Page 668 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2018
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MR BARR: Indeed, yes, I did. The average age of ABC TV viewers was pointed out to me and other state and territory leaders over dinner at COAG by the Prime Minister a few weeks ago. Yes, that fact surprised me a little. He asked everyone to guess what the average age of a 7 pm ABC TV news audience member was. Given that my career before being in this place was in the media monitoring industry, I am somewhat familiar with the long-running history of the demographics of the media in this city and, indeed, around the nation.
But to make that observation is no more remarkable than saying that young people are the primary audience of JJJ or that in Canberra at the moment more young people listen to Hit 104.7 than listen to 2CC. In the context of the government’s attempts to engage with a broader number of Canberrans, we recognise that every media outlet will reach a different demographic but even all of them combined will not reach every Canberran.
So I believe in direct communication. That is hardly a novel thing. We all talk to constituents. We all knock on doors. We all hold street stalls. We all engage with Canberrans by a variety of different means. In the 2016 election the people who are sitting on this side of the chamber, together with all of the other Labor candidates, had more than 250,000 conversations with Canberrans. I know that each and every member of the government continues on a daily basis to talk with hundreds, if not thousands, of Canberrans. That is part of an elected representative’s job.
Not every element of that engagement is undertaken through the media. Some of it is, but not all of it. An example of where I undertake on a fortnightly basis that engagement with the community through the media is Chief Minister’s talkback, every second Friday on ABC Radio. That is but one example of communication with Canberrans. I think it is entirely appropriate and unremarkable that members of this place engage with the Canberra community using a variety of means. At no point have I ever said that the government would no longer engage with the traditional media.
What I have said is that we will engage using a variety of forms. That is exactly what the government communication strategy outlines. It outlines engagement in a variety of ways, because we have a diverse community. The government will seek to talk across that community to the widest variety and the largest possible demographic mix that we can achieve. We are actively communicating with all Canberrans through a variety of different channels. This includes the traditional media. It is important that we communicate with Canberrans of all ages.
Again, it is not mutually exclusive to seek to bring younger Canberrans into our public debate, particularly when the median age of this city is 34. As has been pointed out to me through this debate, yes, I am older than the average Canberran. When I came into this place I was the same age as the average Canberran. I am now older. I am now older than the average Canberran. It is my observation that, through the previous methods of engagement on matters that affect Canberrans, we have not done well enough in communicating and engaging with that younger cohort.
Attempting to do more to engage with those people does not mean that you are excluding other people. It does not mean that and nor should it mean that. To be very
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