Tuesday, 22 March 2022

Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021

Council’s amendments

Message from Council relating to following amendments considered:

1. Clause 38, lines 17 to 19, omit “, whether circulating generally in Victoria or in a particular locality,” and insert “circulating generally in Victoria”.

2. Clause 38, line 22, before “approved” insert “an”.

3. Clause 38, page 25, after line 2 insert—

“(2A) For the avoidance of doubt, subsections (1) and (2) do not apply to any requirement under an Act, a statutory rule or any other subordinate instrument to provide for the publication of a notice published in a print newspaper in a particular locality.”.

Mr PEARSON (Essendon—Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Regulatory Reform, Minister for Government Services, Minister for Creative Industries) (14:54): I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

The bill before us today reflects the amendments that were made in the other place that guarantee that public notices will still be printed in regional papers. But let us quickly recap what the change is that this bill is trying to achieve: the bill will modernise public notice requirements, bringing the practice into the 21st century.

Any public notice that currently needs to be printed in print newspapers will have its publishing requirements satisfied by being published online on a designated website. This change will significantly reduce costs and administrative burdens associated with print newspaper publications while also consolidating the information and increasing transparency for the Victorian public. There are over 400 requirements across Victorian acts and regulations for public notices to be published. It is estimated that this change will save Victorian businesses and citizens up to $1700 in print advertising costs per notice. These measures will particularly help new businesses that need to issue public notices before trading as well as businesses pivoting their operations during emergencies and at other times.

Having said that, the government understands how important public notices in local newspapers can be for some more diverse and vulnerable members of our community and understands regional communities’ concerns. In particular can I thank all my regional colleagues who have spoken to me about their communities’ concerns. I want to in particular acknowledge the contribution the independent member for Shepparton has made and the regional members in the other place for their tireless work in advocating for their communities. That is why the Premier gave assurances to this place that the government would amend the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021, and the amendment we are debating today fulfils that commitment.

The government’s proposed house amendment clarifies that regional and local newspapers will be left no worse off by the government’s changes to regional public notices. The amendment will mean that any notices required by law to be published in a print newspaper circulating ‘in a particular locality’ will remain unchanged after the bill has passed. In practice that means all types of public notices that are currently required to be published in a regional or local print newspaper will continue to be required to be published in those papers, and this in effect guarantees the current status quo for regional papers. This is in stark contrast to the embarrassing, deficient amendment that Mr Davis attempted to pass in the other place. I was not in the chamber for that debate, but it is my understanding that that amendment was a carbon copy of ours in all but one aspect: his amendment did not mention local papers. Of course that begs the question: if Mr Davis knew that his amendment was deficient, why didn’t he retract it? He would have been faced with the peculiar circumstance of having two basically identical amendments coming back to the Assembly for consideration. I am pleased to say, though, that that did not occur and that the government’s house amendment was supported by the other place. Our amendment will ensure that not only will the BendigoAdvertiser or the Ballarat Courier continue to see the status quo remain but so will papers like the Frankston Times and the Mornington News.

We also know that print newspapers may be the most accessible medium for some groups, and that is why these changes will also be accompanied by an enforceable guideline that makes sure public notices are published in a medium that is most equitable for its target audience. We will also be undertaking lengthy consultation with the industry before these changes begin.

This change builds on the historic level of support the Andrews Labor government has extended to regional newspapers over the last few years, because we recognise the important role these papers play in informing their local communities. Many regional newspapers were struggling due to the combined impacts of COVID-19, bushfires and the drought, so in April 2020 the Premier announced a new regional press initiative, committing the government to booking print advertising and digital advertising with regional news publishers. Since that time the government has invested $17.5 million in regional press advertising as part of this initiative, saving many newspapers from going broke. Indeed the Victorian Country Press Association, the peak body representing Victorian regional newspapers, wrote to the government earlier this month expressing how grateful they were for the government’s support throughout the course of this pandemic. They said:

This commitment, we believe, is an Australian government first which has sustained our industry during one of the most challenging times for Victorian regional communities in history.

This is on top of the communications budget that the government operates to communicate to regional Victorians. In the 2020–21 financial year alone the Victorian government’s total spend on regional and local newspapers was $9.8 million. So this amendment bill puts beyond any doubt the government’s commitment to regional and local newspapers. It guarantees the status quo regarding public notices and builds on our commitment to regional and local newspapers. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms McLEISH (Eildon) (15:00): I was not sure what I was just listening to then. I rise to make a contribution about the amendments that the government has put forward that have come back from the other place, but listening to the Minister for Regulatory Reform at the table, who sadly is just leaving, he has only just understood the importance of regional media. He did not understand that a couple of weeks ago when we were in this house debating this bill or when he introduced it and gave his second-reading speech. He has only just understood it because, he says, his regional MPs lobbied him. I find that staggering, and I think it is again an example of a city-centric government where ministers do not get out of the city limits, the tram tracks.

We had the independent member for Shepparton, last time in this place when these changes were before us, when the original bill was here, move a reasoned amendment. We supported that reasoned amendment. It did not get up. Lo and behold, a lot of noise happens in the upper house, a lot of people lobby the minister and, ‘Oh, yes. I am aware that this is important. I am aware of the value of regional newspapers’. I was not sure what I was just listening to then when he started talking about that.

He quoted also the Victorian Country Press Association. They might be pleased with the level of funding that has been given since COVID, when Victoria and Melbourne were having the longest lockdown in the world, but on 9 February 2022 they were not so happy with this bill, and they provided us with a letter saying that regional news providers across Victoria had deep concerns about the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021. Now, I want to read a couple of sentences out of that because these reforms, if they were passed the way originally intended—the minister’s original intent, when he did not understand the importance of regional, before he was enlightened—would:

… take away the government legislated mandate for local councils to place their public notice and community information classifieds in … newspapers, taking away yet another revenue source and effectively negating even more council connection with their local communities.

And that is the nub of it: council connection with their local communities. A lot of people still read those newspapers, their local papers. I know in my area I have quite a number. The newspapers were extremely concerned about this because people do read them. If you have got tenders that are up and changes that are being made, that is where people see them. They are not going to look for them on an online platform. You have to be alerted to know they are there. When it is in front of you in the paper you turn the page and you see it. People are not typically sitting at home browsing the web looking for things that are going on that might impact them. Some people might be sitting there browsing the web, but a lot of people in my electorate still rely heavily on local newspapers, and this is a great connection. They go on to say this could:

… potentially lead to all local government classified advertising migrating to a purpose-built government web platform.

We know how well the government does IT. You do not have to look very far. Look at the failed Myki and the ultranet. It goes on for years, failed IT systems, and this I am sure would be another one.

But now we have seen that we have had some backflips. Perhaps those backflips have not gone far enough, so I propose further amendments. I ask that my amendments be circulated.

Opposition amendments circulated by Ms McLEISH under standing orders.

Ms McLEISH: On the motion that Council amendment 3 be agreed to I move:

That all the words after ‘be’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘disagreed with but the following amendments be made in the Bill:

1. Clause 38, page 25, line 2, after “subsection (1)” insert “or, if subsection (2A) applies, by complying with the requirements set out in subsection (2A)”.

2. Clause 38, page 25, after line 2 insert—

“(2A) Despite subsection (1), if a requirement in an Act, a statutory rule or any other subordinate instrument for notice (however described) to be published in a print newspaper applies in respect of any locality or part of Victoria which is regional or suburban Victoria, publication—

(a) must be in published in a print newspaper circulating in that part of regional or suburban Victoria; and

(b) in addition, may otherwise be published in a manner specified in subsection (1)(a) to (c).”.’.

The reason for our amendments to the amendment that has come back is that we want it to be absolutely crystal clear that it is not just in our regional print media but also the suburban print media. The minister went on actually to talk about newspapers in Frankston and Mornington, but some of the outer suburbs are still lucky: the Berwick-Pakenham area, outer suburban; Healesville, mountain views; and Upper Yarra. They are suburban outskirts, they are not regional, so it is important that they too continue to be supported in this way.

One of the other things that you look at when you pull more and more revenue away from regional newspapers is their demise. We have seen already in country areas not just the loss of newspapers or some twice-weeklies or dailies moving to less frequent publication but also where the TV and radio are operating from and how they are doing it, with the lack of cameramen and the lack of journalists in some areas. Journalists may go on holiday from country TV, and they are not replaced. They do things out of Melbourne. People in the city hate it when the news on mainstream TV comes out of Sydney, and that is pretty well how people in the country feel when everything comes out of Melbourne. So it is so important that all of our media across the state are supported.

One of the other reasons that it is important—not just because of the community connectedness of locals looking up and understanding what is going on or supporting the media who provide so much information on local accidents, sporting clubs and what volunteer organisations have been achieving—is it is often a pathway for cadet journalists, for those who first dip their toe in the water of journalism. They will often start at a country newspaper. They will often start on country radio or TV, and they will get their experience, they will work there for a couple of years and then they will move on. I can tell you every single one of them will remember where they started and how they started and its importance. In some situations people will come back at a higher level. They might come back to a different media platform. This is so absolutely important—not just to support the regions, but this supports the journalists and that sector of journalism. It is really important that they understand and are supported for the longer term. If everyone just starts to just have to compete with the big print in Melbourne or with the online media based out of Melbourne or the TV, there are going to be less opportunities for experience for these people. I think that would be a shame, because you get a lot of young journalists who cut their teeth in country Victoria, where we have that journalist pipeline, whether it be through print media, radio or TV.

