Senator MURRAY (6:24 PM) —I would like to open our side of the debate with some general remarks. I want to begin with a congratulatory note to the minister, because I think that this has been a brilliant example of very clever issues management. If I wanted to suppress dissent and ensure something very complex and rather awkward and ugly got through the Senate as quickly as possible, this is how I would manage it: you have a very short, intense and difficult to interact with process of Senate inquiry—which, I might say, is no discredit to the participants in that inquiry, from both the government side and the non-government side, as they all worked their little butts off collectively—and you do not introduce all of the bills that have to be dealt with until very late in the piece; you produce nine sets of supplementary explanatory memoranda and all the amendments late in the piece, all of which require some consideration and understanding; you bring on the debate as early as possible; and, of course, you conclude it with a guillotine. I think professionally speaking, through the chair, that is a brilliant example of chamber and political issues management to get the outcome you want!

Senator Conroy —I am trusting that is said with irony.

Senator MURRAY —Yes, I am sure that Hansard will put in nice little parentheses that this was said ironically. It was a brilliant piece of management. And if, as I do, you recognise that some—not all—of the corporates are partners in not wanting to agitate the populace on this issue and are running this at a relatively low level of exposure, debate and interaction, of course it becomes even more apparent that it is a very capable and clever issues management exercise. So, professionally speaking, as one professional to another, I think that is well done.

The side of it which would worry me if I were in the coalition is that it requires the bank of backbenchers—those who are not intertwined with the politics and the nature of this legislation—to adopt a ‘trust me’ approach. If there has ever been a set of bills on which you should not adopt a ‘trust me’ approach, it is this, because it goes to the heart of our democratic institutions and the protections that surround them.

I also want to say that senators in this place know that, by and large, I try and adopt a fairly equable demeanour, can take the punches when they come and try not to overreact. However, I must confess that this is one of the few debates and processes where I have genuinely felt agitated. I have genuinely felt agitated, out of sorts and irritable about this debate. I have been irritable in a general sense with how the journalists have conducted their examination of these issues. I can understand why many of them have not got across it, because they have been taken with the pace of it as much as we have. But I have played a little game this week with every journalist who has contacted or talked to me. I have said, ‘Have you read the Liberal report, the Labor report, the Democrats report and The Nationals report?’ and, to their credit, most of the journalists have answered, honestly, ‘No.’ So most of those journalists that I have spoken to have not got across all the issues.

Secondly, I have observed that the journalists are dealing with this in the normal fashion of: ‘Here we have a balance of power situation. What will we get out of a deal?’, whereas I almost feel like I can see the flames outside the building and the people on the dance floor are still dancing. I cannot understand why they do not react as I do because of the threat I see not just to democratic institutions but to their livelihoods. I cannot understand why not quite the same sense of the importance of this legislation is apparent with them. Perhaps it is because of my own background. Sometimes your background, your character and your nature put blinkers across your eyes.

I remind the chamber that I do come from southern Africa. I have had a deal of experience with tyrannical regimes, both white and black. I am very conscious of the way in which the media can influence very difficult situations in those countries and how much I admired the fourth estate who went to jail and stood out on behalf of the downtrodden in South Africa and how much I despised the toe lickers and forelock tuggers who did the opposite. I attach meanings to the fourth estate which perhaps are not the same as others, and I do not seek to impose those views on you. I have been agitated about, if I may describe it as such, the broad journalistic response.

A third area has agitated me and I have made a small practice of asking members of the coalition I respect and like a simple question. I suppose it is me engaging the right side of my brain, which I should not do too much. I keep saying to them: ‘What about this is in your political interest or the economic interest of Australia? As a Liberal person or as a National person what about this is in your interest? I just do not get it.’ Mostly, with one or two exceptions who seem to think, ‘She’ll be right,’ they look at me blankly and say, ‘I don’t know.’ In other words, they are back to a ‘trust me’ basis: they trust the minister and the cabinet and the loyal soldier comes in.

By the way, I am not casting a general view on all the Liberal and National senators or on the Liberal and National members of parliament, because it is certainly not true of all of them. But nowhere was this more evident when, before all these changes, the Liberal folk were right behind the minister, ‘We’ve got the best package, let’s go for it.’ Then when all the changes came in they said, ‘That’s great, we’ll go for that too.’ It completely altered the thing and I thought, ‘They’re behaving like loyal troops not like thinking parliamentarians whose future may be affected by this.’ I go back to that central question: why is it in the interests of any political party or political person for there to be less big media competition because that is what is going to result here? I cannot see any other consequences. I cannot see why that is in the interests of anybody. Perhaps the minister can explain, and that is the question I am putting.

As everyone knows, I indulge myself in the economic area, and I look at the economic side and I say, ‘Why is this in the economic interests of Australia?’ I have a really simple view: I think more competition is good for the economy, not less. I think concentration, whilst sometimes a consequence of the modern economy in the way in which you develop the economy, is an inevitable concept but here we are actually encouraging it. We do not have the regulatory tools, I might say, to restrain it sufficiently. So this bill will result in more economic concentration for big media and I cannot understand why that is in the interests of Australia.

Again, I turn to my coalition colleagues and say, ‘What good work, Senator Joyce, Senator Nash and Paul Neville and the backers in the National Party did, and what good work Senator Brandis, Senator Macdonald, Senator Ronaldson and others did; I must compliment them on their efforts.’ There are others who have been out there battling away regardless and there is the good, late response from the Treasurer who said, ‘Let’s make sure that we are one country here—that we have the same benefits in the metro as in the bush area,’ which I agree with. But regardless of all that good work, we still end up with a situation where we are going to have a greater concentration of media power. I cannot understand why that is in our economic interest or in our political interest.

Frankly, it does not affect me much. I am out of here, folks; June 2008 is it for me. It does not affect me personally. I am not arguing from self-interest here; I am arguing from Australia’s interest. I cannot see why it is in our interest to do this. I just cannot. Minister, I can understand the digital TV stuff. Yes, I do understand the communications bill, no problem; the fees bill, no problem. By and large, give or take a tweak or two, those three bills we can live with. I am even happy with the foreign investment side of it, subject to a few concerns which I want to explore in the debate. So all we are concerned with, out of four bills and all this whack of paper, is one schedule in that bill which deals with cross-media ownership and hurts Australia.

Please someone, stand up and explain to me why this is in our political interest and why it is in our economic interest. Just answer me that question. You can see from my demeanour that this is not usual for me. This floors me. My equability has gone. I am agitated and I am upset. I cannot comprehend it. I feel like I am talking to Mongolians. Mongolians are lovely people but I do not understand them, and I do not understand the Liberal and National parties’ decision in this respect. Yes, you have achieved a better package than we first had—I am grateful for it and well done—but you have not achieved a package which is in Australia’s interest.