"In its mistaken belief that more legislation equals good government we are witnessing one of the most frenetic and interventionist administrations our country has ever endured. From sport to border protection, energy to mining, hospitals to clunker cars, live cattle exports to fishing trawlers, is there a single human endeavour in which the government leaves well enough alone?

You would think after so many policy disasters it might have the wit to temper its reforming zeal. But this government seems to be in a mad race to stamp its brand over everything, no matter how destructive, just for the satisfaction of saying "Labor was here" - before Labor becomes history.

Now it is our turn. Echoes of Bob Brown could be seen in the vindictive media regulation Communications Minister Stephen Conroy unveiled yesterday. This bastard child born of revenge and hubris is a threat to free speech and democracy."

I couldn't have said it better.

Senator Conjob, (the wacko that wanted to bring internet censorship) who boasted that he could make media bosses wear their underwear on their heads, has indicated that he wants this legislation to pass in the next 2 weeks and is not prepared to consider any changes whether from labor, green, indepedent or opposition MPs.

I seriously think that it is time this little dictator is shown the door.

When Miranda Devine actually nails an issue in this fashion, it is time to acknowledge the full extent of the disaster that is our Labor/Green/hangers-on government.

I found myself in agreement with every sentence of this excerpt, to the point where I was compelled to track its source - Devine's column in the Tele. To discover that I was in the same camp as this avatar of the ultra-right-wing press was most disconcerting.

Please excuse me while I sob quietly in a corner.

What I can't understand is why they would want to upset the major press, who by & large have been well & truly in their pocket all along.

Apart from Miranda Devine, Bolt, & a very few radio talk back hosts, the media could not have been kinder to them, & their odd causes.

The double dissolution election will be a bit of a pain, so soon after the general election, but boy will it be worth it.
It will be a good test of these “Johnnie come Lately" Greens. Will they roll over & vote with the new government, to keep their job, or will they stand on principle, & get turfed out on their backsides.

You'd almost reckon that labor had killed a chinaman, when they swapped to Julia, rather than just knifing a Chinese speaker.

Q: What did Jack Nicholson say the Julia Gillard?

A: You can't handle the truth!

I said years ago this guy was evil. I think he was the one that started using the word regime in Australia to describe the opposition. A word not often spoken when referring to western governments. More reserved for describing communist or despotic regimes?

Murdock, as did his father, has used his International print media for his own opinions to rule us all.
Such products as the American version of Sky news ignores truth so badly it is funny.
Australia has long lost any resemblance to true investigative Journalism.
I await in fear for big Gina to take 0over the only balanced papers Fairfax.
ANY researcher looking at Murdock,s dad, in the birth place of todays empire will soon find that old man *had Prime Ministers stand before his desk hat in hand.
And call him Sir*!

no doubt Conroy wants the warmist to continue to be allowed to preach their spin but silence the free thinkers who have exposed the scam.

Belly, not all that often we agree, but on this one, you have hit the nail on the head for once.
Just take a look at England to see what depths Murdoch will sink.
Any relationship between journalism and the scribes from the Murdoch press is purely coincidental. Fortunately, The Daily Telegraph does nothing more than feed the bottom dwellers, so is unlikely to sway too many to their rabid paranoid thinking, a publication Joseph Goebbels would be proud of.

Murdoch turned on Whitlam after Whitlam called him a "shonky slob" because Murdoch wanted to be appointed Ambassador to England as a foothold to expand his media empire and he's had the Libs in his pocket ever since.

His newspaper was the only one where journalists went on strike because of editorial interference and having their stories changed by editors to meet political demands from Murdoch himself.

Now Abbott meets with Murdoch and the next day announces he will stop the NBN from proceeding because it potentially hurts Murdochs business interests. After the election he will expect to be given the Asia broadcast rights as payment for services rendered.

His newspapers are effectively doomed anyway and he has put Foxtel into the same section of his "empire" because it is potentially finished too.

The over-the-top hysteria from News Limited is an indication that they have something to worry about when it comes to telling the truth - or at least the whole truth.

