Introductory Info
Date introduced: 31 July 2019
House: House of Representatives
Portfolio: Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts
Commencement: The day after the Act receives Royal Assent.
The Bills
Digest at a glance
The Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and Regional Measures) Bill 2019
seeks to amend the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 to:
- change
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Charter to include the
requirement that ABC programs contribute to a sense of regional identity and
reflect the geographic diversity of the Australian community
- establish
a ‘Regional Advisory Council’ for the purpose of advising the ABC Board on
matters relating to the provision of broadcasting services in regional areas
- require
the Government to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the ABC Board has at
least two appointed non-executive directors who have a substantial connection
to, or substantial experience in, a regional area and
- add
several matters to those the ABC is required to include in its annual report. These
include information on all consultations between the ABC Board and the Regional
Advisory Council, the number of individuals employed in metropolitan and
regional areas, and the total number of hours of local or regional news
bulletins broadcast during the reporting period.
The measures proposed in the Bill were previously
introduced in the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and Regional Measures) Bill 2017,
which was in identical terms to the current Bill.
Measures proposed in the Bill, when introduced in 2017,
were supported by stakeholders such as Free TV Australia, the National Farmers
Federation and Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association, though some
suggested more should be done to ensure that remote areas are better recognised
by the Bill.
The ABC was opposed to the 2017 Bill, arguing that it has
maintained a strong commitment to regional Australia and that the measures in
the Bill are unnecessary.
The Bill raises broader issues such as the adequacy of the
ABC’s coverage of regional areas, the extent to which the ABC should be
regarded as a ‘market failure’ broadcaster and whether the Bill represents
‘legislative interference’ in the operations of the ABC.
History of the Bill
On 1 December 2015, Senator Bridget McKenzie introduced a
Private Senator’s Bill to Parliament, the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and Regional Advocacy) Bill 2015 (the
McKenzie Bill). The McKenzie Bill was referred to the Senate Environment and
Communications Legislation Committee on 3 December 2015.[1]
The Senate Environment and Communications Legislation
Committee planned public hearings for May 2016.[2]
But after the Governor-General dissolved the Senate and the House of
Representatives on 9 May 2016, the Bill lapsed.[3]
The Committee released an interim report on 5 May 2016, detailing the
McKenzie Bill and responses by stakeholders, including the ABC, the Media
Entertainment and Arts Alliance, and state and local governments.[4]
After the 45th Parliament commenced on 30 August 2016, the
McKenzie Bill was restored to the Notice Paper and the Senate again referred it
for inquiry, with a report to be produced by 30 November 2016.[5]
This was later extended to 13 April 2017.[6]
The Committee’s final report made several recommendations
to adjust the 2015 Bill.[7]
Between the introduction of Senator McKenzie’s
Bill and the Committee’s final report, other developments occurred, including concessions
made by the Government to Pauline
Hanson’s One
Nation (PHON) in order to pass media reform laws.[8] One concession was a commitment to
introduce the McKenzie proposals.
The Government introduced the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and Regional Measures) Bill 2017 (the
2017 Bill) in the Senate on 18 October 2017.[9]
This Bill responded to both the intent of the McKenzie Bill and
negotiations made with PHON. This Bill subsequently lapsed at the
end of the 45th Parliament.[10]
The Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and Regional Measures) Bill 2019 (the Bill), which was introduced into the House of
Representatives by the Government on 31 July 2019, is in equivalent terms to
the 2017 Bill.[11]
A Bills Digest for the 2017 Bill was published in August
2018.[12]
Since that time, there have been no new inquiries or other major developments
in relation to the amendments in the Bill. As such, most of the material in
this Bills Digest has been sourced from that earlier one.
Purpose of the Bill
The purpose of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Amendment (Rural and Regional Measures) Bill 2019 (the Bill) is to amend the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 (ABC Act) to:
- change
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Charter to include the
requirement that ABC programs contribute to a sense of regional identity and
reflect the geographic diversity of the Australian community
- establish
a ‘Regional Advisory Council’ for the purpose of advising the ABC Board on
matters relating to the provision of broadcasting services in regional areas
- require
the Government to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the ABC Board has at
least two appointed non-executive directors who have a substantial connection
to, or substantial experience in, a regional area and
- add
several matters to those the ABC is required to include in its annual report.
These include information on all consultations between the ABC Board and the
Regional Advisory Council, the number of individuals employed in metropolitan
and regional areas, and the total number of hours of local or regional news
bulletins broadcast during the reporting period.
Neither the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill nor the
Minister’s second reading speech identify a specific policy problem or issue
(for example, service gap) that the Bill is seeking to address.[13]
According to the Minister for Communications, Paul Fletcher, the purpose of
these changes is to ‘ensure regional communities are provided for in the
functions of the [ABC], and represented on the ABC Board’.[14]
Further, the Bill is intended to ‘support and cement’ the ABC’s role in
regional Australia and ‘ensure the ABC continues to focus on and meet the
diverse needs of rural and regional Australia’.[15]
Structure of
the Bill
The Bill has one Schedule, comprised of two parts.
Part 1 introduces amendments to the ABC Act that
provide for the Government’s measures relating to the role of the ABC in
regional Australia.
Part 2 contains provisions concerning when amendments
relating to annual reporting will commence, and transitional provisions
intended to provide for the introduction of the new requirement that at least
two directors have a substantial connection to, or substantial experience in, a
regional area.
Background
In August 2017, the Government secured the support of
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party (PHON) for passage of the Broadcasting
Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Act 2017.[16]
In exchange for this support, the Government agreed to initiate an inquiry into
‘whether or not the practices of the national broadcasters are breaching the
general principle of competitive neutrality[17]
and that they are operating on a level playing field with their commercial
counterparts’.[18]
Legislative initiatives arising from the Government-PHON arrangement were:
The remainder of this background provides information on
legislation, governance and operations of the ABC, and recent debates about the
ABC and regional Australia.
Legislation, governance and
operations of the ABC
The ABC is a Commonwealth Government statutory authority
established under the ABC Act.[22]
The ABC Charter outlines the functions and responsibilities of the ABC, and is
found in section 6 of the ABC Act. While part of the Act, any alleged ‘breach’
of the Charter does not result in enforcement action. The Charter outlines
obligations on the ABC that the ABC Board can interpret as it sees fit.
The ABC is subject to the Public Governance,
Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act), which sets
the standards of governance, performance and accountability for all Commonwealth
Government entities.[23]
The ABC is required to issue an annual report to the Minister for
Communications under section 46 of the PGPA Act. Matters
to be included in the annual report are set out in section 80 of the ABC
Act.
The ABC is also guided by internal policies, codes, and
corporate social responsibility principles.[24]
ABC Board
The ABC Act also establishes the ABC Board (section
7), which has responsibility for the operations of the ABC. The duties of the
Board are outlined in section 8 and include:
- ensuring
that ‘the functions of the ABC are performed efficiently with maximum benefit
to the people of Australia’
- maintaining
the ‘independence and integrity’ of the ABC
- ensuring
that ‘the gathering and presentation of news and information is accurate and
impartial, according to recognised standards of objective journalism’
- ensuring
that the ABC complies with legislative and legal requirements and
- developing
codes of practice in relation to programming and other matters.
