Julia Gillard defends media reforms, amid protests from media companies and opposition

JULIA Gillard has denied a proposed press regulator will mean government control over the press, amid media complaints of a lack of consultation.

JULIA Gillard has denied her proposed media regulator will hand the government control over the press, as news groups complained they'd not been properly consulted on the reforms.

Responding to a chorus of protest from media companies and the opposition over Labor's media reform package, the Prime Minister said she wanted to ensure industry self-regulation worked.

She said the 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.

She said the regulator would be appointed in consultation with the opposition and it, not the government, would set the standards by which the Australian Press Council operated.

Ms Gillard said her proposed public interest test to be applied to media mergers was about ensuring media diversity, and would not affect current media ownership arrangements.

With two newspaper companies having 86 per cent of market share, it was appropriate for an independent regulator to judge further consolidation of media companies on how they would affect “the diversity of voices in our democracy”.

Amid appeals for more detail on the government's fast-tracked media reform plan, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said audience reach and “frequency and depth of services” will be among the criteria assessed to determine whether media mergers are allowed.

Senator Conroy, who is yet to say how his public interest test and proposed new media regulator will work, said the measures must be passed within the fortnight because “all of the principles and ideas have been publicly canvassed for over two years”.

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.

Kim Williams, chief executive of News Limited, which publishes The Australian, attacked the government's timetable as insulting.

“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,” Mr Williams told an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce lunch in Melbourne.

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull added: “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.

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

Labor appears close to securing the votes it needs to pass the new laws with the support of the Greens and independents, but the opposition has vowed to repeal the measures if it wins government.

Mr Williams said Labor had failed to properly consult on what he called Soviet-style media reforms.

“Not a single senior newspaper executive or industry representative has had a meaningful consultation with the government.

“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.”

The peak newspaper industry body also said it was concerned about the legislation and disappointed at the government's lack of consultation with publishers.

“We are...united in opposing new regulation and legislative changes that affect our ability to report and investigate, as well as invest and compete in a digital and multi-platform media economy,” said Tony Hale, chief executive of The Newspaper Works.

Greens MP Adam Bandt questioned whether the government was serious about its legislation passing parliament.

“You do wonder if Labor would be happy, if in fact, it fell over and whether that is behind its odd arbitrary deadlines on such an important reform,” he told reporters.

Media proprietors have attacked the public interest advocate's oversight of journalistic standards, with Mr Williams previously declaring the 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”.

However, Senator Conroy rejected the criticism, saying the advocate's regulation role over the Australian Press Council was “simply a registration function”.

He said the Press Council had been a “lapdog” and a “laughing stock”, claiming it had only lifted its game since the debate over media reform had begun.

“What we want to do is make sure is that the protections and the standards that the Press Council have now introduced will be delivered,” Senator Conroy said.

Senator Conroy flagged some of the key criteria the public interest media advocate would take into account when testing whether mergers in the media sector were in the public interest.

“There is a number of different issues and criteria like audience reach, frequency and depth of services, cumulative impact - they're the sorts of tests that should be applied before we see any further reduction in the diversity of media in this country,” Senator Conroy told ABC radio.