The amendments that I have put forward clarify this even further. These notices must be published in a print newspaper circulating in those parts of regional or suburban Victoria—must be published—not just published in the Herald Sun, where somebody may or may not read them, or in the Age, where most people probably do not read them but a few will, but in the local media. That way, even if somebody picks it up and puts it online, you will still get a second wave through that. Somebody will see that and go, ‘Gee, I hadn’t noticed it online’, and they may put it on Facebook locally or on Instagram, and it might get a different segment looking at it then. But in the early stages this must absolutely be printed in those local newspapers in regional Victoria or suburban Victoria.

I will acknowledge the difficulties during COVID. There was such limited coverage, and advertising did help. There were not many local events going on, so the newspapers really struggled for content and relied heavily on government advertising at the time. I know that they did. But when we look, still going forward, we have tenders, job advertisements, planning matters, and people need to know this. The communities need to know. My local newspapers—the Mansfield Courier, the Yea Chronicle, the Alexandra Standard, the Local Paper, which covers quite a number of areas, the Mountain Views Mail in Healesville and the Upper Yarra Mail—have contacted me. They had not been made aware of these changes, which could have put them out of business, a while ago, but certainly they have now. As I mentioned earlier, the Victorian Country Press Association were horrified and saw this as another nail in the coffin of regional newspapers. We need to support regional media, and this is one way that it can be done.

Ms COUZENS (Geelong) (15:10): I am pleased to rise to contribute to the debate around the regional public notices amendment. As the member for Geelong, I am really proud of the various small regional newspapers that I have in my community. They play a really important role. The role they play in our community is to provide information to my constituents about what is happening in their community, what they need to know. As I said, they play a really important role in local news, and that is essential for many communities. A lot of people do not watch the evening news anymore or do not really follow the news on Facebook or social media of any description, and they love to get their regional newspaper whether it is every couple of days or once a week. They rely heavily on that to get the content about what is happening in their local community. So I am pleased that the government understands and recognises the importance of government public notices, for example, and that that will remain unchanged.

What we have seen in local media is a real struggle during the COVID period. We were able to invest $17.5 million in regional newspapers, in advertising. That really helped those newspapers. We also contributed to—and I am sure many members in this place did this—different articles and columns. I contributed to one, for example, that the Times News Group, which gets spread right across the region, did—a ‘Women in business’ feature. It was a great way to spread the news about women in business and the challenges they have but also some of the amazing things that they are doing in the community. The Times News Group had an overwhelming response, with record numbers of women’s businesses wanting to be represented in that feature. These are really important regional community assets that we have and that we as a government want to support.

With the bill before us today, these amendments made by the upper house will guarantee that public notices will still be printed in regional newspapers. The bill will modernise public notice requirements, bringing the practice into the 21st century. Any public notice that currently needs to be printed in print newspapers will have its publishing requirement satisfied by publishing it online on a designated website. This change will significantly reduce costs and administrative burdens associated with print newspaper publication while also consolidating information and increasing transparency for the Victorian public. With over 400 requirements across Victorian acts and regulations for public notices to be published, it is estimated that this change will save Victorian businesses and citizens up to $1700 in print advertising costs per notice. These measures will particularly help new businesses that need to issue public notices before trading as well as businesses pivoting their operations during emergencies and other times of change. However, the government understands how important print notices in a local newspaper can be for some more diverse and vulnerable members of our community, and we understand the regional communities’ concerns that have been raised.

The government’s amendments clarify that regional and local newspapers will be left no worse off by the changes to regional public notices. They mean that the requirement for a notice to be published in a print newspaper circulating in a particular locality will remain unchanged after the bill is passed. In practice that means all types of public notices that are currently required to be published in a regional or local print newspaper will continue to be required to be published in those papers. This in effect guarantees the status quo for regional newspapers which are just so important for regions like mine. This is in stark contrast to the embarrassingly deficient amendment that Mr Davis put to the other place. My understanding is that that amendment was a carbon copy of ours in all but one key aspect: it did not mention local papers. Of course that begs the question: if Mr Davis knew his amendment was deficient, why didn’t he retract it? Maybe Mr Davis thinks the local papers are beneath him and his party, but our government thinks they are so important to local communities across Victoria.

Our amendment, on the other hand, will make sure that not only the Bendigo Advertiser or the Geelong Advertiser will continue to see the status quo remain but so will the Frankston Times and the Mornington News. We also know that print newspapers may be the most accessible medium for some groups. As I said, for my community, particularly for older members of the community, the regional local papers are their only source of information, and they rely heavily on them. They want to know what is going on in their community, what is happening at the local school, what is happening with the various community organisations around Geelong. That is how they get their information. I do a column in Times News Group on a regular basis, and I talk about some of the changes that we have made as a government—great changes that I want my community to know about. Many of us in this place use our regional media very strongly to get messages out across the community. That is why the changes will also be accompanied by an enforceable guideline that makes sure public notices are published in a medium which is more equitable for its target audience. We will also be undertaking lengthy consultation with the industry before these changes begin.

This change builds on the historic levels of support the Andrews Labor government has extended to regional newspapers over the last two years. As I pointed out, $17.5 million has gone into regional advertising to support those regional newspapers and ensure that they survive through the pandemic. Many regional newspapers were struggling due to the combined impacts of COVID, bushfire and drought, depending on the local community, so in April 2020 the Premier announced a new regional press initiative committing the government to book print advertising and digital advertising with regional news publishers. Since that time the government has invested $17.5 million, as I said, in regional press advertising as part of this initiative, saving many newspapers from going bust. Indeed the Victorian Country Press Association, the peak body representing Victorian regional newspapers, wrote to the government earlier this month expressing how grateful they were for the government’s support throughout the COVID period. Again, in my electorate of Geelong and across the Geelong region I had many of those community newspapers contacting me saying how grateful they were to the government for providing that funding for them because it was so important to their survival. This is all on top of the communications budget that the government operates to communicate to regional Victorians. In the 2020–21 financial year alone, the Victorian government’s total spend on regional and local newspapers was $9.8 million.

This amended bill puts beyond doubt the government’s commitment to regional and local newspapers, guarantees the status quo regarding public notices and builds on our commitment to regional and local newspapers, so this is so important. I know there is lots of scoffing on the other side, but I think the issue at the end of the day is that these regional newspapers are being supported by the government. They have been supported by the government particularly over the last two years going through COVID. Nothing much has changed, and we will continue to support those regional newspapers, continue to ensure that they are able to provide the best possible information to our communities to get messages out there for everyone to understand what it is we do as a government, what is going on in the community and different events that are going on. All this is really important to regional Victoria. We need to ensure that those opportunities, that information, are available to people on an ongoing basis, and therefore I commend the bill to the house.

Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (15:19): I must admit I am intrigued, maybe perplexed, as I sit here and listen to the government members talk about these amendments. Where were they in the Labor Party caucus meetings when this legislation went through? Where was the Minister for Regulatory Reform, who introduced the bill and comes to the table now? He will not admit he got it wrong. He will not admit he was excluding proper scrutiny of government with the original legislation. Members opposite must have been asleep in caucus when this went through, because they are now passionately saying what we have got now is the right bill.

Members interjecting.

Mr WALSH: It is always unruly to pick up interjections, but they were probably too scared to speak up in caucus because they would have been put in the freezer if they had actually spoken up in caucus against this legislation at that time. But I am glad they have finally found a voice on behalf of country and regional newspapers.

The issue I want to start off with is that, yes, this is about advertising in country newspapers, but what this legislation is really about is accountability and transparency when a government or a local government actually makes a change to a regulation or rule. What happens is that if you are going to make changes, local government and certain government departments have to do an advertisement that they are going to make a change to those regulations in a paper that is circulating in that area so people actually know from a public notice in the newspapers that there is a proposed change and they can become informed. What this legislation, I think, was going to mean was that a lot of people would no longer be informed when there were going to be changes to regulations and to rules.

The amendments that were put in the upper house, and the amendments that the member for Eildon has moved clarify it even more, reinstate transparency and good governance in this state. The Andrews government actually wanted to change it; the original legislation was to have everything on some website somewhere that people had to go and find and look up. One of the things I find interesting is that people tell you, ‘There is information on a website; just go and find it’. I do not know about you, but a lot of websites have a huge amount of information on them and it is very often quite hard to track through the links to actually find that particular legislation. So just saying ‘Well, this is all going to be on a website for people to find’ is not necessarily good government and good transparency around how you make regulatory reform and changes to rules, by-laws and the things that would have been covered by this particular thing.

The minister in introducing the amendments from the upper house said there are over 400 requirements for public notices to be done around changes. That says that there are 400 pieces of legislation that include that rule that means people are informed. There was a real risk that the original bill from the government would have meant that people were not informed into the future. I know a lot of people may not read the local paper, but they certainly read the public notices, because that is an important part of communicating what is going on.

A member interjected.

Mr WALSH: It is about the country papers, but it is more about good government and good governance and keeping people informed of changes into the future. It is good that there has been a change.

When I was listening to the minister as he introduced these amendments to our house, the thought that came to my mind was the road to Damascus: where someone is in a situation where they experience a sudden and complete change in their opinions and beliefs. It happened to Saul when he became Saint Paul, when God spoke to him on the road to Damascus. I am not sure necessarily that God spoke to the minister and had him have his road to Damascus moment, but having listened to the minister as he introduced these amendments, I would suggest that with the change of numbers in the upper house it may be the road to Damascus for not only this minister but some other ministers on legislation into the future, because they seem to experience a sudden and complete change in their opinions and beliefs if the upper house numbers do not actually fall with them. It was good to hear the minister have his road to Damascus moment and change his opinions and beliefs around this particular piece of legislation, because it is important—it is absolutely critical—that there is a process where people will be informed if there are going to be changes to regulations into the future.