The Board consists of a Managing Director, Chairperson,
staff-elected Director and between four and six other Directors (subsection
12(1) of the ABC Act). The Chairperson and non-executive Directors
(other than the staff-elected Director) are appointed by the Governor-General
on recommendation of the Government (subsection 12(2) of the ABC Act).
The Managing Director is appointed by the Board (subsection 13(1) of the ABC
Act).
Directors must be experienced in broadcasting,
communications or management, or have expertise in financial or technical
matters, or have cultural or other interests relevant to the provision of
broadcasting services (section 12(5) of the ABC Act).
ABC Advisory Council
The ABC Advisory Council is established by the ABC Board (subsection
11(1) of the ABC Act). It advises the ABC Board on matters relating to
the ABC’s broadcasting programs (subsection 11(3) of the ABC Act). The
ABC Board may establish additional Advisory Councils in relation to a state,
territory or region in order to advise the ABC Advisory Council on ‘matters
relating to the Corporation’s broadcasting programs in that state, territory or
region’ (subsections 11(2) and (4) of the ABC Act).
In making appointments to the ABC Advisory Council, the
ABC Board must ‘have regard to the desirability
of including in the membership of that Advisory Council a broad representation
of the Australian community’ (subsection 11(6) of the ABC Act).
ABC offices
The ABC Head Office is in Ultimo (Sydney), New South Wales.[25]
This includes the corporate offices with responsibility for audiences,
commercial activities, engagement, finance, government relations, news, radio,
technology and television.
The ABC has an office in each state or territory capital and
46 offices in non-capital city locations across Australia.[26]
The ABC has Overseas Offices in seven locations: Beijing,
Jakarta, London, Nairobi, Port Moresby, Tokyo and Washington.[27]
It also has home-based reporters in Bangkok, Beirut, New Delhi and Jerusalem.
ABC and regional Australia:
recent debates
Budget cuts 2014–15
While debates around the ABC and regional Australia are
old, the most recent policy discussion can be traced back to the 2014–15
federal budget, and its reduction in ABC and SBS funding. These ‘efficiency
savings’ involved ‘a one per cent reduction in the base funding of
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Special Broadcasting Service
Corporation’, totalling ‘$43.5 million over four years’.[28]
According to the budget papers, this represented a ‘down payment on the ABC and
SBS Efficiency Study’, where further savings would be considered.
The ABC criticised the decision at the time.
Representatives argued the cuts would jeopardise the Corporation’s ability to
produce the content expected of it. According to the then Managing Director,
Mark Scott, the ABC was already an efficient organisation, without obvious
inefficiencies to cut:
The funding cuts will be disappointing for audiences. The
government gave repeated commitments before and after the election that funding
for the Corporation would be maintained ... The ABC is very tightly geared. We
have been diligent in reducing backroom costs over recent years to ensure the
ABC can deliver better and more varied content to our audiences. That strategy
has enabled the ABC to self-fund important new initiatives like iview, ABC News24, triple j
Unearthed online and a range of other new digital services.[29]
It was announced
in January 2014 by the then Minister for Communications, Malcolm Turnbull, that
Peter Lewis, former Chief Financial Officer of Seven West Media, would assist
the Department of Communication and the Arts to undertake a study into the
efficiency of the operations of the ABC and SBS.[30]
Adopting
a broad definition of efficiency, the study proposed a range of operational
efficiencies and savings.
In November 2014, the then Minister for Communications,
Malcolm Turnbull, released the Government’s five year funding arrangements for
the ABC and SBS. This involved a much larger cut—of $254 million and $25
million respectively. According to Mr Turnbull, these changes would ‘see the
ABC and SBS eliminate inefficiencies in their back office operations, ensuring
they deliver Australia even better value’:
For the ABC this means it will receive $5.2 billion over five
years rather than $5.5 billion—a saving of $254 million or 4.6 per cent. For
the SBS this means its operating budget will be reduced by $25.2 million or 1.7
per cent over the five year period. A legislative change to allow SBS to
generate further revenue by changing its advertising arrangements will bring
the total savings returned to the budget to $53.7 million or 3.7 per cent.[31]
In the week after Mr Turnbull’s announcement, Mr Scott
announced a series of changes to ABC operations. This included up to 400 job
cuts, the closing of Adelaide TV studios, the ending of state-based ‘7.30
reports’, and the downsizing of foreign bureaus. It also involved closing a
number of regional radio posts in Wagin, Morwell, Gladstone, Port Augusta and
Nowra. It also decommissioned Radio National’s rural program, ‘Bush Telegraph’.[32]
Regional Members of Parliament, particularly those from
the National Party, reacted angrily to these changes. These MPs argued that the
ABC was reducing its regional presence, while consolidating its operations to
Sydney and Melbourne. Darren Chester, for instance, described it as an ‘example of the twisted priorities in the
organisation and a Sydney focus’.[33]
As reported by The Australian, Victorian Nationals Senator,
Bridget McKenzie, said she would write to Mr Scott and ABC chairman James
Spigelman to protest against the cuts.[34]
A month later, in hearings for the Select Committee into
the Abbott Government’s Budget Cuts, held in December 2014, Senator McKenzie
continued to question the ABC’s direction. This went beyond the recent
decisions, with the Senator challenging the organisation’s broader corporate
strategy:
Has Mark Scott got his
priority settings right, given the conversation we have been having? There is
the Catalyst and Compass issue that
you raised in your opening statement, when we compare it to entering a
breakfast media market that is already covered by Seven, Nine and Ten, and the
resources that have been flooding into the digital effort, if you like. It is
focused on the audience—always the audience—to the detriment, I would suggest,
of those programs that nobody else is going to make: things like Compass, Catalyst and
content around regional areas—not just being able to beam it into Sydney but
having a physical presence across the country. Has Mark Scott got the
priorities right in how he has delivered these savings?[35]
Senator McKenzie’s Private Senators’
Bill
On 1 December 2015, Senator McKenzie introduced a Private
Senators’ Bill to Parliament, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment
(Rural and Regional Advocacy) Bill 2015 (the McKenzie Bill).[36]
The McKenzie Bill included a number of amendments to the ABC Act
intended to ‘define the Corporation’s mandate for its public service function
for journalism in rural and regional Australia’.[37]
The proposed amendments included:
- the
creation of a ‘Rural and Regional Council’ to advise the ABC Board on policies
‘affecting regional areas’
- a
requirement that the ABC Board include at least two directors who reside in
regional areas
- a
requirement that the ABC ‘broadcast at least five radio bulletins that consist
solely or primarily of regional or local news between 5am and 8pm, at regular
intervals’
- changing
the ABC Charter to include:
- reference
to reflecting Australia's ‘geographic’ as well as ‘cultural’ diversity
- a
requirement that the ABC ‘foster an environment conducive to the promotion of
regional journalism and allocate the resources necessary to carry out the
Corporation’s functions and duties in rural and regional Australia’
- a
requirement that the ABC ‘maintain an effective presence in regional
communities and ... provide regular transmissions of local content across a
variety of platforms’ and
- a
requirement that the ABC ‘approach its obligations to provide services in
regional Australia from a social service and community perspective, as opposed
to a purely commercial position, when making programming and management
decisions’
- a
requirement that the ABC ‘facilitate employment of a proportion of staff in
regional areas’
- a
requirement that the ABC include ‘additional matters for inclusion in the
Corporation's annual reports in relation to the activities of the Rural and
Regional Advisory Council and the Corporation's activities in regional areas’.[38]
In Senator McKenzie’s second reading speech, she presented
a broad rationale for the changes. The first emphasised what she saw as the
ABC’s mandate as a public broadcaster:
The ABC is a public broadcaster and in turn, is expected to provide
services to certain areas and to certain community groups with reference to
community service and local relevance. To be more explicit, as a public
broadcaster, it is expected to pay greater attention to market-failure
principles and serve the areas and demographics where commercial companies
would fear to tread.[39]
Senator McKenzie suggested the amendments would promote
coverage in these areas, even if it was not profitable for private enterprise:
This Bill removes ambiguity as to ABC's mandate in regional
Australia and reinforces the expectation that as a public broadcaster, its
mandate is not to compete for breakfast news ratings, but rather to prioritise
service to our regions with a civic purpose in mind, not a commercial one. As a
public broadcaster, no economic rationalist need be brought to the table when
arguing about the provision of basic services to our regions. The digital age
should be expanding horizons and narrative choice, not creating local media
black spots.[40]
Committee
inquiry and developments at the ABC
The McKenzie Bill was referred
to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee on 3
December 2015.
