Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, , 3:52:47 to 4:05:03
The committee debates the vetting process for media grants, focusing on social cohesion, anti-Semitism concerns, and the exclusion of foreign-owned entities.
Topics: Antisemitism, Social cohesion, Grants administration
Speakers: Senator The Hon Sarah Henderson, Mr Jim Betts, Mr Sam Grunhard, Mr David Mackay, Unknown Speaker, Senator Varun Ghosh
Also ask about the various media grants programs that you have under the news media assistance programs. Are any is any particular grant under investigation by the Department at all? So we've seen in the Department of Home Affairs, Minister Burke's portfolio. There was a grant to one path of over $300,000 that has now been discontinued because of some of the disgraceful conduct of that organisation, anti-Semitic conduct of that organisation. Is any grantee which has received funding under the Journalism Assistance Fund, the News Innovation Fund, the News Media Relief Fund, the Multicultural Media Grants Programs. Is any particular grantee under investigation at all? Or are you investigating any concerns that have been raised in relation to any particular recipient? Mr. Sorry, you'll need to see the name plate.
Senator Mr. Mackay is correct. The answer is no. The ACMA, of course, is responsible for regulatory investigations and regulatory compliance. So they may, I'm not sure, they may have other information about activities that they may be maybe undertaking, but not by the department. I understand.
So we've seen the government falter very significantly in relation to another grant programme. So have you received any concerns at all in relation to any recipient or recipient of any immediate grant allocated by this department?
I haven't, Senator, no.
Has anyone in the department?
Not that I'm aware of, Senator.
I do want to raise some concerns. There was a grant of 128,700 given to West Pub Proprietary Limited, the publisher of Michael West Media under the Journalism Assistance Fund. I won't go into the detail now, but there was some concerning material published by this small media organisation. Are you aware of that material at all? Are you aware of some of the anti-Semitic tropes in relation to some matters that have been published by this media organisation?
No, Senator.
Has anyone raised this with you at all?
Not that I'm aware of, Senator.
Right. Has there was there any vetting of this grant or does do grant recipients go through a vetting process?
Grant recipients are grant applications are assessed in against the guidelines for a grant process. And as is common across all grant programs, recipients are required by those guidelines to obey all relevant laws and regulations.
Okay, so just so can I just ask in more detail about your vetting, please?
Certainly.
Do you when you before a before a grant is given to a media organisation? Is that what do you do to make sure that you're not supporting hateful speech, uh anti-Semitism or anything else that frankly isn't a front to social cohesion or to uh our democratic values?
So, Senator as Mr. Mackay said the grant guidelines do have a range of eligibility criteria. The criteria that are assessed under that program and under similar programs don't go to us assessing the opinions that have or will be expressed by the particular media outlet, be it be it a broadcaster or a publisher for reasons that I'm sure you would understand. Um we've designed these programs very carefully to ensure there's no suggestion that the government is deciding uh what speech uh should be funded and what speech shouldn't be funded. So there are no criteria that go to the content of the speech that will be expressed by the fundes. However, as Mr. Mackay said, there are absolutely requirements in any in the grant guidelines and also in any grant agreement that they must abide by all relevant Commonwealth laws and regulations that would apply to any speech.
So if you had an example where there was a media organisation spreading vile anti-Semitic sentiments, that's not something that is relevant to your consideration before a grant is awarded. So the test is whether it's illegal. So that so one path is that grant was discontinued and the same test was not applied.
We didn't fund one part of home.
No, I'm just quite yes, our home affairs have discontinued that grant.
That's a question for home affairs, and we don't know the background or history.
Your threshold is uh if the speech is unlawful, then the grant would either not proceed or would be withdrawn, is that right? And and Mr Betts, are are you concerned about this? Uh are you concerned about um that threshold in light of some of the activities that and some of the activities that may be funded under these grant programs?
Well, as we discussed last time, it's for the Parliament to determine what is and isn't legal in Australian society and the Parliament considered the enactment of racial vilification laws and vilification laws and um considered that um it shouldn't proceed.
Can you expand what you mean by that you're discussing this further with colleagues in the Department of Home Affairs?
When we talked at Senate estimates last time, we talked about the dilemma that I've just talked about. We are constantly reviewing the model clauses which go into government funding agreements to see whether there is a way in which we could more explicitly in those funding agreements ensure that recipients, for instance, of grants to support multicultural activities under a positive obligation to promote those activities, and whether there is a way in which we could without putting uh public service decision makers in an invidious position find ways of discouraging or prohibiting the use of uh government grant funding to promote um uh divisive opinions within the community. But we are that is just exploratory work that we're undertaking at the moment. We've been liaising with special envoy on anti-Semitism and others, but that is work in progress being led by home affairs and there are complex legal issues of the kind I've described which uh have yet to be fully resolved.
So you raised this last time, particularly in relation to creative Australia grants when I we were discussing the the concerns about the funding of uh organizations which were uh spreading hate, including the Matt Chum essay that I referred to earlier in the day. Uh but since the last estimates, and you did discuss the model clauses in relation, I think it was specifically in relation to arts funding, but if you're looking at that more broadly, what there hasn't been any progress made since
it has. It's been um it was been led by the Department of Um Home Affairs who are doing developing um model clauses. Um that um work will be reported into a secretary's group on social cohesion of which I'm a part. Um the model clauses have been under development that has involved seeking legal advice, including from the Australian government solicitor, but decisions on that have yet to be taken and uh it may be that we um uh judge that it's appropriate to wait for the findings of the Royal Commission uh on anti-Semitism before we put um uh substantive decisions to government.
Um if we could have a copy of the correspondence to date in relation to those model clauses um held by the department, I'd be most grateful on notice. Yes, I know we've got to go to the bench.
Can I just quickly light the minute five? Are we gonna be in a position to release this agency or do we need to?
Yes, okay. Yes, I just want to quickly uh finish off. So under the uh the journalism assistance fund this operates by providing wage subsidies of $39,000 for full-time equivalent journalists over three years. Now it involves 185 eligible news publishers. Can I ask why uh news corporation media outlets are not eligible for those grant projects? Grant as that particular grant programme.
So Senator, that that was a you're talking about the journalism assistance fund, which was which is now uh uh a fully you know assessed and awarded program, but under the um guidelines uh foreign-owned entities were not eligible uh for uh uh the grants under that program, which is consistent with a lot of grant programs the Australian government runs. I will note that the position for the um news bargaining incentive statutory payment scheme, which passed Parliament is different. Uh the funding will be available under that scheme for entities regardless of their ownership.
That's right. So I would suggest that there was a very deliberate decision made to exclude news corporation media companies, and I'm talking not just about the Australian, but the Herald Sum, the Courier Mail, the Daly Telegraph. What about uh News 24?
Senator, I'm I'm it's it's a ground progress that processes now completed. I'm not sure if they did apply or if they would have been eligible. I'm sorry, I don't have that information.
Could you I I don't think they are eligible.
So then they wouldn't be along with any other non-Australian company.
So um I mean I just raised concerns about this because you've got very long established newspapers in this country. Uh the Geelong advertiser is in that group. Uh other regional papers owned by News Corp are in that group, and yet they've all been excluded. And yet you're funding the likes of Michael West Media, but not the Herald Sun, not the Curio Mal, not the Geelong Addy, uh, not the Australian. Uh I mean that seems like it's a very deliberate decision and very, very prejudicial to Australian journalism.