Socialism bordering on communism Gillard and Labor style. ( This will please the luvies and the socialists on here I am sure)
THIS government will go down in history as the first Australian government outside of wartime to attack freedom of speech by seeking to introduce a regime which effectively institutes government sanctioned journalism.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/an-aggressive-attempt-to-silence-your-media/story-e6frezz0-1226595884130
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is threatening to take away privacy law exemptions - often described as shield provisions - which are fundamental to the operation of journalism in our democracy. He clearly said today that these protections for journalism would be removed if the proposed Public Interest Media Advocate was unhappy with the oversight of a media company's reporting by the Australian Press Council.
This removes the capacity of journalists to do their job - it is a not too sophisticated endeavour to gag the media.
The government also risks standing as the one that turned the clock back to last century, with its highly interventionist, vague and unnecessary public interest test on media ownership - which is nothing more than a political interest test which governments will use to punish outlets they don't like.
It will only serve to add layers of uncertainty, huge cost and inefficiency, adding yet another cost on business and Australian taxpayers.
The stated rationale of the public interest test is that it is to preserve media diversity. Yet there is more media diversity today than in all of human history. Moreover, both the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Communications and Media Authority already have extensive powers to enforce media diversity today.
The minister has made no case as to the inadequacy of these existing powers. This proposal cannot be about diversity - that false need in the face of plenty is a sad disguise for the government's desire to control the media. The irony that the reference to a desire to preserve diversity is contained in a statement which advocates the abolition of the 75 per cent television broadcast reach rule is not lost on journalists.
The Public Interest "Tsar" will be beholden to government and will act as its gatekeeper. It is a sad day for Australian democracy.
It also represents a profound debasing of public policy process to sit on two reports for a year and then to put a gun to the head of parliament and business demanding passage of a series of bills in less than a week - all without any consultation with the print and digital media industry. Bills which have a huge impact on major employers, thousands of employees, investors and taxpayers in the Australian economy are being proposed in an old fashioned "stick 'em up" style hardly reflecting reasonable behaviour in a dynamic modern digital economy.
The whole approach today constitutes a travesty of public policy and parliamentary process.
Good read here
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/julia-gillards-henchman-stephen-conroy-attacks-freedom-of-the-press/story-e6freuy9-1226595971160
Paul Kelly writes;
"Call it what you like, but this bill is not self-regulation." Says Disney.
The Australian Press Council's chairman Julian Disney, who has worked intensively during the past two years to make genuine self-regulation work, says of the Privacy Act sanction: "The council doesn't think that's appropriate and I don't think it's appropriate."
Disney says the package is flawed because "there should be only one regulator" and Labor's policy allowing "a proliferation of regulators was a recipe for disaster". The proposal is "too broad and discretionary", and any mechanism should involve a panel, not just the single PIMA.
Since its bills were unveiled Labor has refused to address the real issues. It talks about Finland, Britain and what David Cameron did on Monday night, criticises Sydney's The Daily Telegraph and says the Press Council doesn't work.
If Labor thinks the media chiefs are wrong about what these bills mean, then it should say so. But it doesn't. It doesn't defend these provisions but it is determined to impose a variation of the Finkelstein ideology.
It is true the timing of this policy is absurd and buying a huge fight with the media industry at this time is ludicrous. But the real problem is different -- this is bad law and bad policy.
The damage is done. Cabinet and caucus have crossed the threshold to authorise new instruments of state power against the media.
This is now a Labor value. It guarantees a permanent divide. Julia Gillard may think she needs to salvage this policy but its passage will only further damage Labor's standing.