The issue that everyone else is raising, which is also very, very important, is that this provides significant revenue to our country and our regional and suburban newspapers, which is why there is the amendment that the member for Eildon has moved. Those journals actually play an important part in keeping a community informed and in recording the history of a community. As I have said at other times, if you want to find the history of a community, you go and look at the back copies of the local newspaper, because they are the journal that records the history of that community. The other place to go is the cemetery to look at the records of families that are buried in that community. I must admit, I think it is probably a more pleasant experience looking at the back journals of the newspapers, but both those two do certainly record the history of our communities in this state here. To think that the government was trying to take revenue away from our newspapers effectively under the guise that this was somehow going to make it simpler and going to make it more administratively easy—my time in here says that when the Andrews Labor government say to us, ‘We’re going to make it administratively easy’, it is about secrecy, the community not being informed and how they can slip things through without people being aware of the changes. They now say the government understands the community concerns.

Congratulations to the Victorian Country Press Association. Congratulations to all those community groups and people who lobbied members of the upper house, who lobbied members of the government and who lobbied members of the Labor caucus, who obviously were asleep when it went through the first time. Congratulations to all those that got involved and made sure this change happened.

Can I just finish off by urging those people who are now taking a great interest in this piece of legislation on the other side of the chamber to seriously consider supporting the member for Eildon’s amendments, because I think they actually make the proposed amendments even better than what the government has and make it very, very clear that there have to be advertisements in papers that are circulating in those particular communities. Not everyone buys the Herald Sun, not everyone buys the Age, but most people buy the local paper and will be better informed if the amendments are supported and it is actually circulated in the local community. I would urge those on the other side: you have come a long way on your road to Damascus. Just take another couple of steps and support the member for Eildon’s amendments, and then we will finally fix up what was very poor legislation in the first place.

Ms SETTLE (Buninyong) (15:27): I am pleased to stand to speak on this amendment to the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021. I wonder if I could just make a few comments about the debate so far. I am slightly taken aback that the Leader of The Nationals has chosen today to use the expression ‘the road to Damascus’, which the Premier himself just used in question time all of an hour ago. Of course he was talking about several billion dollars worth of backflips. I am pretty gobsmacked that so far I have listened to the member for Eildon talk about backflips and the Leader of The Nationals talk about the road to Damascus when those on the other side are facing the biggest backflip that any of us have seen—billions and billions of dollars.

Ms Staley: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance, this is a narrow debate that goes to the amendments before the house. She has already strayed. Could you please bring the member for Buninyong back to speaking on the amendments or sit her down if she has nothing to say on them.

Mr Hamer: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Buninyong is directly responding to points that were made previously.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Taylor): There is no point of order.

Ms SETTLE: Thank you. I was happy to respond to those comments about backflips in a week in which big backflips have happened, but I do want to move on. I do want to talk about our wonderful, wonderful regional media. One of the things I would really like to raise is the fact that the member for Eildon has brought forward an amendment, and do you know what that amendment is? That amendment is about suburban newspapers. I thought we were all standing here talking about the really important role that regional media plays in our lives. Can I just give you an example. The wonderful member for Yan Yean is in the chamber with me. The member for Yan Yean and I spent an extraordinary day together in Maryborough just last week, and we were delighted—

Mr D O’Brien: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on the question of relevance, the member might like to re-read the amendment moved by the member for Eildon because—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Taylor): What is your point of order?

Mr D O’Brien: It specifically says ‘regional or suburban Victoria’. The point of order was on relevance, Acting Speaker.

Ms SETTLE: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, the amendment is to ‘regional or suburban’ and the addition is the ‘suburban’. But I am quite happy to continue.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Taylor): I do not uphold the point of order at this time.

Ms SETTLE: Let us have a little chat about regional media. Regional media is an extraordinarily important part of my life and my electorate and very much so part of this side of government. I was just mentioning having a wonderful day in Maryborough with the member for Yan Yean, but in fact I was in the company of eight regional members of this government. We were really happy to be there to see some of the wonderful work that this government has done in Maryborough. But of course eight of us for that day was a lot less than the full 18 regional members of government that we have. What that means is that we really have a grasp on what is happening in our electorates. We do not live in Melbourne; we live in our electorates.

The member for Eildon said that they relied heavily on government advertising. I was really pleased just this morning to read two of the wonderful local papers that I have, which are the Moorabool News and the Golden Plains Times. Both of these editions carry two half pages. One of the half pages is from VicRoads and is about keeping our roads clear and safe. There is also a half page on Jobs Victoria. The reason I bring this up is that this government knows how important regional stories are, and it knows that because of the 18 regional members. So we have made sure that we have supported regional media all the way through. As the minister said earlier, there has been $17 million put through there. But the real test I think is the response that we have had from those media outlets throughout this. I have had many conversations with regional media about the support that we showed them throughout this pandemic. Certainly the editor of the Moorabool News was delighted that the government made such commitments to support regional media throughout the pandemic, and we have done that again and again. I know that in my office we made sure that we preferenced those papers. I am delighted that Bendigo and Geelong will be protected also.

But the important part of this amendment is around being in a particular locality. That means a lot to me and my electorate because, as much as I love dearly the Ballarat Courier, it is papers like the Moorabool News that directly work with their localities, and it is incredibly important that we continue to support them. The whole thing about this amendment is to make it crystal clear. The commitment in the bill has always been to support regional media. I remember talking to the minister’s office when this was all going through, and the discussions were about how much this government has invested in regional media and also how this bill will continue to protect them. For example, 90 per cent of the Victorian government’s spending on regional papers comes from the government communications budget, which is what I was just explaining—the two half pages that appear this week in the Moorabool News and the Golden Plains Times and very probably in the Maryborough District Advertiser as well. That has always continued; it was established long before this amendment. We are just making it transparent to everybody that it is in a particular locality the addition that this amendment makes.

Regional media for me tells our stories. It tells the stories of the regions, and what stories we have had to tell in recent years. It is interesting because of the difference in reporting, say, in the Ballarat Courier. In years gone by under the previous government there was not a lot to report because there was not a lot going on in regional Victoria. So one of the things I find extraordinary is regional papers now—I mean, goodness, I am in the paper weekly, absolutely weekly, because of the extraordinary things that this government continues to do in our regions. So, for example, when the member for Yan Yean and I were in Maryborough, we were there to celebrate the 20th anniversary of a school that the Labor government built. We went there to see some really extraordinary stuff that this government has funded in that electorate.

I know in my own electorate I look around me and the difference is extraordinary. But of course the one that I have talked about many times and is incredibly close to my heart is as an Ararat girl watching that town blossom once this government, once a Labor government, brought back the rail. That made a huge difference. I know I have talked about it a lot, but it was one of those moments that was so good to see reported in the regional media. Regional media, to this government, we know how important it is because it is a conduit, it is a way to talk to people and really for people in our constituencies and other constituencies to see all that this government does and delivers, and it has been an enormous amount in regional Victoria. I have still got the Ararat Advertiser photo from the day that my then two-year-old son road the train back into Ararat.

I am delighted to support this amendment. I am delighted to just have that clarity absolutely there in the amendment for a particular locality, because for me in my electorate there are many important communities. They are separate communities and they have their own bugles, if you like, and it is important that we protect those regional newspapers. There are the ones I have talked about, like the Moorabool News and the Golden Plains Times, but there are even the smaller ones. The Woady Yaloak Herald has been a wonderful supporter and has certainly published many of the great things we have done in places like Haddon. For example, I was delighted that we did the floor in Haddon, and that was reported on, and of course who can forget the $9 million that is going to the Woady Yaloak Primary School. I do thank the Woady Yaloak Herald for reporting on those amazing things. So, as ever, as part of a really strong regional Labor government, I am very pleased to support this amendment.

Ms STALEY (Ripon) (15:37): I am delighted to follow the member for Buninyong in that contribution. I have not had such a good laugh in some time. The member for Buninyong has suddenly got up and found a voice, but she did not speak on this legislation when it came through the Parliament, and in fact no Labor country member spoke on this legislation in the lower house. I wonder why. When you look at the list of those who spoke, there was not one regional or country member who spoke on this from the Labor side, and clearly none of them have any voice within this government. Now, when the Council was going to roll their legislation they had to put an amendment through which fixes something that should never have been a problem in the first place. They should never, ever, have sought to take away advertising in local papers, in country papers, of the government’s ads and also their notices. These are relied upon by country people, and the government should never have moved to do that, and they belatedly saw the error of their ways, their mistake, in the Council.

But I return to what happened in the Assembly. In the Assembly, as I said, not one single country Labor member got up and spoke on this legislation. It is also absolutely clear that not one of the 18—as the member for Buninyong likes to boast about—members of the country Labor caucus has any voice in this government, not one. So I want to talk simply about those who are in my part of the world, and I am going to start in fact with the members for Bellarine and Macedon, Ms Pulford in the other place and Ms Tierney in the other place. What do they all have in common? What they have in common is that they are ministers, and yet they have no ability, no sway in any way, to get this right. They sat in cabinet. Cabinet put it through. They agreed to it. Either they did not notice that they were doing over their local country newspapers, in which case they are incompetent, or they did notice but they got rolled by their metropolitan colleagues in the Labor ministry. They are the only two options that are possible. So they clearly did not have any say.

Then we come to the other members who are in the western region with me, and that would include the member for Geelong, who has got up and spoken on these amendments. She had nothing to say when the bill was before us. She voted for it, though. She thought it was perfect then—obviously not so perfect. Then we move to the member for Buninyong. She had nothing to say the last time around either, but she voted for it. She voted to harm her local newspapers—harm them by removing a revenue stream that they need. Now she gets up and pretends to suggest that she in some way supports those local newspapers. Of course she does not. She was given every opportunity to stand up for her local newspapers, but she did not. She did not in this place. In fact she voted to harm them, as did the member for Melton. He got up, he voted. He did not say anything—silent. He had nothing to say. The member for Wendouree also was not there to support her local newspapers and nor was the member for Lara. He did not speak on this bill when it came through.