The Committee planned public hearings for May 2016. But,
after the Governor-General dissolved Parliament on 9 May 2016, the
Bill lapsed. The Committee released an interim report on 5 May 2016, detailing
the McKenzie Bill and responses by stakeholders, including the ABC, the Media
Entertainment and Arts Alliance, and state and local governments. The Committee
concluded that further analysis was necessary:
In this interim report, the committee has outlined
submitters' views and the ABC's response to the bill. The committee has yet to
examine these in depth through public hearings and thus has not been able to
draw any specific conclusions. The issues raised will be further explored
during the conduct of the inquiry.[41]
After the 45th Parliament
commenced on 30 August 2016, the McKenzie Bill was restored to the Notice Paper
and the Senate again referred it for inquiry, with a report to be produced by
30 November 2016. This was later extended to 13 April 2017.
Between the introduction of
Senator McKenzie’s Bill and the Committee’s final report in relation to it, two
developments arose regarding the ABC’s presence in regional areas. One was the
ABC’s decision to restructure, savings from which were to be used for new
content and increased investment in regional Australia. According to the then Managing
Director, Michelle Guthrie, the fund would ‘extend reach and engagement’, with
a special focus on regional areas:
Regional investment will be a priority. We’re committing to
an injection of funds, ultimately building to $15 million a year, to provide
more reporters and content makers, better tools and increased video and digital
output. The ABC will recruit up to 80 new content roles in regional areas
within 18 months.[42]
Former Senator Fiona Nash,
the Coalition’s Minister for Regional Communications at the time, welcomed the
new funding and positions. In her view, there should be ‘more like it’:
I certainly won't be taking a backwards step in watching what
the ABC is doing, in terms of their commitment to regional communities. It's
vitally important that they get a good deal, and that the ABC recognises how
important regional people are right across this country.[43]
The second development
involved changes to ABC radio. In February 2017, Ms Guthrie informed the
Committee that the ABC would terminate shortwave transmission services to the
Northern Territory. According to Ms Guthrie, this was because it duplicated
other services, and ‘was not in the best
interests of the efficient operation of the ABC budget’. The decision
received a number of complaints from remote citizens, though the ABC claimed
they were modest in number.[44]
The Committee ultimately criticised the cuts:
The committee considers that
the termination of shortwave transmission services in the Northern Territory
points to the ABC's lack of understanding of the importance of this form of
transmission. Although the number of users of shortwave may be small, these
users are often located in the remotest parts of Australia with no other means
of receiving news and crucial emergency information. In particular, the
committee is disturbed by the ABC's lack of consultation with important
stakeholders before the decision to terminate the service was taken.[45]
In the Committee’s final report, released in April 2017,
the majority supported the McKenzie Bill’s central aim. ‘While acknowledging
the importance of the ABC's independence and the need for operational
flexibility in a rapidly changing media environment’, the report stated, ‘the
committee considers that further mechanisms are required to ensure that
communities in rural and regional Australia are not disadvantaged in their
access to ABC services’.[46]
The majority report recommended passing the McKenzie Bill, subject to certain
amendments. Those amendments would have removed the direct content obligations,
while keeping the changes to the ABC’s board and charter:
The committee considers that it is highly desirable that the
Charter be amended to reflect the importance of the ABC in rural and regional
Australia. In particular, the committee supports the change to the Charter
contained in proposed subparagraph 6(1)(a)(i) so that programs broadcast by the
ABC not only contribute to a sense of national identity or cultural diversity,
but also reflect the regional identity and geographic diversity of the
Australian community.
However, the committee does not support requiring the ABC to
approach its obligations to provide services in regional Australia from a
social service and community perspective, as opposed to a purely commercial
position, when making programming and management decisions (proposed
subparagraph 6(2)(a)(vi)). The committee recommends that this provision be omitted
from the bill.
The committee recommends that proposed subparagraph
6(2)(a)(vi), paragraph 8(2A)(a), subsection 27(2), section 34 and
paragraph 80(ea) be omitted from the bill.[47]
One Nation negotiations
In June 2017, the Government introduced a separate piece
of media reform, the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment
(Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017. This changed ownership rules, removing
the law that prohibited commercial television
broadcasting licensees from controlling licences whose combined licence area
populations exceed 75 per cent of the Australian population, as well as the law
that prohibited control over more than two out of three regulated media
platforms in any one commercial radio licence area. In negotiations with the
Government, One Nation demanded concessions in return for its vote:
One Nation will support the package in return for the
Government implementing and introducing legislation, where necessary, to give
effect to:
- A public register of foreign-owned media assets;
- The proposals of Senator Bridget McKenzie to enhance the ABC's focus on
rural and regional Australia;
- A range of enhanced transparency measures for the public broadcasters,
and;
- a community radio package. [48]
The second concession explicitly references Senator
McKenzie’s Private Members Bill. One Nation’s agreement outlined its
expectations in further detail:
Government will introduce the McKenzie proposals as
Government legislation by the end of 2017. These changes would ensure that the
needs of rural and regional communities would receive appropriate focus by the
ABC. Specifically these proposals would be to:
- Insert words into the ABC Charter to explicitly require a focus on
regional Australia;
- Require the ABC Board to establish a Regional Advisory Council;
- Require the ABC Board to consult with the Regional Advisory Council on
service changes which will have a significant impact on regional audiences in
particular;
- Require the ABC Board to have at least two non-executive directors, who
have a substantial connection to, or experience in, a rural or regional
community through business, industry or community involvement. When appointing
non-executive directors to these positions, the Minister must table a statement
in Parliament detailing how the appointees satisfy this criterion; and
- Require the ABC to include certain particulars in its Annual Report,
such as a breakdown of rural and regional versus metro employees, ratios of
journalists to support staff and hours of local rural and regional news
broadcasts aggregated by broadcast area.[49]
The Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and Regional Measures) Bill 2017
(2017 Bill), which was introduced to Parliament on 18 October 2017
responded to both the intent of the McKenzie Bill and the commitment made by
the Government to One Nation to ensure the passage of its media reforms.[50]
The 2017 Bill lapsed at the end of the 45th
Parliament.[51]
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural
and Regional Measures) Bill 2019 (the
Bill), which was introduced into the House of
Representatives on 31 July 2019, is in equivalent terms to the 2017 Bill.[52]
Committee
consideration
Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee
The Senate Selection of Bills Committee has recommended
that the Bill not be referred to committee.[53]
The 2017 Bill was referred to the Senate Environment and
Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 16 February 2018.
