

Mr TANNER —Why don't you try to cite two other examples? Yes, I do occasionally read Crikey and I am one of probably 0.1 percent of the Australian population that does. The established media—newspapers, television and radio—still totally dominate our media and the process of public opinion formation. But, more importantly, the Howard government that in this debate is saying that a thousand flowers are blooming and we have all this new media digitisation and Internet is the same government that put in place a ramshackle, antiquated regime governing the introduction of digital television. This is profoundly hobbling, shackling and retarding the development of digital television in Australia so that it is a very slow and painful process that is going nowhere fast.

It is the same government that has been asleep at the wheel on broadband and has overseen a situation where Australia is now 19th in the developed world in access to broadband—we are way behind comparable countries like Canada and the United States. So, on the one hand, the Howard government is saying that we can get rid of the rules about media ownership because there are all these new media mechanisms emerging but, on the other hand, we are falling behind the rest of the world because of the Howard government's inability to encourage and foster and enable these new forms of media to flourish.

It is ironic that the Howard government puts forward the view that the brave new world is upon us in one debate while, at the same time, it is proposing to hand over to the United States all effective control of our capacity to regulate local content in our media; effectively saying to people, `Don't worry; we'll still have our local content rules.' On the one hand in this debate the Howard government is essentially saying: `Look, TV's old hat. Don't worry; Kerry Packer's days are numbered. His enormous power and influence in public debates is going to disappear; there are all these new media.' But on the other hand, in the debate about the free trade agreement negotiations with the United States and local content rules, the Howard government is effectively saying to people, `Look, it doesn't matter if we sign away our right to regulate local content in new forms of media to the United States. It doesn't matter if we abandon any future capacity to regulate local content in new forms of media because we'll still have the local content rules on free-to-air television.' Both of those pictures cannot be accurate.

The real story is that we are going to see very substantial change, but it will take some time to emerge. But what the Howard government is proposing to do with the local content rules is to give up forever our capacity to regulate. What it is proposing to do with cross-media ownership rules is abandon an existing regime of regulation on the basis of a speculative assessment about where the future lies for media in this country and where public opinion formation is going to occur.

There are various other amendments included in the new version of the bill which are essentially a direct reflection of amendments that were agreed to by the government during the course of the bill's discussion in the Senate. Most of these do not really make much fundamental difference to the bill. They include, for example, obligations on media companies which hold a cross-media exception to disclose that holding in certain circumstances; prohibition on certain restrictive contracts which would prevent a particular program format being adopted by a commercial broadcasting outlet after it has been sold; an amendment which requires a minimum of four separately owned media groups to exist in regional Australia and five in capital cities; and various other amendments which ultimately are not, in most cases, particularly objectionable but really do not get to the essence of this bill.

The bill has been re-introduced in the form that was approved by the House but ultimately rejected by the Senate to ensure that it stands as a potential double dissolution trigger should it again be rejected by the Senate. As a result of adding all of these amendments, it is now something of a dog's breakfast and it has lost the clarity and simplicity that it had, without losing the malevolent element of substantially diminishing the diversity of media ownership in this country and substantially undermining the health and strength of our democratic system as a result.

Finally I will make some observations on the other aspect of the bill which has attracted a good deal less debate and comment than the cross-media ownership laws—that is, the proposal to remove restrictions on foreign ownership. Labor is broadly supportive of the government's aim in this regard. We believe that it is appropriate to allow full competition from foreign investors in the media but that there is a need for some safeguards. Unfortunately, the government has failed even to pick up on some of these issues where safeguards are required.

What particularly concerns us most is to ensure that, no matter who owns an Australian media outlet, the activity that is inherent in the production and dissemination of media occurs in Australia. We have no problem with CanWest effectively owning Channel 10. They have done a good job; Channel 10 has thrived in recent years. What we do want to make sure of is that Channel 10 is still, in effect, an Australian media outlet—that it is not just being run out of some international city and essentially being streamed to Australia and repeated. We want to make sure that the staff—the journalists, the technical and camera people, and the staff who produce and run things—are Australian, that they do their work in Australia and that we have a serious media industry. Technology is increasingly opening up the possibility for parts of media production activities to occur in the market where it is being disseminated. So, although we are supportive of the idea of getting rid of the foreign media ownership restrictions, we believe that there is a need for some safeguards to ensure that the jobs, skills and other activities that are involved in media remain in Australia—precisely as has happened in the Channel 10 situation. We are disappointed that the government has failed to include some provisions along those lines.

We also believe that it is entirely appropriate to remove the current restriction on new foreign owned newspapers being established in Australia. That can be done with a sweep of the Treasurer's pen. There is no legislative restriction on that. There is nothing to stop the New York Times, for example, setting up an Australian newspaper to compete with the Advertiser in Adelaide. The only thing that stops it happening is the Treasurer's guidelines connected with the way the Foreign Investment Review Board conducts its business—and the Treasurer makes decisions based on those recommendations.

We are quite happy with the relaxation of foreign ownership restrictions. More competition, new entrants and greater diversity would almost inevitably flow from that. For that reason, we do not, in a broad sense, reject that part of the bill, but we do believe that the government has gone about it in the wrong way. It has taken an open slather approach when a slightly more cautious approach would have been entirely appropriate. We do not mind if there is an increase in foreign ownership in our media, provided that the jobs, the activity, the content and the skills remain Australian. I do not believe that any Australian would be critical of CanWest's stewardship of Channel 10, and I think that stands as a good illustration that what matters is where the work occurs, where the activity occurs, where the output occurs and who does it. Provided that is Australian, I do not believe that it is a problem if it is owned by a foreign investor. But, unfortunately, the government has not even been able to manage to get that right in the legislation.

In conclusion, Labor again reject this legislation. We again emphatically oppose the government's attempt to unwind the protection of media diversity in this country. The media landscape is changing—that is without question—and there will come a time when there will be a need to reconsider how we regulate our media. There is no doubt about that. But, while it has its antiquated digital TV regime that restricts new competition, while broadband is languishing, while the traditional media still completely dominate our process of public opinion formation and public debate, there is no question that now is not the time to be reconsidering these matters. The government is simply seeking to do the bidding of the major media moguls to enable them to increase their power, their concentration of ownership and their dominance in public debate at the expense of other voices. That is unacceptable. It is a serious threat to the health of our democracy. It is a serious threat to the functioning of our democratic system. Diversity of media ownership and diversity of voice in public debate are fundamental to the health of our democracy. Labor will continue to stand absolutely firm and solid in support of that principle.