It's not a matter of the half-truths he says about the ALP but his deliberate avoidance of reporting anything potentially damaging to the LNP.

Now that's something more akin to Stalinesque methods that what Conroy announced.

Belly, Paul, wobbles,

You only have to listen to your salivating at the chance to get news limited to see that this media legislation is Labor's retribution against a press that does not tow the Labor line.

If Fairfax is so balanced, what do they say?

"Freedom of speech is too important to be tossed at will into the fickle winds of cynical, face-saving politics. Yet Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has done just that in trying to rush through dangerous media reforms. Conroy has failed to make the case more media regulation is needed, let alone justify a public interest test to vet ownership or an advocate to ''authorise'' what is acceptable for people to read, see and hear. Conroy has not shown how such reforms can operate at arm's length from government - the institution with most to gain from restricting free speech."

"We also know the consequence - intended by Conroy or not - will be a sharp reduction in voices capable of holding the powerful to account."

The freedom of the press is not synonamous with the freedom to only print what Comrade Conroy believes is correct.

SM I wounder, do you understand your views are just to the right of the Tea Party?
Yesterdays Murdock media, currently under review in America and England, are no different than the ramblings of *Josephs Gobbels*
Yes Labor is lost, internally hiding its head to ignore its voters wishes and the nations.
But now, clearly, in its dieing days, this country,s Murdock print media comic books, has lost any hold on reality, so too SM have you.
The current thought, Labor voters disappear on the night your team wins,is madness.
It can not be dismissed, if most LIBERALS spoke and thought as you do, even Gillard would trounce you in any election.

I reckon Murdock is too damn far left, & needs to be straightened out.

These cleaver Labor laws will be just the weapon Tony will need to do that, just after he buries the ABC.

Belly,

You can't have your cake and eat it. Either Fairfax is balanced, and their absolute condemnation of the media reforms indicate that it is a vindictive attempt to control the press, or Fairfax and virtually every other print media is as biased as the "Murdoch" press.

Labour can either be a champion for openness and democracy, or act as heavy handed opressors of free speech.

The question I ask you is what would you say if the coalition stacked the "independent" panel with coalition supporters?

Too much interference by governments in media matters is not good for democracy. However, that said, in a democracy there has to be an affordable right of redress for people who have been falsely represented, accused or where false figures/facts have been provided in an article. Most of us cannot afford the huge legal fees to keep these media moguls to account - so they continue to get away with activities less deserving of the role of reporting.

The heading of this post "Labor can't handle the truth" suggests that the press is always truthful - naive at best, liberal spin at worst.

The Murdoch and Fairfax press are not as pure as the driven snow and the current status quo where media chieftans with their own agendas should be unreachable under the law, democracy is also not served.

Having some rules around media ownership is not unreasonable. Imagine the sort of press if Rupert and his comrades owned everything. We would be fed a daily diet of crapola to feed corporate interests. If people are that naive they don't believe that media corporations have an interest in who governs just read some of the Leveson Inquiry reports and the reach they have within governments. And woe betide any poor soul who crosses their path.

The ideal is to have "a variety of voices" which can only be served if media ownership is not concentrated in the hands of a few. Imagine Australia with the Rinehart family owning all media outlets in digital and print. Rinehart is already putting pressure on some journalist to reveal her sources. As long as the public interest test is fair to all viewpoints I can't see a problem.

The stamping of feet by some in the media is just horsepoo. One minute they are saying the reforms won't achieve the desired outcomes and then they are likening Conroy to a dictator because they think they will. Weird.

SM,

"The freedom of the press is not synonamous with the freedom to only print what Comrade Conroy believes is correct".

I see nothing in the proposed legislation that would give Conroy that alleged power.

Nor is it synonymous with what Rupert Murdoch believes is correct.

Rupert employs over 150 Editors and how amazing it is that they all believe in exactly the same things as he does.

That's not freedom of the press - that's just oppression of the truth.

"Don't print the truth, print what people are saying" is another print media philosophy. Most journalists are not reporting all the facts, they are reporting their (or their Editor's) opinions and that is not what the print media is supposed to do - otherwise it becomes nothing more than a political pamphlet.