Details of the inquiry are at the inquiry homepage.
Report
The Committee found that the 2017 Bill ‘contain[ed] a
range of important and appropriate measures to support and cement [the role
played by the ABC in rural and regional Australia] and ensure the ABC continues
to focus on and meet the diverse needs of rural and regional Australia’.[54]
It recommended that the Bill be passed.
Dissenting reports
In a Dissenting report, Labor Senators on the Committee
opposed the recommendation of the Committee, arguing that ‘the Bill is
unwarranted, misguided, duplicative and costly’.[55]
The Australian Greens Senators on the Committee also
tabled a Dissenting report, which also recommended that the Bill not proceed.[56]
According to the Australian Greens Senators, the measures in the Bill represent
‘a solution in search of a problem’ and ‘[i]f there is a need for the ABC to do
more to meet the particular needs of rural and regional audiences, then perhaps
there is a need for the ABC to be funded to provide more’.[57]
Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills
At the time of writing, the Senate Standing Committee for
the Scrutiny of Bills had not considered the Bill. The Committee made no
comment on the 2017 Bill.[58]
Policy
position of non-government parties/independents
At the time of writing, no comments on the Bill by
non-government parties or independents have been identified.
In relation to the 2017 Bill, as noted above, both Labor and
Greens Senators on the Senate inquiry into the Bill opposed the Bill.[59]
PHON supported the 2017 Bill as part of their earlier
negotiations with the Government on media reform.[60]
Nick Xenophon Team/Centre Alliance
Former Senator, Nick Xenophon, has spoken about the need
to preserve broad ABC coverage around Australia. He opposed the closure of ABC
television studios in Adelaide.[61]
He presented a Bill to restore ABC shortwave transmission in 2017.[62]
It is unclear, however, whether the Nick Xenophon Team (now, the Centre
Alliance) supports the specific measures in this Bill.
Cory Bernardi
While a specific position on this Bill has not been
identified, Independent Senator Cory Bernardi has previously advocated a
greater rural and regional focus for the ABC. In Senate debate over the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment
(Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017, he said that, ideally, ‘we would give the consolidated broadcaster a greater rural
and regional focus, which is where the market breakdown is happening’.[63]
Andrew Wilkie MP
Andrew Wilkie has previously spoken about the impact of
ABC funding cuts on regional and rural coverage.[64]
It is not clear, however, whether he supports these measures.
Position of
major interest groups
Key stakeholders issues statements
in response to the 2017 Bill, and made submissions to the Senate Environment
and Communications Legislation Committee inquiry into that Bill, which are
discussed below. No stakeholder commentary on the current Bill has been
identified.
ABC
The ABC opposed the 2017 Bill, arguing that ‘the current ABC
Act, including the ABC Charter, is appropriately drafted to ensure that the
ABC is well placed now and into the future to serve all Australians,
irrespective of where they live’.[65]
ABC Friends
In its submission to the Committee inquiry into the 2017
Bill, ABC Friends stated its ‘commitment to ABC service provision throughout
the country’ and noted additional recent investment in regional areas.[66]
In relation to the proposed requirement that two ABC
Directors have a connection with/experience in regional Australia, ABC Friends
said that it does not ‘consider that merely living in a particular area of
Australia necessarily equips a Board Member to interpret and advise on a wide
range of policy directions in a complex media environment’.
In relation to the proposed establishment of a Regional
Advisory Committee, ABC Friends stated that ‘the ABC Advisory Committee already
constitutes a broad cross section of representatives from all states, so we
believe this entity is already fulfilling a role in reflecting issues from
around Australia’
Cotton Australia
Cotton Australia supported the 2017 Bill, regarding the
measures as ‘a means to refocusing and increasing emphasis towards regional
services within ABC’.[67]
Free TV Australia
Free TV Australia (FTVA) supported the 2017 Bill.[68]
National Farmers’ Federation
The National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) ‘welcome[d] the
regional measures contained in [the 2017] Bill as a means to refocusing and
increasing emphasis towards regional services within ABC and [was] supportive
of this Bill’.[69]
Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association
The Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association (NTCA) supported
the 2017 Bill, but argued in relation to the proposed requirement that two ABC
Directors have a connection with/experience in regional Australia, that ‘one of
the two directors should be from remote Australia’.[70]
Financial
implications
The Government says that the Regional Advisory Council
will ‘result in an outlay for the ABC of $0.1 million per annum ongoing’, which
will be ‘absorbed by the ABC’.[71]
It says that the other measures in the Bill are not expected to have a
financial impact.
Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights
As required under Part 3 of the Human Rights
(Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 (Cth), the Government has assessed
the Bill’s compatibility with the human rights and freedoms recognised or
declared in the international instruments listed in section 3 of that Act. The
Government considers that the Bill is compatible.[72]
Parliamentary
Joint Committee on Human Rights
At the time of writing, the Parliamentary Joint Committee
on Human Rights had not examined the Bill. The Committee considered that the 2017
Bill did not raise human rights concerns.[73]
Key provisions
Definitions
Item 2 of the Bill inserts definitions of the terms
metropolitan area and regional area into existing
subsection 3(1) of the ABC Act. The Explanatory Memorandum says these
are ‘central to various new transparency measures proposed by the Bill’.[74]
Metropolitan area would be defined as a
‘Greater Capital City Statistical Area’ (GCCSA) as per the Australian Bureau of
Statistics (ABS) Australian Statistical Geography Standard (most recent
published edition). Regional area would mean an area in Australia
that is not a metropolitan area.[75]
Comment—adequacy of
definitions
Under the proposed definition, metropolitan
(that is, GCCSA) area would include each state capital, Darwin and the entire Australian
Capital Territory. The ABS defines everything that is not part of a GCCSA as
‘rest of state’ and includes large cities (such as Newcastle, Wollongong,
Geelong, Toowoomba, Gold Coast, Cairns, Townsville, Mackay and Launceston),
urban centres and rural and remote localities. Around two thirds of Australians
live in metropolitan areas and one third live in regional areas.[76]
Some submissions to the inquiry on the 2017 Bill noted
that the proposed definition of regional area is broad and could lead to an
insufficient focus on remote areas. For example, in an individual submission
Benjamin Quilliam, a pastor from Alice Springs, argued:
... remote Australians are still at risk of being left out as
the Bill currently stands. The Bill’s definition of “regional” is fairly broad
and encompasses significant urban areas as well as remote areas.[77]
Pastor Quilliam went on to suggest some options for better
representing remote areas, including ‘chang[ing] the categorisation to a
three-fold “metropolitan”, “regional (or rural)” and “remote”’.[78]
Similarly, the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association
argued:
... one of the two proposed Directors should be specifically
from "remote" Australia. Given the definition of "regional"
in statistical terms the majority of the continent could still be unrepresented
under the proposed amendment.[79]
It is also possible to question whether ‘rural’
communities will be adequately covered by the definition of ‘regional’
presented in the Bill. As noted above, in the Bill, a ‘regional area’ is any
area that is not ‘metropolitan’. However, it could be argued that it is an
all-encompassing definition that does not provide enough certainty that towns
and areas commonly thought of as ‘rural’, as opposed to ‘regional’, will be
appropriately catered for.
