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
FIJI'S military ruler Frank Bainimarama and his regime say they are "flattered" Australia has followed the rogue Pacific nation and proposed a crackdown on press freedom.
Now thats a great endorsement isnt it cat.... NOT.......... but just shows how bad this govt is and how dangerous it is but sadly it has a few shrill staunch supporters on here and they are getting more and more desperate by the day to defend this dying fraud of a govt.
Tyrants, and temporary PMs, fear a free press
LABOR has not only lost its way (again), it has jettisoned any claim to be a party of principle.
On Thursday the government leader in the house, Anthony Albanese, tabled six Bills with which Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy hope to gag the press into submission.
Even the title of the principal piece of legislation, the News Media (Self-regulation) Bill is a shocking reminder of the Orwellian nature of this disgraceful attack on the press.
There is absolutely nothing in the legislation which could possibly be described as self-regulatory just as there is nothing in the material which justifies this plunge into the dark ages of media repression.
The Bills are all about establishing a de facto licensing system under which the media would be answerable to a government appointee, who would have extraordinary powers to reward favoured media outlets and punish others.
This appointee - to be called the Public Interest Media Advocate (PIMA) - would hold unfettered authority to decide whether a news media organisation is entitled to enjoy the basic privacy protections which permit journalists to operate effectively.
The legislation spells out some of the elements the PIMA must consider when deciding whether a news organisation would “continue to qualify for the ‘journalism’ exemption from the privacy obligations imposed under the Privacy Act 1988.”
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/tyrants_and_temporary_pms_fear_a_free_press/
Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has noted the legislation is so poorly constructed that the minister couldn’t even sell it to Seven boss Kerry Stokes - “even though it contained a 50 per cent reduction in television licence fees”.
Turnbull said the government was attempting to regulate newspapers for the first time in Australian peacetime history.
Yesterday he launched a savage attack on the Bills in parliament as “a jumble of measures” lacking coherence. Conroy, he said, was “the least competent minister in this government”.
He likened the lack of consultation with the media industry on the so-called reforms to the incompetent delivery of the failed mining tax.
He also reminded parliament that ICAC’s current investigation into NSW Labor identity Eddie Obeid had its genesis in newspaper reporting conducted in co-operation with the ABC - co-operation which would be banned under the new legislation.
It beggars belief that this legislation has been presented in a parliament in Australia, a nation which until recently was widely believed to be a liberal democracy.
With the federal ALP locked in a leadership struggle and with rumours of an imminent coup sweeping parliament yesterday, it was argued that this attack on the press was designed as an elaborate diversion to protect Gillard’s leadership through this week and the next, the last sitting week before the May Budget session.
One Labor MP said Gillard was only saved this week by the slight lift in Tuesday’s Newspoll numbers.
“Now the newspapers will be full of the new pope and this media legislation, she has lived through another near-death experience,” he said.
“This legislation may not pass - but it has already served its political purpose.”
If this threat to the Australian democratic system has been orchestrated to distract those stalking the prime minister, her protectors have gone too far.
If the cost of Gillard’s political survival is the shackling of the Australian media - it is far too high a price
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/tyrants_and_temporary_pms_fear_a_free_press/