Pelican, Wobbles,

Neither of you nor anyone in Labor, has actually specified what has happenned in Australia that justifies changing Australia's laws. Craig Emmerson and other MPs have been asked on TV for examples of why this legislation is needed and not one has been provided.

Actually there is already legislation that provides for redress for those wronged such as libel. The press council already caters to those that have complaints, and has been working well.

As for wobbles not understanding how Comrade Conroy can control the press, it does not take Einstein to realise that given that Juliar has stacked the "independent" FWA almost exclusively with ex labor and trade union heavies, the chance of the "independent" media body actually being independent is zero.

I dare say Labour don't like the fact that people like Obeid, Thompson, Gillard, MacDonald, IPCC data manipulators have all been reported on for corruption. They would be more happy to have the ABC report on Tony Abbott supposedly punching the air when he was twenty years old or so.

Yes Runner, or Abbott lying to the AEC about the establishment of his own "slush fund" - the only reason he wasn't charged being because Howard got the laws changed.

And then there was the ruling of a criminal conspiracy by certain individuals in the Ashby matter that implicates various members of the Liberal Party - why the silence?

Then there was the orchestrated and legally unnecessary arrest stunt of Thomson coordinated to be timed during Abbott's press conference for maximum political effect plus the subsequent abuses of legal power.

Where is the reporting of ANY matter (and there are many) that is critical of the opposition?

Where is the balance?

Why the allegation of Abbott's weekly strategy meetings in News Limited HQ? Perhaps because they seem likely.

Rache,

You have just spouted a collection of half truths and rubbish. I guess that this is labor's version of "balance".

Note that everything you mentioned was reported in great detail in the newspaper, except that in the Ashby case, what was done was not criminal, inferring that Thomson's arrest was timed to coincide with Abbott's speech is bordering on paranoid, and the "allegation" that Abbott has weekly meetings with News limited is just sad.

I'll ask you Shadow Minister, do you believe in media ownership being concentrated in the hands of a few or do you believe in a spread of diverse views. The public interest test as it relates to media ownership is not new and the LNP has argued for similar.

If the Press Council is under pressure by senior media players who have tried to influence outcomes of adjudication as evidenced by letters provided to Finklestein (some read out this morning on ABC's Insiders) smacks of undue influence and attempts to manipulate outcomes.

I don't know whether an oversight body who protects the Australian Press Council (it does not adjudicate on newspapers) from corruption is a bad thing depending on what powers it is given. One can argue the risk of creeping powers which is a valid concern, however in its current form (if you read it carefully) the reaction and comparision to dictators is laughable.

Pelican,

I believe that you should have diverse views in the media, pretty much like we have now. People have access to a wide variety of news via TV, blogs, newspapers etc. Even where one organisation attracts a large share of the market, the consumer has various choices.

SM
As an aside to the reforms discussed, a positive media reform any government could implement is enabling people affordable avenues to sue when treated poorly by the media (ie. false information) or in cases of defamation. While we have defamation laws it is a privilege of the rich as nobody else can afford to take on the big end of town in the Courts. I don't think this has been included in the reforms but would be worthy of consideration by either party

Gillard! You can't handle the truth!

(Tony Abbott imitating Tom Cruise imitating Jack Nicholson).

Pelican,

I think that there needs to be made available redress without involving lawyers.

Most newspaper falsehoods are a result of errors in reporting with a reporter getting it wrong in spite of his best efforts. Today, printing a retraction immediately could be seen as an admission of guilt which would certainly not be in a paper's best interests if there is a chance of a law suit.

A proposal made by Turnbull yesterday that news organisations be given immunity from lawsuits if a suitable retraction is printed quickly. This would not cover malicious or deliberate falsehoods, or where damages were caused by the falsehood.

The man on the street could achieve redress, and newspapers would have an incentive to rectify errors. The only losers would be the lawyers.

This may be a good moment to interject.

Does anyone remember Malcolm Fraser saying "Life wasn't meant to be easy."?

Did you know that that was only the first half of his sentence? Very few people could hear the rest of what he said over the cheering and clapping of the crowd.