Mr Eren interjected.

Ms STALEY: The member for Lara interjects to tell me that he will speak on the amendments. I am so pleased that the member for Lara has woken up and is intending to now tell us how much he cares about his local newspapers, when he was absolutely prepared to vote to harm them, and did vote to harm them, and was silent at the last go. I am sure we will allow him if he wants to leak from the Labor caucus and tell us how he really did fight the fight in the Labor caucus but got rolled, and therefore we had this terrible legislation that came through. I am looking forward to hearing what the member for Lara has to say.

I also want to make mention of the amendments being proposed by the shadow minister, the member for Eildon. In the amendments that have come back to us from the Council they only use the phrase ‘a print newspaper in a particular locality’. The argument that the government and Labor Party members want to make is that the ‘particular locality’ is enough protection for rural and regional newspapers. However, we believe that we need to absolutely protect those rural and regional newspapers, and so we have moved a further amendment to make it clear that we are talking about those rural and regional newspapers or suburban newspapers. We want to make it very clear that these advertisements that are the lifeblood of a lot of these newspapers—the revenue streams—should continue, and we are not confident that the amendments put through the Council to this bill are clear enough.

Now, we are supporting those amendments. They clearly attempt to fix a massive deficiency that was pointed out in debate in this place. It is not as if the government can say that they were not put on notice in this place. Many of us got up and talked about the correspondence that we had had from our newspapers. I personally read into Hansard, so I will not do it again, correspondence that I had received from the Ararat Advocate, the North Central News, the Buloke Times and the Maryborough Advertiser. These are several of the many newspapers across Ripon. They had contacted me, and they knew what a huge risk to their revenue this government’s bill was.

We now have amendments seeking to reverse that, and now we suddenly have country member after country member from the Labor Party side getting up and telling us how much they care about their local newspapers. They have found their voice. Well, this is a group of people that proved a few weeks ago that they have no voice. They do not care about their country newspapers, because they voted for this bill in this place. So every time we have a Labor Party member from a country electorate get up and tell us that there are so many of them and they have got this great voice and they are doing this, we can remind them, when it came to something as important as news in our local communities, they were not here. They were not here. With that I commend the amendments by the member for Eildon to the house.

Mr EREN (Lara) (15:45): I am delighted to be speaking on this particular topic today, the government’s house amendments to the regional public notices. I think the member for Ripon thinks that it is a gotcha moment where the government has made a mistake and it is coming back here—you know what? We are very well known as a government for listening and acting. I do not think there is a perfect government anywhere. You certainly were not perfect—far from it—when you were in government. But can we just say from our side of the house, when we see something that is obviously a concern to those people that have been affected by certain changes in this place, we listen and we act. That is why it is back here. That is why we are in government.

Can I just do a bit of a shout-out to our wonderful editors in Geelong, Elise Potter from the Geelong Advertiser, Tony Galpin from the Geelong Independent, and of course Warick Brown from the Geelong Times. You know, I am regularly in contact with these people—regularly. We give them lots of front pages, some very good front pages. I have had a few good front pages—I have had a couple of bad ones, I have got to say, but that is the rough and tumble of democracy—and the dissemination of news is very important to regional Victorians. The dissemination of news is very important to those communities out there who depend very much on the news of the day, the current affairs.

Like I said, when I was a minister and even as a local member there were lots of good news stories: when we refurbished Kardinia Park and it was on the front page; when Atlético Madrid came to Geelong, one of the international European teams, for the first time; when we had Sri Lanka playing at Kardinia Park; when there was the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race—these were all great front pages. There were a couple of bad front pages. I was on the front pages when I had my cardiac arrest, so I have actually survived it—that was in the Herald Sun. But the thing is it is very important whether it is good news or bad news.

There is a saying—I think it is an old adage—‘Don’t pick a fight with somebody that buys ink by the 44-gallon drum’. And of course when you consider that the news media, the print media particularly, is critical to us as a government, whether you are in opposition or government it is important that you get your messages out and in an orderly fashion. That is exactly what these news outlets do in regional Victoria, and I am proud to say that we have done a lot. We have done a lot for the media outlets in regional Victoria, and we will continue to do the best that we can to help them to survive.

It is challenging. It is challenging on a number of different fronts—obviously COVID, though COVID presented a lot of news of the day throughout COVID. There were a lot of people that wanted information relating to COVID, so they were constantly reading their newspapers, constantly listening to news and making sure that they were on top of what was going on with COVID, and we as a government continually advertised some of the changes that were occurring through that COVID period. But also the challenge that I know confronts any news media outlet is the online presence, and as we transition, a lot of young people now I suppose are probably reading more newspapers because they are actually online. To a certain extent environmentally sometimes the print media does have challenges in relation to the consumer demand, if I could call it that. And I think there is that transition between hard copy and then the digital copy that news media outlets are now very much dependent upon.

From our perspective we have listened and are acting on some of those concerns. A road to Damascus was mentioned before. I do not want to go to the previous speaker in terms of some of the backflips that have occurred with the opposition in terms of some of their policies, but this is not a backflip. This is an issue that was brought to us with some concerns. As a good government, as good governments do, we listen to those concerns and we act on those concerns, and of course that is exactly why we are here today. You can see this as a gotcha moment, that is fine, but at the end of the day I know in the conversations that I have had with the relevant people in my area about the fact that we are making these changes that they are happy about it. They are happy about the fact that we are changing the circumstances of some of the changes that we made initially. It is coming back. So they are happy with the government’s approach to this.

I have got 4 minutes—okay. I just wanted to make mention of some of the issues relating to, as I have mentioned, COVID, but also predominantly we do spend a fair bit of money as MPs advertising in print and in digital media. When you consider how important that is for us, again, regardless of what political party you belong to, it is about getting your information out there about your ideas and your policies and your government’s direction. That is why we do spend a fair bit of money on media, whether it is radio or print or cinema or whatever. I think the period of COVID presented a number of different challenges. I am aware that the Victorian Country Press Association, the peak body representing Victorian regional newspapers, wrote to the government earlier this month expressing how grateful they were for the government’s support through the COVID period. Of course we have tried to do as much as we can not only for the broader community, the business community, but also in terms of the media, because we understand the importance of particularly regional media outlets. Since that time the government has invested $17.5 million in regional press advertising as part of this initiative, saving many newspapers from going bust. We know how important the media outlets are, and that is why we made those strategical investments into making sure that they could survive that very stressful period through COVID. In the 2020–21 financial year alone the Victorian government’s total spend on regional and local newspapers was $9.8 million.

Again I want to stress that this amended bill puts beyond doubt the government’s commitment to regional and local papers, guarantees the status quo regarding public notices and builds on our commitment to regional and local newspapers. That is why we are here today. That is why the regional members, all 18 of us, loud and proud, are very much paying attention to regional Victoria and making sure that the regional news outlets do survive going forward. I commend the minister responsible for actually listening and acting on some of those concerns. That is what good governments do. I do not think there is any government that is perfect. We try our best to get the best legislation through this house. On occasions we do have to refer back to it to refine it, to make it even better, and that is exactly what we are doing as a government today. We will continue to do that. I think those regional news outlets know that this government does care for them, that this government has invested within them and that this government did protect them through COVID by the strategical investments that we made. We will continue to do that. I wish this a speedy passage through this place.

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (15:54): There is a saying which is hacked from Marcus Aurelius, which is, ‘Words are opinion, not fact. Action is the only truth’. I have been sitting back today and listening to all these regional Labor MPs saying how they always stand up for regional Victoria and they have always stood up for regional Victorian newspapers, and yet they did not vote to support regional Victorian newspapers a few weeks ago. In fact they were silent; they were absolutely silent.

We have not heard at all from any member of the Labor government saying, ‘You know what? I took this to the party room. I took it to caucus and said, “This isn’t good enough. These changes that you’re putting forward in legislation will take a significant amount of revenue out of our regional newspapers. For some it will put them out of business. For some people, they will not be able to access public notices that would otherwise be their only mechanism to see what their local council is doing, and they will be forced now to have to go to an internet portal and actually take affirmative action to go and access this information rather than see it in their regular regional newspapers”’. I do not understand why no Labor MPs stood up for regional newspapers at the time that they could have made a real difference.

I do not know whether they took action once the regional newspaper editors got on the phone and said, ‘Hey, this is going to do an enormous amount of damage to our papers. You know it’s an election year, guys. Maybe you should rethink it’. Even when that action happened, when we saw the country media group come out with a considered and targeted campaign to point out the damage that this legislation by the government would do to regional newspapers—even then—they did not speak up. And no wonder, if it was because this bill was brought forward before Labor preselections were finalised. We all know there are consequences if you dare to speak up against the government’s position, if you dare to speak up against the Premier: you do not get endorsed for preselection.

So I look around at these regional MPs. They say there are 18 of them, but I do not see any of them in my area ever—I live a long way from Melbourne. We do not see them; we just do not see them. So why on earth are we hearing all these country Labor MPs saying they are doing everything for regional Victoria? They are only actually doing something when they are forced to, when there is an amendment made in the upper house and it comes back to this chamber and they are forced to make that change. They do not naturally stand up for regional Victoria; they have to be forced and pushed to the line to do it. The only groups that do that are the National Party and the Liberal Party, and we have done it successfully again today.

