Call for royal commission-style inquiry into media splits Senate committee

A proposal for a royal commission-style investigation into Australia’s media ownership has split a Senate inquiry, with the Liberal deputy chair ridiculing the recommendation as a danger to democracy.

The recommendation is the key finding of a year-long Senate inquiry into media diversity, led by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, which focused on the influence of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in Australia.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd giving evidence to the Senate inquiry into media diversity in Australia earlier this year.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

In a majority report backed by Labor senators, the Senate’s communications committee concluded a judicial inquiry with royal commission powers was needed to “determine whether the existing system of media regulation is fit-for-purpose and to investigate the concentration of media ownership in Australia”.

But Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, the deputy chair of the inquiry, savaged the findings in a dissenting report, saying the inquiry had been “a stunt conducted at taxpayers’ expense”.

The recommendation was welcomed by former prime minister Kevin Rudd, whose campaign for a royal commission to examine News Corp Australia’s influence on the domestic media landscape led to the creation of the Senate inquiry.

“This report vindicates the concerns of the 500,000 Australians who last year signed the record-breaking ePetition calling for a royal commission,” Mr Rudd said.

Mr Rudd heavily criticised News Corp and its 24-hour channel Sky News at two appearances before the inquiry, while former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull testified that the Murdoch press was “utterly unaccountable” and “an absolute threat to our democracy”.

Following the report’s release, Senator Hanson-Young said the regulatory system for media in Australia was broken and called on the Parliament to establish the judicial inquiry.

“The evidence that the Murdoch media empire is indeed a dangerous monopoly was heard loud and clear,” she said. “From climate-denialism to gendered, partisan attacks, and providing a platform for racism and for COVID disinformation, the impact of both concentration of media ownership and a failing regulatory system was obvious.”

News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller said the report’s calls for another expensive media inquiry and more regulation lacked justification. “Neither are warranted.”

Nine Entertainment Co, also a dominant player in Australian media, declined to comment.

Senator Bragg said the committee’s recommendation was targeted at Murdoch’s News Corp, which dominates the country’s newspaper market, adding that it was “deeply embarrassing and totally inappropriate” to assess media concentration through newspaper owners in the digital age.

“Moreover, conferring the powers of a royal commission on an inquiry which will have oversight of
media operators endangers democracy,” Senator Bragg said in the report.

Labor senator Kim Carr, a member of the committee, said the proposed judicial inquiry would cover the whole media framework, not just newspapers.

“Rather than the ad-hoc, piecemeal approach the government is taking by trying to regulate the digital platforms, there needs to be a proper examination of the total regulatory environment,” he said. “It needs to be distanced from politicians and that is why a judicial inquiry is appropriate, with the power to compel witnesses. A parliamentary inquiry itself is not adequate to deal with this.”

But opposition communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland said a judicial inquiry into media was not party policy and ruled out Labor launching a royal commission into the issue if it won government at next year’s election.

News Corp is the country’s biggest newspaper owner, with titles including national broadsheet The Australian and Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph, Melbourne’s Herald Sun, Brisbane’s The Courier Mail and Adelaide’s The Advertiser. It also owns Australia’s second-biggest news website news.com.au and Sky News.

While executives from multiple media outlets, including Nine Entertainment Co, owner of this masthead, were called to give evidence on the broader question of whether Australia’s media was too concentrated, the inquiry’s five public hearings focused heavily on News Corp. Four senior News Corp executives, including global chief executive Robert Thomson, who gave evidence from New York, defended the company across multiple hearings.

At a hearing in February, Mr Miller accused Mr Rudd of misleading the inquiry and said it was “simply a fact that we are now living in the most diverse news media marketplace in Australian history”.

It is the second split in the committee in recent weeks, after Senator Hanson-Young led a successful push to derail a separate inquiry Senator Bragg had instigated into the ABC’s complaints handling processes, which she called a partisan “witch hunt”. The inquiry was abandoned last month after the Senate voted to suspend it until a separate investigation commissioned by the ABC delivers its findings, in line with a plea from ABC chair Ita Buttrose.

“To argue that the Senate cannot inquire into ABC News, but that a royal commission is somehow required for News Corporation, is an absurdity so extraordinary that it defiles the dignity of Senate
processes,” Senator Bragg said in the report. “It is a flagrant abuse of one of the strongest and most productive tools of our democracy for nakedly political ends.”

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