Issue 812

Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

No Public Interest in Changes to Media Laws

Eager to escape from the miasma of lies, cover-up, libel and scandal which has engulfed it since the election, our ever-alert government has detected a major lack in our otherwise Utopian society, and one which it insists is a matter of increasing and justified public outrage.

It is not the continued mistreatment of the asylum seekers, a cause which brought tens of thousands of marchers on to the streets on Palm Sunday; as the Minister for Persecution, Phillip Ruddock, sternly pointed out, these misguided souls would have been better occupied working to ease the plight of refugees in other parts of the world rather than worrying about brutality and injustice committed by their own government.

At least I think that's what he said; it has become impossible to watch Ruddock in action for any length of time without having to leave the room to throw up.

No, the burning concern identified by John Howard and his colleagues as the central issue demanding immediate reform is the laws governing media ownership. This may come as something of a surprise to your average punter, who has not been writing floods of indignant letters to the newspapers, melting down talk-back radio lines or mounting demonstrations in the capital cities in support of less regulation in the fields of print, radio and television - although to be fair, the chant of 'What do we want? Repeal of the foreign and cross-media ownership laws. When do we want it? Now!' hardly trips off the tongue. But readers of the business sections, and also the special-pleading sections of the Murdoch, Packer and Fairfax presses will be aware that there is indeed a serious, if not popular, movement at work.

The idea, as loftily explained by the Media Minister Richard Alston, is that laws which were originally designed to stop the Australian media falling into foreign hands and to ensure as much diversity of local ownership as practicable have now become outdated because of the effects of technology and particularly the internet. These days the wonders of satellite communication mean that anyone who really wants it can pick up news from anywhere in the world, or at least from the places which are keen to disseminate their product as widely as possible. Diversity is guaranteed and national boundaries are obsolete (except, of course, where boat people are involved, but that's another issue altogether).

Thus, if Packer and Murdoch really want to take over every profitable newspaper group and television network in Australia between them, no reasonable person (and especially no government in search of media support) should object. After all, foreign ownership might well lead to more diversity, mused Alston; and of course, proprietors would ensure that their different publications would take different political lines because they would miss out on a huge potential audience.

Leaving aside the rather novel implications this would have for editorial independence (for which Alston says we could legislate if necessary - the most amusing concept since the Vatican attempted to legislate for celibacy), it is clear that Alston has been sheltered as a little child from the harsh realities of the media in Australia; from the fact, for instance, that in all the long years they dominated the press in Australia, not one publication of the Packer, Fairfax or Herald and Weekly Times groups never advocated a vote for Labor at federal, state or local level.

Neither the Packers nor the Murdochs have ever been reluctant to use their media outlets to promote their interests or attack those they see as political enemies. Allowing the two to split up the presses and the airwaves is in no-one's interest but their own; even their gratitude to the government that handed over such public power would probably be short lived. For Alston to claim public support, let alone public demand, for the proposal is simply not true.

But you won't read that in The Australian or hear it from Channel Nine. The mere fact that Murdoch and Packer are pushing so hard for the changes is sufficient reason to campaign vigorously against them.