I do support the amendments that have been put forward by the member for Eildon, which will further cement the mandatory requirement that they must advertise in regional newspapers. That is so very, very important. Our regional newspapers are the lifeblood of our communities. They do an enormous amount of work, particularly the newspapers that are run by just one person—and there are a lot of them. They are making the effort to communicate what is happening in their local area with the rest of the people that are there, and that makes such a difference. It is not just about the public notices. Some of that is government notices, but a lot of that is about the hatches, matches and dispatches, as we refer to them, to see what people are doing. And can I say, it is particularly for elderly people in the community to keep engaged with the kids and grandkids of people that they know. It is also for people who move away from the area—they want to keep in touch with their friends and family who live in country areas still. But it is also about that local info. I know as a kid how excited I would be if I got a photo of myself in the paper because I was playing netball, and it is the same thing today. Kids love to see themselves in the paper. Golfers love to see themselves in the paper, and the footballers, the hockey players, schools—when people get an award, when they get an achievement recognised. They might get a citizenship award when they are doing great things in the community, when they are making a difference.

This is a way that we celebrate our communities, and that is what helps to build community pride. These regional newspapers are really at the heart of how our local smallest regional communities, our rural communities, are maintaining their community pride in how they feel about growing up and living in a small community. What we do as MPs is we stand up for all our communities, whether we live in the city or the country. But for me, I stand up for dozens and dozens of individual communities who all do things their own way and who all are proud of their communities because they are strong, they are a great place to live, work and do business but most of all they look after one another—and they do that by always supporting their local paper.

We saw over the COVID pandemic that regional newspapers were so often cut off from information distributed from the government. We saw that a lot of that information was being pushed through the internet, pushed online, rather than being advertising through the papers. Now, this hit the papers hard, but it hit our communities even harder. So this is not necessarily just about a funding and a revenue line for our papers, it is actually about a really important conduit between getting information from the government out from our big offices in Melbourne and getting it into people’s homes so they know what the rules are, they know what the risk is, they know where they can get vaccinated, they know how to look after one another and if they did get coronavirus, they would know what to do in those instances—how to get their groceries, their medication, the help that they might need. I do not think this government did enough to communicate with people who did not have access to online resources over the past 2½ years.

I would like to do a quick shout-out to all of the papers that are in my electorate. Lowan is the biggest electorate in the state and we probably have the most newspapers as well, I believe. We have got 19 regional newspapers in my electorate, and I would like to commend them for their amazing work to support their local communities. It is hard work. There is a workforce shortage at the moment across all industries, but particularly in journalism. If there is anyone out there who wants to train up as a journalist, there are many, many cadetships available in my electorate of Lowan. Not only do you get to live in a great place, but you get some of the best training you could ever possibly get to start your career in journalism.

I would like to just give a shout-out to Dean Lawson and the team at the Weekly Advertiser, Ben Fraser and the team at the Wimmera Mail-Times, Stawell Times-News and Ararat Advertiser, Campbell Kirwan and the team at the Hamilton Spectator, and Dave Ward and the team at the Horsham Times, Dimboola Banner, Jeparit, Rainbow and Yaapeet Argus, and the Warracknabeal Herald. Dave is doing a fantastic job. He is just putting in a new printing press—the first new printing press in Victoria for decades, I believe. Good work, Dave. Craig Wilson at the Ararat Advocate has done a great job establishing a new paper in the past few years. Kristy McDonald at Casterton News—she does a great job as basically a one-woman show in Casterton. Em Gladdis at Nhill Free Press and Kaniva Times and her team. Toni Domaschenz at the West Wimmera Advocate has done a fabulous job over the pandemic, particularly with the border closures and the difficulty in getting clarified information out to the community. Angela Barelli at the Murtoa & District Advertiser. Stewart Esh at the Mortlake Dispatch and Terang Express. Simon King at the Dimboola Courier and Robin Letts at the Buloke Times. You all do an absolutely fabulous job in your coverage of your local communities and of building community pride. So many of you contacted me with concerns about the original legislation that Labor put together. I am very proud today to see that there will be amendments made to make sure that the government will continue to require advertising in our regional newspapers, and I trust that will make sure that all of our regional newspapers will continue strongly to build our community pride, to share our local messages and to provide that essential communication about what is happening in the community for many, many generations to come. I commend the amendments by the member for Eildon to the house.

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (16:03): I am delighted to be able to rise on the amendments to this bill, because I did not actually get to speak on it last time. I was on the list, but the list got cut off, so I am really happy to be speaking about these amendments. Gee, you have got to hand it to the member for Lowan speaking on regional newspapers. Whoops—Hamilton Spectator anyone? Misuse of the comms budget anyone? She also actually said that government members do not set foot in the Lowan electorate. I think I have been there five times this year. I was actually there last week, and I have been there about 25 times in seven years.

Then we had the member for Ripon. I am not surprised the member for Ripon in referring to you, Deputy Speaker, overlooked the fact that you actually did speak in this debate when the bill was before the house, and plenty of the member for Ripon’s constituents know full well who the member for Bendigo West is. Unlike the member for Ripon, you, Deputy Speaker, have not had to create a regional persona. You were proudly born, bred and educated in Maryborough, and the constituents of Ripon know it. They know who stands up for them and certainly in Maryborough.

I want to give a shout-out to the community newspapers serving the Yan Yean electorate: the Whittlesea Town Crier, the Mountain Monthly, the Hurstbridge Roundabout, the Whittlesea Review, the North Central Review, the CommunityKalori. These are just some of the community publications serving my electorate. And like in most non-sitting weeks, last week I was in regional Victoria. As the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Victoria, that is my job, and I stick to it outside these sitting weeks. I think I personally got to put my hands on the following papers and read them—not online, I actually read the papers: the Buloke Times, the Wimmera Mail-Times, the Pyrenees Advocate, the Ararat Advocate, the Skipton Community News and the North Central News. Not only did I get to read them, I was in quite a few of them. Certainly my colleagues and I gave them some more copy while we were all there.

It is not surprising that the opposition have tried to say this is a gotcha moment and a backflip. I mean, anything to distract from their big backflip, their massive backflip, on mental health. They have elevated this to some horrible situation. Just to clarify, around 90 per cent of government communications spending goes on advertising; only 10 per cent is on public notices—10 per cent. That 10 per cent, yes, it is very important, and that is why I support the minister moving to agree to these amendments. No grandstanding by the opposition saying, ‘What about our amendments?’. We can read too. The amendment moved by Mr Davis in the upper house was completely deficient, and the proposal to put opposition amendments here is just grandstanding and trying to draw attention from the big, big backflip that you have made—that they have made. I apologise, Deputy Speaker, for reflecting on the Chair.

I want to thank another editor of a local community newspaper, Kathy Sproules. I had not stopped in Skipton for a while; I go through it frequently. She is the editor of the Skipton Community News. That is a fabulous publication. I particularly enjoyed reading the double-page spread which talked about the visit by Labor’s candidate for Ripon, Martha Haylett, to Skipton last week. It is a really good read. I urge people to have a read of it.

This is someone that I know you know well, Deputy Speaker, and that is the legendary Ella Ebery. There was no editor in regional press in this country, in this state, like Ella Ebery. I know that you and I were both mentored by a former member for Bendigo West, Bob Cameron, and he always told me about how formidable and amazing Ella Ebery was, as did the former Premier, John Brumby. I want to quote from what John Button wrote in the Age after Ella’s death. Ella died at 103 in 2019. She:

… was a shearer’s wife and cook who realised late in life—too late, she always said—that she could be more than a wife and a cook. She was 58 when she got her first paid job, as a welfare worker. At 63, she began editing North Central News, the newspaper of St Arnaud, in the Wimmera.

She edited it for the next 34 years, writing and fighting for her town, harrying any politician, like Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, whom she thought didn’t respect the bush.

And wasn’t that the truth.

In 2000, she won the prestigious Country Press Shakespeare Family Award for excellence in editorial writing … In 2013, aged 97, she was made redundant and respectfully asked to hand the editor’s job to a younger person. She was outraged. She felt she had years left to give. That was Ella.

James Button said he first spoke to Ella in 1997 when he was a journalist at the Age and writing a story on a rural revolt against Kennett’s Liberal government:

“Jeff has lost us, and he will lose the next election,” she declared.

James Button said:

I was quietly sceptical—my city smarts told me Kennett would be in power for a decade or more—and I didn’t quote her in the piece. In 1999, to the astonishment of nearly everyone, the Kennett government was tossed out on the votes of the bush.

Ella was warm, droll, quick-minded, sharp to the point of pugnacity, shy but not short of ego, and never lost for an opinion. One of her editorials so enraged a local MP that he reportedly said that if she had been a man, he would have come to town and hit her.

Which no-one of course would endorse. But Ella was one of those editors, one of those country voices, that will continue to be heard by this government. They were not listened to in the 1990s, but they certainly are being listened to now.

This is not a backflip, this is listening to our community, and I want to thank the Minister for Government Services for listening to our regional caucus and also for bringing these amendments back here. I think that is a sign of a good government that listens. As the member for Lara said, no government is completely perfect, and to bring some amendments back to improve a piece of legislation that has been before the house is absolutely a good thing.