In its submission to the 2017 Bill inquiry, the ABC raised
concerns with the introduction of a distinction between metropolitan and
regional services, noting that many staff based in metropolitan areas provide
assistance to regional teams and/or program content focused on regional areas.[80]
This is discussed in further detail below.
Inclusion of regional and
geographic diversity
The Bill proposes to change the ABC Charter to include the
requirement that ABC programs contribute to a sense of regional identity and
reflect the geographic diversity of the Australian community.
According to Minister Fletcher:
Most Australians would be surprised to learn that the Charter
currently has no such references. This is an important amendment that codifies
the relationship that the ABC already has with regional Australia, and helps to
ensure the organisation continues to provide services that are valued by, and
reflect the needs of, rural and regional communities.[81]
In order to introduce this change:
- item
3 of the Bill inserts the words ‘regional and’ into subparagraph 6(1)(a)(i)
of the ABC Act and
- item
4 of the Bill inserts the word ‘geographic and’ into subparagraph
6(1)(a)(i) of the ABC Act.
The effect of these amendments would be that under proposed
subparagraph 6(1)(a)(i) the functions of the ABC would be to provide:
(i) broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of regional
and national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect geographic
and the cultural diversity of, the Australian community [...] (italics
added).
Comment—changes to the ABC
Charter
A number of submissions to the Senate inquiry into the 2017
Bill welcomed the proposed change to the ABC Charter. For example, the Northern
Territory Cattleman’s Association argued that the change ‘will enhance the
feeling of diversity, and promote greater understanding and acceptance of rural
and regional life within the national psyche’.[82]
In its submission, Free TV Australia (FTVA), the organisation representing
Australia’s commercial free-to-air television broadcasters, saw this change as
relevant to ensuring that the ABC provided ‘unique’ services in regional
areas—that is, services not already being provided by commercial media. It said
that the amendments ‘would add some much-needed detail to the ABC’s charter and
help the broadcaster operate within the intention of its Act’:
Importantly, Free TV notes that the proposed amendments would
work alongside clause 6(2)(a)(i) of the Charter that requires that the ABC take
account of the broadcasting services provided by the commercial and community
sectors of the Australian broadcasting system. Properly interpreted and
enacted, this should mean that the new provisions contained in this Bill would
focus the ABC on providing unique services to regional and rural areas.[83]
In its submission to the Senate inquiry into the 2017 Bill,
the ABC said that the inclusion of the words ‘regional’ and ‘geographic’ in the
ABC Charter was ‘superfluous’, arguing that the current wording of the Charter
needs to be understood in the context of the whole ABC Act:
The current phrases “national identity” and “cultural
diversity” must be and are interpreted broadly. Therefore, when fulfilling its
Charter obligations, the Corporation is already obliged to take account of
regionalism and geographic diversity when broadcasting programs that contribute
to Australia’s national identity and cultural diversity.[84]
The ABC said that ‘[t]he delivery of that obligation is
demonstrated not only by the range of the ABC’s programming, but also by its
direct financial investment in dedicated services to rural and regional
audiences’.[85]
It highlighted the 46 ABC offices in non-capital city locations across
Australia and noted recent increased investment in regional areas of $15
million annually through the Connecting Communities initiative, and $4 million
in one-off funding for new tools and equipment for regional ABC offices to ‘enhance
video and digital reporting for local and national audiences’.[86]
Further, it estimated that ‘over one-third of its total
annual budget is specifically invested in services to the one-third of
Australians who live in regional and rural centres’—this includes ‘content,
transmission and other infrastructure costs’. [87]
The ABC also made the point that ‘regional and rural
audiences also enjoy the benefit of the ABC’s overall investment in national
services and programs, such as digital and online services, national radio
networks like triple j and Classic FM, Australian television drama programs and
nationally important news and current affairs programs like Four Corners and
7.30’.[88]
As noted earlier, there are no legal consequences attached
to the ABC ‘failing’ in its obligations under the Charter. This raises the
issue, then, of what function the proposed amendments will perform. It is
presumed that they will function within the scope that the Charter presently
has, which includes the following: to provide responsibilities and obligations,
and to designate specified roles that can be aligned with ABC’s business plan.
In respect of the latter, the ABC stated in its Corporate
Plan (2017–18), that in order to meet the requirements stipulated in
the ABC Charter, ‘strategic priorities and vision statements’ have been
developed which are aligned with particular performance metrics.[89]
Questions have been raised in the past, however, about the clarity and
effectiveness by which the ABC converts its Charter responsibilities into
business initiatives. The Department of Communications and the Arts ABC and
SBS Efficiency Study, published in 2014, for example, found that:
‘Interpreting Charter obligations and turning them into business plans with
appropriate performance indicators is an ongoing challenge for the broadcasters
as the generality of the Charters mean that many activities can fall within
their scope’.[90]
In November 2014, then Minster for Communications, Malcolm Turnbull, described
the ABC Charter in the following terms: ‘The commercial broadcaster's core KPI,
like any private sector firm, is its profitability. The ABC's KPIs - set out in
its charter, are much more subjective than a line in an income statement’.[91]
In regard to the ‘generality’ of the ABC’s Charter, a
further potential issue for the proposed amendments is whether they will help
address observations that the current Charter is too broad and vague to provide
clear and direct guidance regarding how the ABC fulfils its obligations[92]
and allocates resources.[93]
Establishment of a Regional Advisory Council
The Bill proposes to establish a ‘Regional Advisory
Council’ for the purpose of advising the ABC Board on matters relating to the
provision of broadcasting services in regional areas.
The Minister says that this amendment will:
... ensure that a more formal mechanism is in place to ensure decisions
of the ABC board are taken after proper consultation with affected audiences.[94]
Key provisions intended to establish the Regional Advisory
Council include:
- item
5 inserts proposed subsection 11(1A), which requires the ABC Board
to establish a Regional Advisory Council within three months after the day of
commencement (that is the day after the Bill receives Royal Assent)
- item
6 inserts proposed subsection 11(3A), which establishes that the function
of the Regional Advisory Council is, either on its own initiative or at the
request of the Board, to advise the Board on matters relating to the provision
by the ABC of broadcasting services in regional areas
- item
7 inserts proposed subsections 11(6A) and 11(6B), which
specify that in order to be appointed to the Regional Advisory Council, a
person must:
- have
a substantial connection to, or substantial experience in, a regional area
through business, industry or community involvement and
- not
be a member of another ABC Advisory Council or Advisory Committee
- item
10 inserts proposed subsection 11(13), which specifies that the
Board must consult the Regional Advisory Council before making a decision:
- will
result in a change to a broadcasting service provided by the Corporation in a
regional area (proposed paragraph 11(13)(a)) and
- is
likely to have a significant impact on audiences in the regional area (proposed
paragraph 11(13)(b))
- item
10 also inserts proposed subsection 11(14) which clarifies that the
ABC Board is not required to consult with the Regional Advisory Council prior
to it being established.
