Brian Harradine: The voice of reason on media laws

Here are Brian Harradine’s remarks on the cross-media legislation on the last day of debate. Brian, who has been in the Senate longer than anyone else, is a wise man. He is also incorruptible. He has a deep and abiding commitment to the public interest on matters of core principle.

I have often disagreed with Brian, especially on family planning matters, as he does not believe in family planning on religious grounds. He is a strong Catholic, and besides family planning, he has a deep commitment to the welfare of indigenous Australians and refugees.

I came to respect and admire Brian during the Wik debate, where he was willing to compromise on many matters with the government to avoid a race election, which he knew would be disastrous for Australia and for Aboriginal Australians, while standing firm on the four “sticking points”. When the success of One Nation at the 1998 Queensland election forced Howard ro reconsider his threat to take Australia to a race election on Wik, he met Brian and an extraordinary agreement was reached.

Howard would claim that Brian blinked, and Brian would not demur. This made it easier for Howard to ease his backdown through his hard core constituencies. History has shown that through a complex web of technicalities, Brian saved the right to negotiate and the other three core rights for Aborigines. To have the capacity to avoid claiming victory after a great victory is the sign of a great man.

On issues he considers non-core, Brian will trade for the benefit of the people of Tasmania. On core issues, he stands firm.

I was in Canberra last week for the cross media debate, which had looked to be in a bag for the government and the big two – Murdoch and Packer. I wondered whether Brian would consider media diversity to be core to our democracy. To my relief, he did. Thank you, Brian. Australia owes you an enormous debt of gratitude.

BROADCASTING SERVICES AMENDMENT (MEDIA OWNERSHIP) BILL 2002

26 June 2003

Senator HARRADINE (Tasmania) (11.23 p.m.)

The time is very late. I will seek leave to incorporate my speech in Hansard. It is really an appeal to the government, when this matter goes back to the House of Representatives, to reconsider and not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2002 has some very substantial reforms in it, and in itself it deserves to be supported with the amendments that I and other Senators have moved. The decision was overwhelming tonight – I think it was 36 to 29 – and that is a message that the people of Australia are giving the government in this matter. The people do not want further concentration of power in the major players in the media.

The speech reads as follows:

I am disappointed that the Government has not accepted the amended Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2002.

It seems that the Government is willing to risk sacrificing the whole bill and all the benefits the bill provides, just because it doesn’t like one or two of the amendments the Senate has made.

The Government has the chance to facilitate substantial reform of the Australian media industry by accepting this bill as amended.

I am aware of course that the amendments I moved last night have caused the Government some concern. My amendments, as senators would recall, prevent a media owner from owning a television station and a newspaper in the same mainland state capital city.

The Government has argued that because it cannot accept my amendment and therefore will reject the bill in the current form, and that we are playing into the hands of the big media players who will continue to do well under the current laws. It has argued that the losers will be the small to medium size media owners who will continue to be restricted by the current law.

Well the obvious answer to the Government is to support the amended bill. The bill will allow the small to medium sized media owners room to move and grow. The restrictions of my amendment only really impact on the big media owners. The big media moguls wouldn’t have won and the Government could rest easy.

So why doesn’t the Government pass the amended bill? Possibly because it is a bit more concerned about the effect it would have on the big media owners than they care to admit. Perhaps the real aim of this bill was to allow the big owners to get even bigger?

But let’s look at the large number of benefits this amended bill offers to reform the Australian media market place. These are the benefits that the Government wants to throw away. These are the benefits that the Government wants to reject rather than threaten the growth of the media moguls.

Benefits of the amended bill include:

* It allows newspapers to merge with radio;

* It allows television to merge with radio;

* It allows a media proprietor to own a newspaper in one city and a television licence in another city;

* It allows a media proprietor to own a number of television licences and a number of newspaper licences-as long as they are not in the same city;

* It allows regional media owners to own a television station and two radio stations in the same market, or a television station and a newspaper, or a newspaper and two radio stations;

* It protects the public by a ‘minimum voices’ rule so that cross-media mergers can only be approved if there are a minimum of five independently owned commercial media outlets in cities and a minimum of four in regional markets;

* It protects the public by ensuring that someone can only own one TV licence in a licence area;

* It establishes a requirement for an independent editorial board in a cross-media company, to protect editorial independence;

* It extends the two out of three rule to include small regional newspapers;

* It requires commercial TV operators to provide a minimum level of local news and information.

These are just some of the provisions of the amended bill – and the Government wants to throw them all away.

That’s not to say that I like all the provisions of this bill. But I was prepared to work with my colleagues and the Government to come to a compromise position. For example, I have voted to reduce foreign ownership restrictions – something I was not entirely comfortable with, but I think on balance is the correct decision.

But I have come to the decision that it is overwhelmingly in the public interest to ensure some basic restrictions on the ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same city.

I urge the Government not to reject this amended bill just because it does not allow for media moguls to create a cross-media company which could dominate a particular city’s media or which could be a dominant national force.

***

Brian Harradine also made these remarks on the night:

In Committee

Senator HARRADINE (Tasmania) (6.32 p.m.)

I will be very brief because I do not want to take up the time of the Senate; I know we are under a great deal of pressure. Senator Cherry asked me why I did not include the regionals in this area. The answer is simple: the major challenge is by the major media moguls and their being able to capture the television market and the newspaper market. I thought that was the key area in this debate on diversity.

I remind Senator Alston that 16 years ago I made a speech about the then broadcasting legislation. The minister will remember that, because he came in as a senator the year before, from memory. On that occasion I referred to a statement made by Mr Davidson in 1956, when he was the Postmaster-General, in which he talked about television licences. He said:

Television stations are in a position to exercise a constant and cumulative effect on public taste and standards of conduct, and, because of the influence they can bring to bear on the community, the business interests of licensees must at all times be subordinated to the overriding principle that the possession of a licence is, indeed, as the Royal Commission said, a public trust for the benefit of all members of our society.

And I said in my contribution to the second reading debate on 25 March 2003:

Those who own or run media organisations are in a position of privilege and influence. They are members of an unelected elite which is not effectively accountable to the Australian people. It is our job as elected legislators to ensure not only that there are reasonable parameters set for the running of successful media businesses but, much more importantly, that these parameters serve the Australian people.

That has been my view over a period of time, and Mr Davidson’s comments about the public trust issue have been seared into my mind ever since. I say to the minister that it is not me who is talking about this need to ensure diversity and to ensure that there is not less diversity; it is the Productivity Commission. I remind the Senate of what the Productivity Commission said – I have said it before and I will not say it again. Whether the major media moguls being able, under the bill, to buy the major newspapers, particularly in capital cities – and radio stations, as far as that is concerned – is in the public interest is a matter for prudential consideration.

I have looked at this issue and studied the reach of both the television industry organisations and the major newspapers, and I came to the decision that this bill needed amendment to ensure that there was no attack on the diversity that was mentioned as being absolutely essential by the Productivity Commission.

Disclosure: Margo Kingston owns shares in Fairfax.

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