I know that regional media proprietors and community papers are enormously grateful for the support through government advertising that we have given as a government throughout the pandemic in recognition of how important these organs are to the community. I just wish the sort of outrage that the opposition has exhibited they would point to their colleagues in Canberra. I recall when their government in the last term shut down the Rural Women’s Network magazine—they moved it to electronic, and then they shut it down; I was glad that we reopened it. Of course you need regional voices, and with such poor internet connectivity and mobile blackspots there are enormous parts of regional Victoria that do not have that access. So when they closed down the network, that excluded hundreds, thousands of women across regional Victoria. If you confine government and community messaging only to cyberspace, hundreds and thousands of regional Victorians will be excluded. That is because that government in Canberra, despite us being the most fire-affected state in this land since white settlement—we know that; they cannot ignore it—has spent the least amount on us in rectifying mobile blackspots. So I would love to see the outrage that that side have exhibited being directed to their colleagues in Canberra to say it is about time that those mobile blackspots got fixed so that we can get rid of the digital divide and, whether communities want to read the paper in their hands, which is what I love to do, or whether they want to read it online, they can do both. The faux outrage and the criticism from that side—they are saying that we do not stand up for our communities. We absolutely do. I would like to see for the first time you lot actually stand up against your masters in Canberra, but I do not think that will happen. I will not die waiting. I commend the bill to the house.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I remind members to direct their comments through the Chair.

Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (16:13): It is good when pressure works. Today we are here to consider the amendments put forward to change legislation that went through this house—it was poor legislation—and to amend it to fix a problem that was going to really compromise the small local newspapers in regional Victoria. It is good to see that sometimes pressure does work. It is really surprising, though, to hear from the other side that they can see that it is important to support regional newspapers. Well, where were they when the legislation went through that was passed through this house and got to the other house before it was recognised, despite the efforts made by us on this side to actually put some amendments, make some changes and put the debate forward to say, ‘This will really hurt regional newspapers’?

For regional newspapers to be able to tell the stories of our communities is very important. The government putting all the public notices online would have had disastrous effects, particularly in very rural and regional areas—financially crippling in fact. I do not know if I have actually heard anyone admit that they have got wrong, but that is what has happened. It is good that it is going to be rectified, because newspapers still play a very important role, particularly for older people who might not be tech savvy or be able to utilise the internet. There are many areas where the internet is not adequate yet for them to be able to access this information, so having it in print is still a very vital way to receive that information. I think it shows the government’s lack of understanding of how regional Victoria actually operates and how we live. It is a total demonstration of the disconnect between the Labor government and rural Victorians to hear members saying things like, ‘We’re going to take everyone into the 21st century’. In the 21st century you would expect to have some good roads, for example. Well, we have not got them, so maybe we can start with some stuff that we actually need before rushing through things like this with obviously no or little consultation, because once the voices started to be heard it was very obvious from the press that this was going to be a very poor outcome for regional Victoria.

I stand here and support the amendment by my colleague the member for Eildon that makes it very clear that what needs to be in legislation is that public notices need to be published in a print newspaper circling in that part of regional or suburban Victoria. That is very clear. We want to make sure it is very clear so this out-of-touch government cannot try this little manoeuvre again. I wonder about their intent with the lack of transparency that this would result in. I mean, it is not easy for many people to get onto a website and hunt through the plethora of information to find specific public notices. When you go into the country for a trip somewhere you do not actually think, ‘I’d better look up and make sure the roads aren’t closed’, but you do read the paper on a Saturday, when they are usually in it—in my part of the world it is often Saturday—and you do note those things. It is just the way it is still happening, because the internet is not ideal for everyone and it is certainly not a tool yet that is so usable and available that we can get rid of the print newspapers.

Papers like the Warrnambool Standard, the Portland Observer and the Terang Express in my electorate play an incredibly important role. If we had seen the legislation go through, that revenue they receive from the public notices would have disappeared and it would have left them possibly very close to unviable. It was a massive risk to their viability, and we need those newspapers. Many a time we saw during the pandemic the role that the newspapers played in informing the community. We are seeing in Portland the information that is playing out in the paper around the hospital and the closures and the maternity services being abruptly ceased. That is how people get their information in the community. So we absolutely needed the government to have done this backflip, and that is what it is. They sat here and they said, ‘Oh, this is great; we stood up for regional Victorians’. But no, that is actually not true. They sat there silent. They watched this legislation go through. They said nothing, despite hearing that it would actually do a lot of damage to regional Victoria. You sit there and you wonder why. You think, ‘How could a group of MPs who say they understand regional Victoria have let this happen?’. What is their motive? Do they not really care about regional Victoria? Well, again, as I said, when I look at the state of our roads and when I look at the way they are treating Portland hospital, I think that is probably the exact reason—that they are so city-centric as a government, they are so focused on the votes that get them into government, they are very prepared to throw the regional communities to the wolves. That is what we are seeing certainly in south-west Victoria in many ways.

I do commend the fact that this pressure has worked. I hope the government do start to recognise the importance of the regions and start thinking about governing from border to border instead of from tram tracks to tram tracks. With that, I commend my colleague’s amendment to the amendment—the member for Eildon’s amendment—to the house.

Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (16:20): I too am delighted to rise to speak on the government house amendment regarding regional public notices in the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021. It is great to follow so many strong voices for regional Victoria, particularly Labor voices, and to hear the contributions from the member for Geelong, the member for Buninyong, the member for Lara—my good friend—as well as the member for Yan Yean. I understand that the member for South Barwon is to follow me.

What you really hear when you listen to the contributions of Labor regional MPs is the deep roots they have in their community, the care they have for their community and the understanding they have for their community, because that is what it is about. We are amplifying the voices of regional Victorians in our government every day. You have only got to look at the investment in my community of Ballarat. Whether it be our GovHub, whether it be an upgrade to our Ballarat train station, whether it be our $60 million roads package, we are making sure that the regions are heard, and I know that you do that so well too, Deputy Speaker. What you are doing for Bendigo West is extraordinary in terms of the investment that you are drawing—and bringing Elvis to the Bendigo Art Gallery is also very impressive.

But it is not just the wonderful members who have spoken so far. We have also got incredible members in Bass, in Bellarine, in Bendigo East, in Macedon and my good friend in Melton, who are very strong voices, as well as members in the other place representing the western, northern and eastern regions around Victoria. Never forget: our Premier is from Wangaratta. Right? He is a country boy who never forgets where he came from. So for us to be lectured by people like the member for Lowan and the member for Ripon, who grew up in Malvern, about what it is like to live in the country, can be a little bit rich, I can just say.

It was interesting: talking about regional newspapers, there was a great article in the Ballarat Courier today which I am sure will be of interest to our Liberal members that are here today. It is called ‘Time running out as election approaches’, because the Liberal Party has not even preselected someone to run for the federal seat of Ballarat. There is no federal candidate for Ballarat. It is very interesting that Alex Ford, the journalist at the Ballarat Courier interviewed—

Mr R Smith: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I would just very simply suggest that this contribution is a far cry from where the amendments are before this house.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It has been a fairly wideranging debate. It is a point of debate, but I do ask the member for Wendouree to come back to the amendment before the house.

Ms ADDISON: I will refer to the member for Lowan’s contribution. She talked about this bill happening during our preselection process, so she actually brought up preselection. The member for Lowan has raised preselection, and therefore I think it is a bit inappropriate for you to complain about me talking about preselection.

Mr R Smith: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I would just remind, through you, the member for Wendouree that you have made a ruling, and for her to criticise me raising an issue that you upheld seems to be a reflection on the Chair, to me.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not a point of order.

Ms ADDISON: In this article in the Ballarat Courier, which is a regional newspaper that is printed in Ballarat in my electorate of Wendouree, there was a really interesting point made by a Latrobe University expert on regional Victoria. I wish to quote the Ballarat Courier, a regional newspaper, which is a very important part of the debate:

I think one of the structural problems the Liberal Party has in places like Ballarat and Bendigo is a real dearth of high-quality, well-known local candidates to challenge the incumbents, and it’s been that way for some time now, and there are a few reasons for that—

Mr R Smith: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, again I just find that whether they are Liberal candidates, Labor candidates, Greens candidates, whoever a party in this place selects to be their candidate has nothing to do with the amendments that are before the house.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: As I said before, it is a point of debate, and I think that the member for Wendouree is referring to a local newspaper. This has been a wideranging debate. It is a point of debate; it is not a point of order.

Ms ADDISON: Thank you. Going back to an article in a regional newspaper that was printed today, I would like to just finish the quote:

… and there are a few reasons for that—

talking about the Liberals being out of touch in my community—

the membership’s getting older, and it’s really hard to attract young people, so the party, in a sense, is ossifying.

If you don’t pick your candidate until the last minute, like in Bendigo and Ballarat, you’ve really got no chance.

So as I was talking about the Ballarat Courier and we are all talking about how important it is that newspapers have strong voices in our regions, that is a very strong voice from our local Courier today. I am proud to be the member that has the home of the Ballarat Courier, and that is why I am so pleased to speak on the amendments made to guarantee that public notices will still be printed in regional papers and that they will be no worse off as a result of these amendments.

The Courier is Ballarat’s and the region’s leading provider of news—such as today’s article—and information, and it is really amazing to think that it dates back to 10 June 1867. It is a Ballarat institution, and I note that the editor of the first edition of the Ballarat Courier, Robert Clark, promised to speak out boldly on issues that would impact Ballarat, which would include the preselection of a federal Liberal candidate in the upcoming state election. For nearly 155 years the Courier has been keeping Ballarat residents informed and entertained and is continuing to speak out boldly on the issues impacting the Ballarat community. I would really like to commend the editor, Eugene Duffy, and local journalists Rochelle Kirkham, Caleb Cluff, Alex Ford, Michelle Smith, Greg Gliddon, Jackson Russell, Maeve McKenna, Ellie Mitchell and Matt Currill as well as our incredibly talented photographers Lachlan Bence, Adam Trafford, Luke Hemer and Kate Healy.

Mr Dimopoulos: You know them all.

Ms ADDISON: I do. They are good people, and they are keeping us to account.