Comment—need for a Regional
Advisory Council
In its submission to the Senate inquiry into the 2017 Bill,
as with the proposed change to the ABC Charter, FTVA indicated that the
introduction of the Regional Advisory Council (and the measure to ensure
regional representation on the ABC Board) would help focus the ABC on what FTVA
believed was its proper role:
Free TV considers that these two measures are important as
they would enable the ABC to make better informed investment decisions in
regional areas and ensure that they have full knowledge of the suite of
services already provided by the commercial sector. In turn this will help
focus the expenditure of taxpayers’ money in markets consistent with the ABC’s
Charter.[95]
As noted in an earlier section of this Bills Digest, the ABC
Act contains provisions enabling the ABC Board to establish additional
Advisory Councils in relation to any state, territory and region of Australia
(subsection 11(2)) and advisory committees ‘consisting of such persons as the
Board appoints, to furnish advice to the Board on particular matters or classes
of matters relating to the functions of the Corporation’ (subsection 11(8)). As
such, the ABC Board would appear to have existing powers to enable it to
establish bodies capable of providing advice relating to the provision of
broadcasting services in regional areas (or on any other matters relating to
the functions of the ABC). The effect of this particular measure would be to
require the ABC Board to establish a body to provide advice in relation to a
particular segment of the community. In its submission to the inquiry on the
Bill, the ABC argued that ‘any intervention in the Charter and the Act in
response to specific interests, no matter how important they may be, should be
approached with extreme caution’.[96]
Further, the ABC Act provides that in making appointments to the Advisory Council, ‘the
Board shall have regard to the desirability of including in the membership of
that Advisory Council a broad representation of the Australian community’ (subsection
11(6)). This presumably would include people
with a substantial connection to, or substantial experience in, a
regional area of Australia.
According to the ABC in January 2018, six of the 12 Advisory Council members were located in regional
areas, including from the Torres Strait, Launceston, Grafton, Cairns, Jamieson
and Parilla.[97]
Further, ‘[o]f the remaining six members, a number have also at some point
lived or worked in regional Australia’.[98]
The ABC argued that ‘an
additional permanent and ongoing, and effectively competing advisory body would
simply replicate the functions and advice provided by the current ABC Advisory
Council, while also adding to the costs of the council and its secretariat
support’.[99]
Further, the ABC opposed
the proposed requirement that the ABC Board must consult the Regional
Advisory Council on matters that will have a significant impact on regional
audiences, arguing that it:
... effectively removes from the ABC Board its ability to
choose the matters on which it will consult when discharging its
responsibilities, therefore diminishing its discretionary powers.[100]
The ABC submission also said that the proposed change ‘undermines
the ABC Board’s ability under subsection 11(9) of the ABC Act to
determine the manner in which advisory bodies perform their duties’.[101]
ABC Board connection to
regional Australia
The Bill proposes amendments to the ABC Act to
require the Government to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the ABC
Board has at least two appointed non-executive directors who have a substantial
connection to, or substantial experience in, a regional area.
According to Minister Fletcher:
This measure will ensure that, at the highest level in the
organisation, the needs and views of regional and rural areas are appropriately
represented.[102]
The Bill seeks to introduce this change primarily through items
11 and 12.
Item 11 proposes that new requirements be added to
section 12 of the ABC Act:
- proposed
subsection 12(5E) of the ABC Act would require that in
recommending to the Governor-General appointments of Directors (other than the
Managing Director or staff-elected Director) to the ABC Board, the Government
must take all reasonable steps to ensure that at least two of the Directors are
persons who have a substantial connection to, or substantial experience in, a
regional area through business, industry or community involvement
- proposed
subsection 12(5F) would require that if the Governor-General
appoints a Chair who has a substantial connection to, or substantial experience
in, a regional area through business, industry or community involvement, the Prime
Minister must prepare a statement that outlines the person’s substantial
connection or experience. This must be tabled in each House of the Parliament
within 15 sitting days after the instrument of appointment has been signed by
the Governor-General and
- proposed
subsection 12(5G) would require that if the Governor-General appoints a Director
(other than the Managing Director, Chair or staff-elected Director) who has a
substantial connection to, or substantial experience in, a regional area
through business, industry or community involvement, the Minister must prepare
a statement that outlines the person’s substantial connection or experience.
This must be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days
after the instrument of appointment was signed by the Governor-General.
Item 12 would add proposed subsection
24B(2A) of the ABC Act, which requires that a Nomination Panel
established to conduct a selection process for a Director (other than the
Managing Director or staff-elected Director) to the ABC Board, must assess
whether each applicant for the appointment is a person who has a substantial
connection to, or substantial experience in, a regional area through business,
industry or community involvement. The Nomination Panel would also be required
to prepare a report of the assessment which must be included in the report on
the outcome of the selection process.
Comment—Board appointments
Minister Fletcher noted that ‘[t]hrough its appointments to
the ABC Board, the Government has ensured that this new requirement will
already be satisfied’.[103]
The purpose of this change is to:
... establish a ‘baseline’ for the regional skills of the ABC
Board, and any future appointment processes will then need to take this into
account.[104]
Thus, he argues, the change will ensure ‘that the ABC
board will always have at least two members who have an understanding of the
needs of rural and regional communities’.[105]
This change was supported in a number of submissions on
the 2017 Bill. As noted above, FTVA, for example, saw this change as valuable
in ensuring that the ABC Board is better informed about the kinds of media
services required in regional areas.
In its submission to the Senate inquiry on the 2017 Bill,
the ABC noted that under the current process, ‘regional applicants can and do
apply, and in fact, two current Board members already satisfy the requirements
of the proposed amendment’.[106]
The ABC also raised concerns about the use of ‘arbitrary
quotas’, arguing that these:
... may actually act against the best interests of the
Corporation and its audiences. The ABC is a corporation operating in a complex
and rapidly-changing media environment. Stewardship of that business requires
board members with business and media skills. The ABC would be concerned if
prescribed quotas were to hinder the ability of Government to choose people
best qualified to help steer the Corporation through this challenging
landscape.[107]
Annual reporting obligations
The Bill proposes to add several matters to those the ABC
is required to include in its annual report. These include information on all
consultations between the ABC Board and the Regional Advisory Council, the
number of individuals employed in metropolitan and regional areas, and the
total number of hours of local or regional news bulletins broadcast during the
reporting period.
According to Minister Fletcher:
This is important for transparency. It is appropriate that
the Parliament, and the Australian people, are able to see the deployment of
staff and the production of local content.[108]
As such, the Bill seeks to amend the section of the ABC
Act (section 80) which establishes those matters to be included in the
ABC’s annual report.
Item 14 would insert a proposed paragraph
80(1)(h) into the ABC Act which would add particulars of any advice
received by the Board during the reporting period from the Regional Advisory
Council to those matters to be included in the annual report.
