23rd Feb 2021, 7:07 PM – Senate Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2021 - Second Reading - Media diversity and funding

The majority voted against an amendment to the usual second reading motion, which is "that the bill be read a second time" (parliamentary jargon for agreeing with the main idea of the bill). If successful, this amendment would have added the text below to the usual motion.

Motion text

At the end of the motion, add: ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) billionaire Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation controls much of the Australian media,

(ii) billionaire Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook controls much of Australia's online activity, and

(iii) both big corporations pay little to no tax in Australia; and

(b) is of the opinion that implementing a media code is not the best way of addressing the growing power of the billionaires and the big corporations; and

(c) calls on the Government to deal with the growing concentration of media and online ownership by implementing new tax measures, funding public interest journalism and increasing media divers