I have really strong ties to newspapers. My grandfather ran Gullan’s newsagency at 88 Bridge Mall, Ballarat, for many years. It was also where my father worked in the family business for years before opening his pharmacy, and I delivered newspapers as a kid for three years in Alfredton in my electorate. Further, as a former national industrial officer of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union printing division, formerly the Printing and Kindred Industries Union, I am a strong supporter of the printing and packaging industry and the hardworking printers across our state. So for me support for this bill is in my DNA. I support a strong, diverse regional media, particularly the print media, and believe it is a key pillar of our democratic society. I am really looking forward to the independent member for Shepparton’s contribution, because it is well known that she has played a key role in bringing this amendment to this place to ensure that the regional voice of local media is heard.

There is so much to talk about, and I have been interrupted so many times I am not going to get through everything. The original bill was about trying to make sure that we had a 21st-century approach to public notices and also reducing the cost for businesses, because it can cost up to $1700 in print advertising per notice. However, this good government, this government that listens and acts, as my good friend the member for Lara said earlier, said that for some more diverse and vulnerable members of the community we had to keep the print going. And we understand that regional communities had concerns as well. So, importantly, our government’s proposed house amendment clarifies that regional and local newspapers will be left no worse off by the government’s changes to the regional public notices. So that is good news. The amendment will mean that any notice that is required by law to be published in a print newspaper circulating in a particular locality will remain unchanged after this bill is passed. That is really, really good news. In effect it guarantees the current status quo for regional newspapers, which will be very much welcomed. It will be welcomed certainly by the Ballarat Courier. It will be welcomed by the BendigoAdvertiser and by the Geelong Addy. It will also be welcomed by the Frankston Times and the Mornington News, which will be great news for the hardworking members for Frankston and Nepean.

We also know that because of this government our newspapers are still going okay in the regions. Since April 2020 the Andrews Labor government has invested $17.5 million in regional press advertising, and I am being lectured to by the member for Ripon, the member for Lowan and other members of the house saying that we do not care about regional papers. We care—$17.5 million worth of care to make sure our regional papers continue to prosper. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr Eren: Go easy, Danny, go easy.

Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (16:30): I do not know how I can follow that, member for Lara. I do note that apparently, though, in speaking on this amendment, which is about newspapers, as long as you are speaking about something that was once in a newspaper, it will be relevant. I have got a lamington recipe for you guys over there. I have got a roast lamb recipe for everyone. We are going to talk about a whole lot of things in my 10 minutes.

I find it entertaining actually, as I am sure many of us on this side do, that we have heard basically the same ministerial speaking notes for the last five speakers on that side all saying what a strong, wonderful Labor regional representation we have over there—all of them standing up for regional newspapers, all of whom said nothing when the bill went through this place, all of whom said zip, who were silent. None of them said anything about this issue when the bill went through, and now they are all standing here saying, ‘What a champion I am for the Ballarat Courier and the BendigoAdvertiser, and we’re filling our 10 minutes by listing every journalist that works at every newspaper’. It is extraordinary. I do not want to overstep the bounds here, but I think the member for Broadmeadows should have a crack, because at least he is a journalist and might understand what he is talking about. We will not talk about how well he has been treated by those opposite, but the member for Broadmeadows would at least have some idea.

I stand here with a conflict of interest, if you like, as an ex-country journo. The member for Broadmeadows will know the Printing and Kindred Industries Union and the journos—it was never pretty. Even when I was a young whippersnapper cadet at the Gippsland Times back in the early 1990s there was tension between the printers and the—

Ms Addison interjected.

Mr D O’BRIEN: I was an AJA member for a very brief period of time. I found that they did absolutely nothing for me, so I did not stay there. But it is true, irrespective of the sudden conversion by those opposite, that our regional newspapers are an absolutely critical part of our local communities. I am sure it is true also in suburban parts of Melbourne but I do not think to anything like the same extent as in our regional communities. All regional members will understand how important they are.

I do find it a bit amusing that we heard the member for Wendouree just then repeat the Assistant Treasurer’s commentary about the apparently huge support that the government has given to regional newspapers since the start of the pandemic—$17.5 million. I remember that announcement that the Premier made at the time. I think at the time it was a $6 million commitment, and I remember looking at the rough numbers and going, ‘Well, that’s basically what the state government would spend on regional newspapers every year’, and I am sure if we did a comparison, $17.5 million since April 2020 is not that different probably to the previous two years. So we can talk it up, but the reality here is governments always spend money on newspapers, and there is a bit of spin going on with that particular issue.

Absolutely our regional newspapers have struggled, and what this original change to legislation was going to do was be another straw on the camel’s back. I know from my own experience in the Gippsland South electorate I have got the Gippsland Times based in Wellington shire; the South Gippsland Sentinel-Times covering both the South Gippsland and the Bass Coast areas; the mighty Foster Mirror, which is a very little paper run on an oily rag, but it is a ripper, run by Rabs and Kate down there; the Bridge, which was only set up in the last couple of years, during the pandemic, by Deb Lucas in Yarram—a fantastic local paper that has filled the void left by the Standard, which actually had to close; and the Mirboo North Times as well, which is a wonderful little community paper run entirely by volunteers. There are numerous other newsletters, but those are the actual newspapers that I am talking about. Unfortunately, as I said, as a result of the pandemic we lost the Yarram Standard News and the Great Southern Star based out of Leongatha, and I know that loss has been felt sorely by the people of Leongatha and surrounds in particular; they do not feel often that they are now serviced as well by local news.

All of those papers I mentioned did get in contact when this legislation was first presented to the chamber. They certainly emailed me and expressed their concerns about it. I am very pleased that the advocacy of those on this side has actually resulted in these amendments being agreed to in the upper house and that they are now being debated here. I think it is critical, as the member for Eildon said, that the regional newspapers are a training ground for our journalists across the country. She talked about people going on to bigger and better things. I am not sure if it is a bigger and better thing, but I am now here as a member of Parliament—the member for Gippsland East likewise and the member for Euroa. There are others. The member for Broadmeadows has gone on to bigger and better things. He was at the Age, so I think being a Labor MP is much better—

Mr McGuire: ABC. Two Walkleys.

Mr D O’BRIEN: ABC. All right, we will pay that. But I can look through the by-lines in our metropolitan dailies or through the tags on the nightly news on the major networks here in Melbourne, and a huge volume of them have come through regional media, whether it is through newspapers, like me, or whether it is through regional TV, which I also progressed to, many of those have gone on to great things. It is a bit of a job, I guess, for country MPs keeping up with the WIN journos, previously the Nine journos. We had both there for a short period of time. You just get to know one and they get snapped up and go on to bigger and better things.

I guess I have touched on an issue there that we have lost many of our voices. We have lost the Channel 9 bulletin. It was fabulous when it came in—I think around the start of 2017 or 2018. Channel 9 was the Southern Cross Austereo network, and ironically in setting up the business one of my former cameraman colleagues was actually a sales rep at Southern Cross in Gippsland. He and I were there at the official launch of the Channel 9 regional news service. Ironically enough he and I had both been retrenched by Southern Cross in 1994 when it axed its local news, so the wheel does go full circle, and sadly again it has not lasted. They disappeared. Of more concern, I am sure, for all of us in regional Victoria when it comes to TV is the loss of WIN News as a local bulletin. We still have obviously the statewide bulletin with the local angle to it, but it is certainly diminished, and that is a great loss to us. Like I said, the pressure on our local newspapers has been immense. So that is one of the issues that I was concerned about with this change in the previous legislation, which is now being overturned by the amendment.

The second bit is the transparency issue. Many of the newspaper owners and editors that I have spoken to about this issue actually raised this as well. It is not good enough to simply say, whether it is a state government, local government or statutory authority notice, that, ‘We’ve put it on a website somewhere’, particularly if it is a dedicated website off in the ether that no-one is going to find unless they go looking for it. People do find them in their local papers. Whether they are reading the hard copy local paper or—as I do now often on my iPad—the digital edition of it, you do go through the classifieds. When you are reading the sport or the real estate you are seeing those advertisements in there. You would not have seen those if they were simply just advertised on a website somewhere that you had to go looking for. While I think we can have that as well as a good addition to a bit of transparency, to take it out of the newspapers full stop would have been a loss, because so often people stumble across this sort of information. They are not scanning the newspapers to find out what the local council is doing in their street or what the state government is doing with a planning application; they find it when they are in the process of reading their local news looking for a photo of their grandchild playing netball or whatever it might be.

That was the other thing that concerned me about what the government had been doing with this legislation. It is another reason as to why I am happy that the amendment has been put forward. I think the member for Eildon’s amendment to that amendment actually clarifies the situation much better and should be supported by the chamber. But I am pleased that country newspapers will be protected and supported through this process, not just for the financial benefit that they need but for the transparency and accountability that they provide to government and local government right across this state.

Mr CHEESEMAN (South Barwon) (16:40): It is with pleasure that I rise this afternoon to speak on this bill and the amendments that have come from the Legislative Council. I am someone who grew up in regional Victoria—

Ms Settle: In my electorate.

Mr CHEESEMAN: Very much in the member for Buninyong’s electorate. I must say that the regional media market in that community was very, very important for that community to be able to tell its own story to itself, to its community, and to be able to shine a spotlight on things that governments of all sorts of different political persuasions did not want to have a spotlight shone on and was very important for holding power and authority to account.

I have had the great pleasure of being a representative of the community for a long time and have through that period of time had a robust relationship with the media. I have no doubt most politicians, particularly in the regions, have had periods of good fortune with the local media and periods of not so good fortune when they seek to hold us, as people with authority and power, to account for the decisions that we make. I must say that regional Victorians—and I am a proud regional Victorian—very much appreciate our stories, and we very much appreciate that opportunity of our stories being told through our various news outlets in the country. I think that has provided a real hallmark of difference between regional Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne.

