TRANSCRIPT
The New South Wales government says an extensive review of its advertising practices in multicultural media publications will guide changes to the way it operates in this area.
The 2023 Multicultural Media and Policy review has made ten recommendations, all of which have been adopted by the state government.
At a hearing in parliament last week, the CEO of Multicultural New South Wales, Joseph La Posta, said the review followed consultation with the state's independent media organisations.
"We've worked with a number of the really important organisations, to be frank, that my agency's partnered with for over 40 years. Chinese Daily, Chinese Herald, a number of the Arabic-speaking publications, a number of the Vietnamese-speaking (publications) - one who's on our advisory board, Mr David Giang, who does a fantastic job in communicating with communities down in south-western Sydney."
The review was a pre-election promise from the Labor government, and has been conducted by the state's Ministry of Customer Services.
Among the ten recommendations made by the review is an increase of expenditure in information campaigns targeting multicultural and First Nations communities from 7.5 to nine per cent of the overall advertising budget for each campaign.
Dimitra Skalkos is the Publisher and managing Director of the independent publication "The Greek Herald".
She's among those who say that's insufficient.
"Whilst we appreciate being raised from 7.5 per cent to 9 per cent and whilst we appreciate the fact that clearly a lot of effort and time has gone into producing this report, the narrative has been lost and the message has been diluted. Because increasing to nine per cent doesn't actually serve the sector because currently, many of these titles and mastheads or broadcasters aren't seeing the existing 7.5 allocation."
Independent media organisations also claim that New South Wales Minister for Multiculturalism, Stephen Kamper, pledged to deliver $2 million in funding to multicultural media, which has yet to be delivered.
When questioned by the Deputy Opposition whip in the legislative council Wes Fang on the review, Minister Kamper claimed one of the main issues for multicultural media organisations was that they were seeking parity with Victoria's spending in this area.
The Victorian government issued a directive on July 2023 saying all departments and agencies must provide at least 15 per cent of their campaign media budget to multicultural publications.
Minister Kamper said the independent media outlets were seeking to reach a similar agreement in New South Wales.
KAMPER: "Well essentially, their concerns were that they were being delivered content for them to introduce into their media distribution to communities, but they weren't getting paid for it. That's what the greatest concern was at the time."
FANG: "Are you confident of that?"
KAMPER: "I'm very confident of that. And they called for a greater (voices interrupt) percentage of spend to the multicultural media groups. And that's what they were fighting for, they wanted a 15 per cent of overall media spend going to the multicultural media groups."
However, a high-ranking member of the Independent Multicultural Media of Australia, who were consulted during the review process, says that's not the case.
Fotis Kapetopoulos, secretary of the IMMA, says Victoria's model was only used as an example in their discussions with the New South Wales government.
"There was an assumption that IMMA, or Independent Multicultural Media of Australia, were advocating for 15 per cent. We weren't. We were just providing a model of what happened in Victoria and we understand every state has a different process and different approaches."
Ms Skalkos of "The Greek Herald", who herself is a member of IMMA, says the New South Wales government needs to better support print publications which provide an essential service for diverse communities.
"There's two solutions. One is to definitely increase the inclusion of spend in traditional print media. I think they've dismissed it far too early because there still is a need and a demand. As I said, we're a daily publication. I'm not in the business of paying my printer for no reason. There's still a demand. We're still making sales daily, on a national level and across New South Wales. So, that's a bit concerning that they don't see that."
The IMMA's Mr Kapetopoulos shares a similar opinion and says the state government needs to continue supporting organisations that provided communities with crucial information at critical times.
"During the COVID crisis, it was independent multicultural media that were in the front line. Because as you know, when somebody spends money on Facebook, whether it's in Persian, Arabic or Greek, immediately it gets monstered by anti-vaxxers, by conspiracy theories and fake news. But when Neos Kosmos or The Greek herald, or El Telegraph or Chinese Herald puts out those messages, then those messages are validated. And they're argued and discussed and they come with context. And then we can help people as public interest journalism in getting to the truth, rather than letting... And also, to be quite frank, I don't like seeing money, tax-payers' money, all running towards foreign digital companies."
The Director of Ethnic Media and Multicultural Advertising Service Leba, Allan Kaufman, also says further investments in traditional media should be taken into consideration by the state government.
He says those types of publications can provide essential services and information that cannot be found via digital platforms.
"I believe the NSW government should consider spending more in traditional media, as this is the only media that can support them with editorial and their press releases that they issue on a constant basis."
A statement for Multicultural New South Wales says the increase from 7.5 to 9 per cent for independent media was considered by the review to be the most cost-effective and sustainable way to reach more communities and continue to deliver campaign objectives.
The statement goes on to say the policy is set to be reviewed again in two years.
