Topics: proposed changes to media laws, appointment of the Fair Work Ombudsman to police 457 visas
Lyndal Curtis: Hello and welcome to Capital Hill, I’m Lyndal Curtis. Parliament House was replete with media moguls today as two parliamentary inquiries got underway into the proposed media changes by the Government. Most major media owners and chief executives continued their criticisms of plans for a public interest media advocate to oversee self-regulation for the print and online media. There were differences of opinion though, over plans to scrap the rule preventing a TV company from broadcasting to more than three-quarters of the population. Joining me to discuss the day are Labor Senator Doug Cameron and Liberal Senator Scott Ryan. Welcome to you both.
We will go first to the arguments of the media bosses before the inquiry into media regulation.
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Doug, you were in the inquiry all day today, have you been persuaded by, what seems to be the fundamental argument that media freedom, which is hard won, should not easily be given up?
Senator Doug Cameron: Well look, I don’t have an argument with media freedom. All that’s being said – and I think there is a bit of hysteria and hysterical responses from some of the media moguls –has been a bit of a joke. What we’re saying is if you have a code of conduct, if you have a press council and they set standards, then those standards should be adhered to and that has not been the happening.
Curtis: But it’s a problem that there is a lack of fine detail about exactly what role of the public interest media advocate would be and exactly what public interest is.
Senator Cameron: Well public interest, it’s interesting that News Ltd could actually define the public interest in its code of conduct for its employees in 2006 yet now, there is no comment on public interest. Look public interest is quite what it is, are things being done in the interests of the public? What we have at the moment is a huge challenge between commercial interest and public interest. The media moguls are saying it is all about commercial interest, they don’t want to mention public interest.
Curtis: Scott, does the system work perfectly now? The Coalition is not going to support these proposals, but does the system work perfectly now?
Senator Scott Ryan: And we’ve said we’re going to repeal them if Doug Cameron or Stephen Conroy have their way. Let’s imagine a press conference at the end of this year with Doug or Stephen, and there are two newspaper journalists there. One could be from a government-approved, accredited newspaper and the other one might not be. If they’re not someone who the bureaucrat – who is appointed by a politician – has actually ticked off their code of conduct, they are subject to a different set of laws. Let’s just go back and imagine …
Curtis: Isn’t that the way it works now to some extent? You can have a print journalist at a press conference and a broadcast journalist, and the broadcast journalist is overseen by government regulation, not exactly in the same way this is proposed.
Senator Ryan: That’s the point I was going to make. The Government and the Commonwealth have never regulated the content of newspapers outside wartime. This proposal has government-appointed bureaucrats, appointed by politicians, determining effectively whether some journalists are exempted from laws, or some journalists have laws applied to them that make them unable to do their jobs. This is unprecedented when it comes to newspapers.
Curtis: Does the system though, of self-regulation, work as well as it could?
Senator Ryan: Whether it works as well as it could, I won’t say. Is it perfect? We all get criticised, none of us like it. Politicians who are afraid of criticism should choose a different job. I’ll tell you what will be worse: a politician of any side of politics, government or opposition, nominating someone who then gets to decided which journalists are accredited and which ones aren’t. That’s much, much worse.
Senator Cameron: We’ve had a Press Council for 37 years, the Press Council has been underfunded. Companies have just simply said to the Press Council we are not going to accept your rulings. They’ve walked away from the Press Council and kept it under-funded. What the Government is saying to the Press Council is, ‘if you have a Press Council and you have standards, those standards should be met’. There is not one media mogul who has been able to answer that position today.
Curtis: But isn’t it the case that during that discussion about the Finkelstein reforms and about convergence the Press Council was beefed up? The companies put more money into it.
Senator Cameron: After 37 years and the Press Council is still saying it’s underfunded, it’s still got a problem that it could be closed down very quickly by one company moving away and just simply saying ‘we don’t like your rulings, we’re moving away’. What’s wrong with overseeing the rules, the self-regulation rules that the Press Council set up. We’re simply saying ‘we don’t want to end up with another Murdoch-type position here, like we had in the UK, let’s make sure the rules are there and rules are adhered to’.
Curtis: Isn’t it the case though that what’s happened in the United Kingdom, particularly with the phone hacking, has not been replicated in Australia and that the Government maybe hasn’t done enough to say what the problems are that it thinks this would solve?
Senator Cameron: I said to Kim Williams today, ‘you know, your arguments are the same arguments the Murdoch stable was putting to the parliamentarians in the UK’. They were saying ‘no, there’s not a problem’. Then it was the individual journalist that was the problem. Then it was an individual newspaper that was the problem. Then it was the Murdoch stable that was the problem. So we’ve heard all these arguments before, let’s get some transparency.
Senator Ryan: There is no evidence of any of those things happening in Australia.
Senator Cameron: And there was none in the UK.
Senator Ryan: This is extraordinary. Only the arrogance of Stephen Conroy and Doug Cameron in the Labor Party would think that after all their disasters, it is appropriate for a bureaucrat appointed by a politician to start regulating newspapers in this way. It has never happened before, it shouldn’t happen now. You said yourself Lyndal, there’s been no need, there has been no case established. Doug is merely trying to conflate two different countries because they have a similar shareholder.
