Peter Dutton: we can live without out of touch Fairfax

A war of words has broken out between Fairfax chief Greg Hywood and Peter Dutton after the minister’s earlier attack.

More than 60 journalists from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age protest outside Parliament House in Canberra earlier this week. Picture: AAP.

Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood has blasted Peter Dutton after the Immigration Minister launched an extraordinary attack on the embattled company and declared its productivity “went up last week” during a strike.

Mr Dutton, who has been an outspoken critic of Fairfax, the Guardian and the ABC, made the comments one day after journalists returned to work following industrial action, which was triggered by an announcement that 125 newsroom jobs would be axed.

In a statement responding to Mr Dutton’s remarks, Mr Hywood told The Australian: “Once again Peter Dutton shows why no one rates him.”

The Immigration Minister has previously hit out at Fairfax Media for leading what he called a “jihad” against the Coalition and today said the organisation was “out of touch”, despite having “a couple of good journalists there”.

“I don’t think our lives were affected one way or another (during the week-long strike). I think people realise that you can live without reading Fairfax newspapers. I think it’s a better way to lead your life, that would be my advice,” he told 2GB radio, which is majority owned by Fairfax Media.

“When they say ‘the Prime Minister has been captured by the Right’ or ‘has been playing to the conservative base of the party’, what that’s code for is this: They’re saying that Malcolm Turnbull hasn’t undone the boats policy, he hasn’t allowed the detention centres to close on Manus and Nauru. That’s the one thing they’re obsessed about.

“This is their criticism, they believe that already we should’ve had gay marriage or we should’ve had a Republic, they can’t believe that somebody like Turnbull is being captured into thinking you continue Operation Sovereign Borders and stop people coming by boat.”

Mr Dutton claimed Fairfax had an “ideological argument to push” but said “no amount of Fairfax pondering” would change the government’s tough immigration policies.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann noted Fairfax journalists had returned to Parliament House during a press conference, telling them it was “good to see you back here”.

The media company chose World Press Freedom Day to announce it will cut about 25 per cent of its journalists in newsrooms across its print titles The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review and websites Brisbane Times and WAToday.

The voluntary redundancy round is part of a $30 million cost reduction management announced by Chris Janz, recently appointed managing director of Australian Metro Publishing, to safeguard the future of the print titles. Last month Janz said the “tough decisions” would reshape “the legacy model of traditional media into a more streamlined” organisation.

The seven-day strike affected The Sydney Morning Herald’s and The Age’s budget coverage — the biggest day of the year in the political calendar.