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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
talk about full of it. what absolute dribble.
Speaking of socialists..... and our favourite one
Good morning to our socialist group who are madly defending this.
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It seems Conroy doesnt even know what what legislation is... Very scary
Media minister's dangerous law
WHEN legislation cannot be explained - even by the politician who created - it you know you're dealing with a dangerous law.
And so it is that the confusion and inconsistency in Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's proposed new media reforms has now reached critical mass.
Quizzed about the impact or scope of his plan, Senator Conroy was vague and evasive.
On ABC NewsRadio - surely not a paid-up member of the so-called "hate media" - he was yesterday asked repeatedly about this newspaper's provocative front page, which was clearly intended to test the nature and intent of the Minister's attempt to regulate the media.
Sadly, our worst fears were confirmed. He at first condemned the coverage as a "disservice to journalism" - then, when pressed, further confessed he hadn't seen it.
Worrying.
Interviewer Marius Benson then asked if it breached any of his standards.
Senator Conroy said he didn't know but that it might do and he would have to check.
Concerning.
Benson then questioned whether it would pass the public interest test - and the Minister attempted to divert the subject by saying the public interest test applied only to enforcing media diversity.
What he didn't say, and what Benson was clearly talking about, was the fact that his proposed new Public Interest Media Advocate would declare a "self-regulated" body (although how a government-declared body can be self-regulated is another question) to enforce press standards and complaints.
This is thus an attempt by the government to insert itself into the role of regulating, monitoring and, inevitably, restricting the editorial content of newspapers.
Chilling.
In fact, Senator Conroy indicated as much when he vaguely suggested that yesterday's front page - which continues a long-established tabloid tradition of cheeky irreverence - could possibly be in breach of the law.
Perhaps uncaring or just ignorant of the dangerous door he is opening, Senator Conroy dismisses concerns about this kind of latent censorship as "hysteria".
Far from it. We are not accusing the government of book-burning, merely pointing out the fact that no government should have any kind of control about how people report upon it.
And, unlike our colleagues in the TV and radio industries who are already subject to some oversight by a statutory body, the reporting of news and examination of public issues is not one of myriad functions we perform. It is our core function, in many ways our only function.
Even in a multi-media world newspapers and their associated platforms remain the engine room of news-breaking, scrutiny, debate and the exposure of wrongdoing and public mismanagement.
Politicians have always had more to fear from the press than any other medium when it comes to pulling back the blanket on their misdeeds.
No wonder they are so keen to control it.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/media-ministers-dangerous-law/story-e6frezz0-1226596698327
And lets not forget Julias very strong communists party connections and beliefs
