Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, , 4:05:03 to 4:06:28
Justification of the foreign ownership delineation for grant programs compared to the news bargaining incentive.
Topics: Grants administration
Speakers: Senator The Hon Sarah Henderson, Senator Nita Green, Mr David Mackay
As Mr. Grunhard said, Senator, the the decision wasn't in respect of specific companies, it was a a um delineation on foreign ownership which is consistent with a lot of grant programs that the government administers.
Well, the news the news bargaining incentive, as you say, it was it those that uh particular position didn't apply to that. It doesn't apply to many other um media programs in the past. Uh I would uh do you um maybe I'll direct this to the minister. Minister, do you can you explain why your government made a decision to prejudice those newspapers that I've just named?
Well, I I don't think it was a well, I'll be very given the time. Um that company is foreign-owned, so they were excluded from the grant process.
You don't think that the Courier Mail, the work that the Courier Mail does and the journalists in Brisbane or the Daly Telly or the Geelong Addy or the Herald Sun, you don't think that they are worthy also.
Senator, it's not about my opinion of certain journalists who work at those um organisations. It's about the um uh corporation that runs those organizations and they are foreign-owned. I think I haven't kept up with the ownership structure, but I think that Rupert Moduk is doing okay for himself at the moment.