Item 15 would insert the following five new
paragraphs related to reporting on the geographic location of staff and the
production of local content:
- the
total number of individuals employed by the ABC in regional areas (proposed
paragraph 80(1)(m))
- the
total number of employees employed by the ABC in metropolitan areas (proposed
paragraph 80(1)(n))
- the
ratio of employees employed by the ABC as journalists to support staff, in
regional areas (proposed paragraph 80(1)(o))
- the
ratio of employees employed by the ABC as journalists to support staff, in
metropolitan areas (proposed paragraph 80(1)(p)) and
- the
total number of hours of local or regional news bulletins broadcast on each
broadcasting service provided by the ABC in a regional area (proposed
paragraph 80(1)(q)).
Item 15 also inserts proposed subsection 80(2)
into the ABC Act to define the terms journalist and support
staff used in proposed paragraphs 80(1)(o) and (p).
Comment—additional reporting
requirements
In general, annual report requirements for Commonwealth
entities arise from: the PGPA Act, rules made
under the PGPA Act and other legislation, such as an entity’s establishing legislation. For the purposes
of the PGPA Act, the ABC is defined as a corporate Commonwealth entity
(CCE) (another example of a CCE is the Commonwealth Science and Industrial
Research Organisation).
The Public Governance,
Performance and Accountability Rule 2014 establishes differing requirements
for what must be in an annual report for different types of entity. In contrast
to the other type of PGPA Act entity, non-corporate Commonwealth
entities, such as the Department of Human Services, the Australian Federal
Police, and the Australian Taxation Office, CCE’s such as the ABC are not
required to report on the location of staff.[109]
In its submission to the 2017 Bill inquiry, FTVA supported
this measure on the grounds that it would enhance transparency.[110]
The ABC argued, however, that the information presented as
a result of this change would be misleading:
The proposed amendments, which would see employee numbers
reported as a simple regional versus metropolitan comparison, are arbitrary and
based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the ABC is structured to provide
value for taxpayers. A direct comparison without the inclusion of relevant
context would also fail to present an accurate picture of how many ABC
employees are dedicated to producing content and delivering services for
regional audiences.
For example, the ABC employs a significant number of
employees in support services from finance, administration, transmission
through to property services – all of whom are based in metropolitan areas for
efficiency reasons but who spend a significant proportion of their time
providing support, advice and services to the ABC’s regional teams. These teams
provide the necessary business support to regional teams, which in turn allows
these regionally-based employees to focus on creating and producing content.
Under the current wording, these employees would be
classified as metropolitan employees yet a significant proportion of their work
is dedicated to serving regional areas. Similarly, some program teams are based
in metropolitan areas due to the practicalities of requiring access to
specialist skills like television editing and post-production. These teams,
including those who work for Landline and Back Roads, produce
content focussed on regional Australia for regional and metropolitan audiences.
Yet under the proposed annual reporting requirement, these teams would be
classified as metropolitan employees. The ABC is therefore concerned that
requiring the ABC to report in this way will result in a skewed and inaccurate
representation of the ABC’s true commitment to serving regional Australia.[111]
The ABC also argued that the proposed requirement to
‘report the total numbers of hours of local or regional news bulletins
broadcast appears to place significant emphasis on news bulletins at the
expense of live radio programming and online and mobile content’.[112]
Key issues
As noted above, the Government has not identified a
specific policy problem or issue that the Bill is seeking to address. Rather,
the Government’s justification for the measures in the Bill is more generally
to ‘support and cement’ the role of the ABC’s role in regional areas and to
ensure that the ABC ‘continues to focus’ on these areas.[113]
Nevertheless, discussion of the Bill has been based on
some key themes concerning the operation and objectives of the ABC.
ABC services in regional areas
As discussed above, following cuts to the ABC budget in
2014, the ABC made a number of changes to its operations, including the closing
of a number of regional radio offices and cancellation of Radio National’s
rural program, ‘Bush Telegraph’. This led to criticism of the ABC by members of
parliament and the introduction of a private senator’s Bill by Senator Bridget
McKenzie in 2015, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and
Regional Advocacy) Bill 2015. That Bill was intended to address Senator
McKenzie’s concerns about ABC services in regional areas,[114]
including particular issues, such as what content and support activities the
Corporation prioritises.[115]
This latter issue can be contextualised in terms of then Minister for
Communications, Malcom Turnbull’s repeated claim in late
2014 that the ‘efficiency study’ identified many ways the Corporation could
make savings other than the cancellation of programs,[116]
as well as his specific remark in November 2014 regarding changes to ABC’s
rural operations and programming: ‘It does appear that the ABC is using ...
[Federal Budget measures] as an excuse to implement long-planned programming
and structural changes which are totally unrelated to the savings measures
required by the government’.[117]
Some measures in Senator McKenzie’s Bill are included in
this Bill: for example, the creation of a body to advise the ABC Board on
policies affecting regional areas; and changing the ABC Charter to include
reference to reflecting Australia's ‘geographic’ as well as ‘cultural’
diversity, and additional matters to be included in the ABC’s annual report. Further,
while Senator McKenzie’s Bill proposed the requirement that the ABC Board
include at least two directors who reside in regional areas, this Bill requires
that at least two directors have a substantial connection to, or substantial
experience in, a regional area. However, there are no measures proscribing how
the ABC should allocate its resources to carry out functions and duties in
rural and regional Australia.
As such, it would be reasonable to say that the 2015
changes affecting regional ABC operations form a substantial part of the
background to the Bill. These have been raised by some supporters of the 2017 Bill,
as has the 2017 decision by the ABC to discontinue shortwave transmission services to the Northern Territory.[118]
In response to such concerns, the ABC has argued that the 2017
Bill would ‘produce no tangible results for regional and rural audiences that
are not already being met by the ABC’.[119]
Other historical aspects to
the Bill include the following:
- the Report of the
Independent Inquiry into the Media and Media Regulation,[120]
published in February 2012. While this report did not focus in depth on rural
and regional media, it did find that there ‘was a need to protect, or bolster,
the types of news and information channels available across regional/rural
Australia’[121]
and it suggested that small regional communities are, in particular, ‘poorly
served for local news’ and that this ‘situation could be ameliorated with some
limited support by the government’[122]
- the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation’s Commitment to Reflecting and Representing Regional Diversity report by the Environment and Communications
References Committee, published in March 2013.[123] The Committee made five
recommendations, each of which can be related to measures introduced in both
the 2015 and 2017 rural and regional advocacy Bills:
- in the context of the range of services provided by
the Corporation, a proposal to change the ABC Charter to ensure ‘the ABC is
producing content across all platforms that reflects regional diversity’
- in order to maintain and promote ‘ongoing program
production outside of Sydney and Melbourne’, it was recommended that the ABC
consult ‘with regional stakeholders in the film and television industry’,
‘annually publish its regional content production performance’ for television,
‘establish a regional television production fund’, and ‘publish at regular
intervals its future financial commitment to investing in production outside of
Sydney and Melbourne’.[124]
ABC and ‘market failure’
Some have argued in relation to the ABC and its connection
to regional areas that it should pay greater attention to providing services in
areas where services are not provided by commercial broadcasters.