Curtis: If I could ask you about something that was raised in the House of Representatives that you may not have seen because you were in the Senate today? Your leader, Tony Abbott, moved a suspension of standing orders, arguing for freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Anthony Albanese responded to that saying in the past, the Coalition has gagged community organisations receiving government funding from criticising government policies.
Senator Ryan: It is completely different. It is completely different for someone to say that someone who receives taxpayers’ money should spend that on the job for which they are paid, to regulating newspapers, which government has never had a role in. So to set up a newspaper you need a printing press and a journalist.
Curtis: So free speech only in some circumstances?
Senator Ryan: No, not at all. What this is about is regulating what the media can write. As Doug Cameron and Helen Polley said in the Senate today, this is all about nobbling News Ltd.
Senator Cameron: I’ve never said that, when have I said that?
Senator Ryan: You’ve been criticising and beating up on News Ltd, you interject across the chamber.
Senator Cameron: Of course I criticise them.
Senator Ryan: Every Liberal has grown up with The Age beating up on us for months and years.
Curtis: If I could move on quickly. There is another proposal being discussed and that’s what’s being called ‘removing the reach rules’. Doug, are you satisfied that there would continue to be strong local news services provided if mergers, such as the one rumoured between Channel Nine and Southern Cross Media, went ahead?
Senator Cameron: Channel Nine went so far today to say they would give a written contract to say there would be more local news. Other media people would say it will be the end of local production. I am more to the view that if it was lifted you would get more local content.
Curtis: Why do you say that?
Senator Cameron: Because there’s a constraint in terms of financing. If you get some of these companies in, give commitments and clear unequivocal commitments, like Channel Nine are prepared to do, that will widen the amount of local content. They’ve said they’ll employ more local journalists.
Curtis: Scott what do you say about the proposal to remove the 75 per cent reach rule?
Senator Ryan: I haven’t been privy to the hearings today that Doug has and the point you made the about contracts being signed and commitments with regards to resourcing local television news. I think we would have to look at what happened in radio and the aggregation in radio. That led to some mixed results and I know some of my colleagues in different parts of regional Australia have had some different experiences.
Curtis: We might move on now to the Government’s move to beef up the policing of 457 visas. Government announced today that the Fair Work Ombudsman will monitor and enforce compliance with visa conditions.
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Doug, is what the Government’s done enough to police the system that it says there are abuses in?
Senator Cameron: I think it is a good start. I’ve probably had more experience with 457 visas than any politician in the Parliament. I was a union official who was raising the problem with 457 visas years ago under the Howard government. I saw the rip offs that were taking place, I saw the intimidation, I saw the mafia-type intimidation against some Filipino families in the Philippines and some Korean workers’ families in Korea when they complained about their conditions and sought help.
Curtis: That’s a very different proposition isn’t it to the one the Prime Minister has been advancing to make sure that Australian jobs come first?
Senator Cameron: Well Australian jobs should come first but if there are workers here who are here on 457 visas, they should be looked after, they should get decent conditions. That’s what I fought for all my life. I fought for Chinese workers, Filipino workers, Korean workers who were being ripped off. If you’re on a 457 visa, the chances of you being injured or killed on the job are far more than an Australian worker, so they should be helped and protected.
Curtis: Scott, as I said, the Government is beefing up the number of people who can check compliance with visas. Do you see anything wrong with that?
Senator Ryan: This is just another confected and contrived stunt by Labor to draw attention away from their failure on immigration and border protection issues. Let’s just look at some hard numbers. They’ve cut the amount of money the Department of Immigration has to protect and police immigration and visa issues in Australia from over $70 million to just over $50 million. They’ve cut the number of people in the Fair Work Ombudsman. You talk about there being a problem here, but they’ve never been able to point to prosecutions and problems. The motivation of this is all about trying to provide a distraction for Labor from their complete failure on border protection.
Curtis: But is there anything wrong with having more people checking the job description used for the visa is actually the one the worker is working in?
Senator Ryan: In principle, enforcement of our laws, we’ve made criticisms of the Labor Party for not enforcing everything to do with immigration. They’ve failed at everything they’ve touched. Why anyone would have any faith in them picking up this ball and running with it so close to the election? I don’t know.
Senator Cameron: You’ve been listening to the media moguls today, the hyperbole is over the top.
Senator Ryan: You’ve failed on everything Doug. You don’t even agree with the Labor Party’s border protection policy.
Curtis: Is there a difference though Doug, in the language that has been used by the Prime Minister, and the sort of language Bill Shorten used today, saying it doesn’t matter to him where the worker comes from, he is about checking they are being paid and the conditions are right?
Senator Cameron: Bill Shorten and I were union officials together. We did many jobs together and I know Bill’s view is the same as mine in terms of 457 visas. That is, if they are appropriate to be used, the workers that are coming in should be looked after and protected.
Curtis: And that’s where we will have to leave it, Scott Ryan and Doug Cameron thank you very much for your time.