We have also seen over the last couple of decades a lot of change that has happened in the media landscape. We have seen concentration happening, and we have seen all sorts of different attempts by different levels of government to intervene in the media market to ensure that we do have regional diversity and diversity of media ownership across continental Australia. But what we have seen I think in some ways is two parallel challenges: one is concentration of media ownership, and the second is the introduction of really disruptive, new social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram and other things. That has changed fundamentally the financial underpinnings of many of our newspapers, and we have seen so many different newspapers and media outlets in regional Victoria and across Australia disappear over the last little while or be merged into bigger and stronger entities to ensure their ongoing financial underpinnings.

What we have also seen on top of that is that massive disruptive event that has happened in our economies called COVID. Fundamentally the way our communities work and the way we organise ourselves has been challenged and changed. What the Andrews Labor government has very much recognised over that period is the important role that our media market, particularly our regional media market, has played in us as a government getting important information out into the community to ensure the health and safety of all of our communities. Certainly I have taken up, as many of my regional colleagues have, that opportunity of telling the story, of making that strong case on behalf of our communities—the importance of our regional media outlets—and I would very much like to acknowledge the minister for having taken our soundings, for having listened to the strong representations that I and my regional colleagues have made.

In my context in South Barwon, but particularly as an MP in Geelong, we have got a number of very, very strong media players, of course. We have got the Geelong Advertiser, which is a very historic and longstanding daily newspaper. We have got K Rock/Bay FM, which has been providing radio services to the Geelong community for a long time, and then we have got a number of weekly newspapers. We have got the Surf Coast Times, the Bellarine Times, the Armstrong Creek Times, the Geelong Times and the Geelong Independent. All of these media players have played an important role in telling our stories, in holding governments to account, in shining a strong spotlight on authority and on power and in making sure that the community’s stories are being told. I am very grateful for their tremendous contribution to Geelong community life and to us being able to not only tell our stories locally to ourselves but importantly engender issues that the Geelong community has where they are seeking outcomes from either Canberra or, importantly, Spring Street.

In closing, I have heard some fantastic contributions from my regional colleagues, and I certainly very much wish to acknowledge them and thank them for their efforts and to thank the minister for taking those soundings. I think these amendments are the appropriate approach, and I look forward to them passing so that we can get on with governing this state and making sure that we have strong regional media players in this state for many years to come.

Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (16:47): What a fantastic debate it has been. If there is one thing we have seen come from it, it is an absolute commitment to regional media. That alone really speaks volumes, because it is an industry that is so under threat. It is under threat in relation to newspapers, radio, television. All our regions are seeing an absolute diminution in the amount of availability for our stories to be told, for us to actually have access to a whole range of media.

I was delighted to be able to raise this matter as my matter of public importance last year, and it was terrific then to see so many regional members get up and have their say on it—perhaps in a different context where there was a lot more concentration on the importance of regional media rather than a bit of a competition between the parties on who loves them the most, as we have seen today. But seeing the amendments that have come back today, it shows an understanding in this place of the issue that was raised by our country newspaper associations. For me, raising this issue and bringing on the reasoned amendment when the bill was first before this place was very important to put the spotlight on the fact that this bill, quite a big bill that deals with many pieces of legislation—amending children’s services, children’s wellbeing, education, education training and reform, the Electoral Act 2002, many acts—had tucked away a section that with the stroke of a pen would wipe out the necessity for publication of a whole range of government notices in our printed newspapers. So the spotlight was put on that. All of us were probably lobbied by our local newspapers and by the Victorian Country Press Association.

I was pleased to bring that reasoned amendment before this house and pleased to have the support of everyone on this side of the house when that was voted on. I was then able to lobby members of the upper house on the crossbench on this issue. I was pleased also to raise it in question time with the Premier and get a commitment from him that that would not be proceeded with and that the necessary changes would be made by the government to not allow that particular clause to go ahead that effectively would have wiped out the need for those notices to be printed in regional newspapers.

It cannot be stressed too much how important that access to the printed press is in regional areas, and I think it has been said by many how so many people still do not have access to the internet. So many people live in black spots where they simply cannot get access to it. But that aside, there are many older and disabled people in our community who do rely on printed newspapers very much for their access to information and to see what is happening in their communities. We had a recent incident in Shepparton where a local government notice about a project that was about to be launched was published. It was seen by many people, and a residents group formed around it. A whole lot of advocacy was born out of that simply because they saw it in the local newspaper. These are not people who would go and search a single website page run by the government to find that sort of information. It is really important that our local newspapers do that.

It is so important too that we have journalists in our community who have the opportunity not only to learn but to put the spotlight on what is happening, whether it be at local government level or in our organisations. They tell all our stories. They go to all the sporting events, they go to clubs and organisations, they take photos. There is the preppies page of all the young preps starting school. These are all really pivotal parts of what makes a community, and so the ability for our newspapers to continue to be viable is essential. Part of that viability is the reliance on government funding—government paying for advertising in those newspapers—whether it be public notices, whether it be all the advertising that has been done over the past two years in relation to COVID. I think the federal, state and local governments have continually advertised in our local newspapers to make sure that people have access to the information they need.

There really is an underpinning of the financial viability of our regional newspapers that is brought about by that government commitment to publishing in our regional newspapers, and it would be devastating to lose any more. We have lost so many newspapers across regional Australia. In Shepparton alone at the moment we do not have a television station with a cameraman. At the moment there is no-one there to do a press conference in front of, to film, to have that one chance to be on WIN TV, which is circulated now across the whole of Victoria—a half-hour regional bulletin where the whole of regional Victoria has to compete for one spot. We used to have our own regional television stations with our own journalists with our own half-hour, or even an hour in some cases, to have all our stories told. That is all gone, and we are now faced with a situation where we have a monopoly over so much of the news, particularly in television. I have to say that if we did not have the ABC in regional areas, we would be in dire straits, because with the streaming that now goes on of other television stations we are faced with just getting one side of the spectrum. Having that balance, that capacity for balance, is also really important.

We have very small towns with newspapers. Dookie has the MajorSaddleback News, would you believe. Nathalia has the Red Gum Courier. All our towns have newspapers, and they do a really important job when it comes to communicating with our communities, so the amendment that has been put forward by the government seems to me to hit the mark. I have looked closely at the one put by the member for Eildon, and I can see that there is a genuine attempt to try and tighten things up by referring to suburban and regional areas in Victoria. But I am just concerned by the word ‘circulating’, because I think the Herald Sun circulates right across regional Victoria, and for me that is not good enough. I am talking about supporting our regional newspapers in our regional towns, the ones that are written there by local journalists, published by local organisations. We have many independent and small newspapers across our regions that are not part of a bigger conglomerate, that are not part of News Corp. The Herald Sun has the whole sweep of Victoria, but not everyone reads it. A lot of people do not read it for a lot of good reasons, but mainly they are looking for their local news and they will always support their local newspapers. I am concerned that, while the word ‘published’ in the government amendment is a much stronger, better word and it embeds the newspaper in the town region that the government will have to support, ‘circulating’ to me is just a bit too loose, and I just cannot be satisfied that it does what needs to be done.

The opportunity to have this issue dealt with—as I said, it was a big bill and this was just tucked away in it. If we had had the opportunity for consideration in detail in this place, I think it would have been flushed out quite early on and everyone would have had a chance to put these questions to the minister, and perhaps the amendment would have been moved by the government in this place instead of having to go through all the convolutions of going to the upper house.

Similarly, I think it nevertheless shows a bit of democracy at work here because the spotlight was put on it here, it was argued up there and the amendment has been made. It has been picked up, and it has been brought back here. In a sense it is a house of review in the other place and it has done its job, and the government has got on board and brought forward an amendment which will achieve the outcome that all of us wanted to see. It has been said by many of us in this place that this is not about circulating a metropolitan newspaper in regional areas. This is not about the Herald Sun, which does have a wide circulation in many regional areas. It is about supporting our local newspapers, and the government is on notice that that is what that amendment means. I am confident that that is what is intended and what should happen, and on that basis I support the amendment from the Legislative Council.

The SPEAKER: The house is considering Council amendments to the Regulatory Legislation Amendment (Reform) Bill 2021. As the member for Eildon has moved an amendment to the Council’s amendments, the amendments will be dealt with separately. The question is: that amendment 1 be agreed to.

House divided on amendment 1:

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment 2 agreed to.

The SPEAKER: The minister has moved that amendment 3 be agreed to. The member for Eildon has moved an amendment to this amendment. She has moved:

That all the words after ‘be’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘disagreed with but the following amendments be made in the Bill:

1. Clause 38, page 25, line 2, after “subsection (1)” insert “or, if subsection (2A) applies, by complying with the requirements set out in subsection (2A)”.

2. Clause 38, page 25, after line 2 insert—

“(2A) Despite subsection (1), if a requirement in an Act, a statutory rule or any other subordinate instrument for notice (however described) to be published in a print newspaper applies in respect of any locality or part of Victoria which is regional or suburban Victoria, publication—

(a) must be in published in a print newspaper circulating in that part of regional or suburban Victoria; and

(b) in addition, may otherwise be published in a manner specified in subsection (1)(a) to (c).”.’.

The question is:

That the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Those supporting the amendment moved by the member for Eildon should vote no.

House divided on question:

Question agreed to.

Ms McLeish’s amendment defeated.

Council’s amendment agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

The SPEAKER: A message will be sent to Legislative Council informing them of the house’s decision.