News Limited CEO slams media reforms as gag on journalism

NEWS CEO Kim Williams has called the prospect of media reform that gags the press 'a turning point in the nation's political life'.

Kim Williams

NEWS Limited chief executive Kim Williams has called the prospect of new media controls a turning point in Australia's political life, with the hallowed institution of free speech under threat from Labor's proposed reforms.

"The parliament is in a unique position in Australian history," Mr Williams told an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce lunch in Melbourne today. "I encourage you all to rise up to defend the fundamental right of free speech.

"The Privacy Act exemption for journalism is not an indulgence . . . without the exemption journalism would be gagged . . . that is outrageous."

In a passionate attack on the reforms, which some see as direct assault on News Limited, Australia's biggest diversified media company, Mr Williams said that Labor was holding a gun to the head of parliament, the media industry and the Australian people by attempting to rush through the new legislation without proper consultation.

SPEECH: Kim Williams on media reform

"Not a single senior newspaper executive or industry representative has had a meaningful consultation with the government,” Mr Williams said.

“I have never had any engagement on any proposal. And as the CEO of a company which has direct responsibility for employment in its various enterprises amounting to over 14,000 people that seems, let me be restrained, odd.”

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy yesterday unveiled a swathe of reforms to regulation of the media sector, which include establishing a new statutory authority to rule on the way media complaints are handled by existing complaints bodies, dubbed the Public Interest Media Advocate.

The new media regulator would also make rulings on proposed media takeovers, to which a public interest test would be applied, and vet investors in major companies. If a media company's reporting standards do not meet the requirements of the regulator, that company could be stripped of its exemptions from the Privacy Act.

A 50 per cent cut to the free-to-air commercial broadcasters’ licence fee will be part of the reform package but a controversial plan to scrap the 75 per cent reach rule that prevents a television networks from broadcasting to more than three-quarters of the population has been referred to a one-day parliamentary inquiry, which will be held on Friday.

Senator Conroy won't release draft legislation until tomorrow, with the bills to be debated and passed by the parliament next week or the package will be junked.

Describing Senator Conroy’s one-week deadline for parliament to consider the reforms as "insulting", Mr Williams today attacked the proposal to establish an 'advocate' to impose new rules such as where TV stations source their news and current affairs programs, describing the proposed title of the body as an "impossibly pompous, Soviet-style name".

"This is already being described as the Meet The Press clause," Mr Williams said, referring to the recent deal in which News Limited, publisher of The Australian, agreed to supply the Meet The Press program to the Ten Network.

Labor and Greens MPs expressed concerns over the deal, claiming the fact that Ten is chaired by Lachlan Murdoch, the son of New Corporation’s chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch, would give News Limited, a News Corp subsidiary, too much influence in the broadcast arena.

Speaking today, Mr Williams described the new public interest test proposed by Senator Conroy and measures to potentially make media companies subject to privacy rules in certain circumstances as a direct attack on the free press in Australia.

Mr Williams said: “The gun-to-the head aspects whereby the minister demands the parliament must pass legislation in a week are a direct assault on the whole increasingly reviled notion of freedom of speech.”

"How dare Senator Conroy say he believes passionately in freedom of the press as a cornerstone of democracy. It is impossible to believe any such thing when these proposals are examined in a sober disciplined way."

"In addition to his attack on publishers, Senator Conroy is also attacking the democracy of our parliamentary system. The role of our parliament is to scrutinise and debate important legislation to ensure that governments get reforms right."

"We all know how damaging poorly informed, ill-considered legislation can be. As with all legislation, the devil is in the detail."

Mr Williams called on the Greens and Independents to demand that Senator Conroy’s time limit on consideration of the legislation be rejected.

"The parliament needs time to consider in detail changes that affect billions of dollars of investment, thousands of jobs and the future of entire business frameworks. We argue stridently that Senator Conroy’s measures represent bad, backward-looking policy that fails to respond to the challenge of a rapidly changing digital economy," the media boss said.

"Government should not be introducing media legislation driven by a motivation to punish or restrict investment or worse, to play favourites. It should be reforming already out-dated regulations to encourage investment and from that innovation, growth, and jobs in Australian journalism."

"Sadly the Government’s media sanctions will fail the very real challenge to ensure and encourage real diversity of media voices in our country."

However, the Prime Minister has rejected accusations that the reforms are an attempt to stifle media coverage that is critical of her government.

Julia Gilliard insisted that government would have no more control over its Public Interest Media Advocate than over a High Court judge or the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

“There is no evidence anywhere that despite the fact that we appoint High Court judges, which we do, that we somehow get beneficial decisions from them,” Ms Gillard said.

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull today criticised the strict timetable imposed by Senator Conroy on the reforms' passage through parliament.

“He's asking us to pass those laws by next Thursday and yet he hasn't even shown us what those laws are. And then if the parliament doesn't do what he demands then apparently it's all off,” he said.

“This is just childish. He's treating the parliament and the Australian people that this parliament represents with contempt.”