For example, as previously mentioned, in her second
reading speech for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and
Regional Advocacy) Bill 2015, Senator McKenzie said that in its role as a
public broadcaster it is expected that the ABC ‘pays[s] greater attention to
market-failure principles and serve[s] the areas and demographics where
commercial companies would fear to tread’. She also suggested:
What many people have noticed is that the ABC's funding is
being used to help it compete in commercial territory. Territory that once
entered and conquered could help the ABC generate its own existence on its own
two feet. Is this what we expect of a public broadcaster? No. We expect that a
public broadcaster will go where no commercial broadcaster would see a business
case, simply to ensure that those communities receive vital social and public
benefits.[125]
Submissions to the Senate inquiry in support of the 2017
Bill advanced similar arguments. For example, FTVA suggested that the ABC
should focus on ‘unique’ services in regional areas.[126]
Similarly, Benjamin Quilliam argued:
... the changes the Bill proposes will help to nudge the ABC
more firmly into this role of “filling the gaps”. At the moment I think the ABC
is too preoccupied with competing with the commercial broadcasters, and are
overlooking the obvious needs and gaps left by said broadcasters.[127]
The ABC is required under its charter to ‘take account
of’, among other things, ‘the broadcasting services provided by the commercial
and community sectors of the Australian broadcasting system’ (subparagraph
6(2)(a)(i) of the ABC Act).
In response to such suggestions, in its submission on the
2017 Bill the ABC rejected the interpretation of its role as being to fill gaps
left by commercial broadcasters:
The argument that the ABC can and should simply redirect
funds away from digital and other activities to address commercial broadcasting
market failure pockets in rural and regional Australia is fundamentally flawed,
and betrays a lack of understanding about the ABC’s history, production,
programming, budgeting and Charter. This argument also wilfully ignores the
fact that regional and rural audiences enjoy the same programming and expect
access to the same services, including digital services, as their metropolitan
counterparts.
Despite claims to the contrary, the ABC has never been, and
nor will it ever be, a ‘market failure broadcaster’. It was created and exists
alongside commercial broadcasters to provide a range of quality programming and
to maximise diversity within the Australian media sector. This role is well
understood and well appreciated by the community.[128]
Nevertheless, there remains the issue of how to best
ensure adequate media services in regional areas. The final report of the
Senate inquiry into Senator McKenzie’s Bill highlighted evidence from academic
researchers ‘that there was a need to ensure adequate coverage of news and
other events in rural and regional areas as commercial media contracts in many
locations’.[129]
The report quoted Dr Alexandra Wake of RMIT University as follows:
... it has never been more important or more difficult for
journalists in this country, but particularly in regional and remote areas, to
hold to account people and institutions whose functions impact social and
political life. We are in the midst of what has been called by Associate
Professor Margaret Simons a potential civil emergency caused by a breakdown in
the commercial model of journalism. Newspapers, commercial radio and television
are struggling in metropolitan areas, and news organisations are cutting back
in regional areas. Many reporters in regional newspapers have no-one to read
their work before it is published immediately online, and decisions are
increasingly being made in capital cities by people who think that everyone has
access to a strong digital service.[130]
The report also quoted Associate Professor Lisa Waller of
Deakin University as saying that an amendment to the ABC Charter requiring the
ABC to have regard for rural and regional concerns 'would probably provide more
of a guarantee to the affected communities that their interests would continue
to be catered to'.[131]
Along with her colleagues Dr Julie Freeman and Dr Krissy
Jess, Waller also published an academic article in 2017 that includes an
analysis of the submissions received by the Committee in 2016.[132]
Based, in part, on their finding that a narrative about ABC’s focus on
Australian urban listeners and viewers is present in the submissions, as well
as a sense that ‘Australia’s rural/regional areas are the “hardest hit” by ABC
adaptations to funding reductions’,[133]
the authors suggest that ‘the submissions highlight the importance of local
public spheres being elevated as a key dimension of the ABC’s modus operandi’
and that ‘the push to amend the ABC’s Charter ... and the views offered by
submitters to this Bill’ suggests that currently the Corporation ‘neglects the
myriad of voices in Australia’s diverse rural and regional communities’.[134]
Independence
The ABC argued that the 2017 Bill amounted to ‘gratuitous
legislative interference’.[135]
As noted above, the ABC Board has responsibility for, among other things,
ensuring that functions of the ABC (as outlined in the ABC Charter) are
performed efficiently with maximum benefit to the people of Australia and ensuring
that the ABC complies with legislative and legal requirements. The measures in
this Bill are intended to remove some of the discretion currently exercised by
the ABC Board with regard to the operations of the ABC.
According to the ABC:
... any intervention in the Charter and the Act in response to
specific interests, no matter how important they may be, should be approached
with extreme caution. There has only been one such instance of intervention and
this occurred in March 2013 when the Government sought to amend the Act to
include a new Charter responsibility to ensure the ABC would provide digital
media services. This Charter responsibility was for all Australians, as is
appropriate for a national broadcaster.[136]
On this point, the ABC argued that ‘unnecessary
legislative intervention will only serve to set a dangerous precedent for
future political interference aimed at undermining the independence of the ABC
and its Board’.[137]
In addition to this matter of principle, the ABC was
concerned that measures in the 2017 Bill could impact in a practical sense on
its ability to properly carry out its functions under the ABC Charter. For
example, in relation to the requirement that the ABC Board include at least two
people with a connection to or experience in regional Australia, the ABC
argues:
... the use of arbitrary quotas as proposed in this legislation
may actually act against the best interests of the Corporation and its
audiences. The ABC is a corporation operating in a complex and rapidly-changing
media environment. Stewardship of that business requires board members with
business and media skills. The ABC would be concerned if prescribed quotas were
to hinder the ability of Government to choose people best qualified to help
steer the Corporation through this challenging landscape.[138]
Concluding comments
The Bill includes several measures intended to ensure the
ABC maintains its role in regional Australia. The Government has not outlined a
specific policy problem or issue (for example, service gap) that the Bill is
seeking to address.
The Government introduced the 2017 version of this Bill as
a result of an arrangement struck with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party for
passage of the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Act.
Measures proposed in the 2017 Bill were supported by
stakeholders such as Free TV Australia, the National Farmers Federation and
Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association, though some suggested more should
be done to ensure that remote areas are better recognised by the Bill.
The ABC was opposed to the 2017 Bill, arguing that it has
maintained a strong commitment to regional Australia and that the measures in
the Bill were unnecessary.
The Bill raises a number of broader questions, including:
- does
the ABC provide an adequate level of service to regional areas? When
considering this question, is it sufficient to consider only specific local
programming or should we also include support provided by staff in metropolitan
areas and national programming produced in metropolitan areas? What would a
fair share of resources look like (one third to cover the third of Australians
who live in the regions?)? What share of that one third should and is feasible
to go to remote areas?
- what
role should the ABC have in filling in gaps in services provided by commercial
broadcasters? To what extent would such an approach be sustainable?
- should
the parliament intervene in what has previously been the responsibility of the
ABC Board? Given such interventions have been historically rare, it is
reasonable to assume the bar for such changes is high. Has the Government made
a sufficient case for change in this instance?
- given
questions raised about the effectiveness of instruments such as the Charter to
implement specific policy initiatives or provide clear accountability
objectives, will the proposed changes lead
to an increased level of service by the ABC in regional and rural Australia?