tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/stephen-conroy-528/articlesStephen Conroy – The Conversation2023-06-08T10:31:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2073022023-06-08T10:31:50Z2023-06-08T10:31:50ZGrattan on Friday: Labor caught in pincer movement of fighting inflation and delivering to its constituency<p>During the election campaign Anthony Albanese repeated, endlessly, that everything was going up except people’s wages. </p>
<p>More than a year later, things are still going up, now including some people’s wages. </p>
<p>The latter increase is all good, surely? Yes, up to a point. There’s dispute about whether the (still modest and limited) wage rises recently delivered by the Fair Work Commission will lead to other things going up further. </p>
<p>Jim Chalmers was blooded as a staffer to the then treasurer, Wayne Swan, during the global financial crisis. Now Treasurer Chalmers is in the driver’s seat as another Labor government copes with an economic crisis – very different from the GFC, but similar in that it has arisen from circumstances not of the government’s making. </p>
<p>Chalmers insists the Fair Work Commission’s 8.6% rise in the minimum wage and 5.75% increase in award wages won’t add to Australia’s inflation problem. The minimum wage rise (which is above current inflation) affects only a few people; the increase in awards is below the inflation level. In total, the increases affect up to a quarter of wage earners.</p>
<p>Regardless of the government’s confidence, the medium-term effect of the wages decision remains one of those “time will tell” issues. </p>
<p>Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe this week made the obvious point. “How much it adds to the inflation outcomes really depends upon whether it spreads across other parts of the labour market.” </p>
<p>It’s clear current inflation hasn’t been driven by wages. Their future course will rest on what expectations are generated and whether unions muscle up to extract substantial pay deals. </p>
<p>The trajectory of wages is just one of the unknowns in the complex situation facing the economy, and thus the government, over the next year. </p>
<p>For many Australians, however, the picture is starkly simple. Their mortgage payments have been hit again, with the Reserve Bank this week increasing the cash rate by a quarter of a percentage point. The bank has indicated there could be another hit to come. Meanwhile the necessities of life are at sky-high prices.</p>
<p>Many critics are yet again railing against Lowe. One-time Labor minister Stephen Conroy, who probably should know better, declared: “This bloke has lost the plot. He’s given the middle finger on the way out the door to the Australian public as he gets shuffled out the door.”</p>
<p>Lowe’s home truths regularly provoke fury. “If people can cut back on spending or, in some cases, find additional hours of work, that would put them back into a positive cash-flow position,” he said this week. </p>
<p>True, but it’s not what cash-strapped people want to hear (or necessarily can do), especially when the governor makes it clear the bank will, if necessary, inflict more pain. Anyway, higher interest rates will mean some people losing jobs.</p>
<p>While the recent review of the Reserve Bank suggested it should explain itself more, arguably Lowe would have done better to say less over recent years (certainly that’s true of his prediction rates would not move until 2024). Chalmers may list communication skills as one criterion when he chooses Lowe’s successor. </p>
<p>Chalmers himself is strong on messaging, this week carefully keeping his distance from the latest rate rise. </p>
<p>As Wednesday’s national accounts showed the economy slowing and productivity going backwards, the government is caught in a pincer movement. </p>
<p>It must meet the challenge of managing the economy, which means at this point, as Chalmers says, putting the fight against inflation to the fore. Chalmers is always quick to quote those (including Lowe) who say the budget wasn’t inflationary. </p>
<p>Being good economic managers is objectively necessary, but politically too. It’s a mantle Labor needs to wear for the government’s long-term survival. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Labor’s base and its election pitch push in another direction. </p>
<p>This is a LABOR government. Its core constituents, including and especially those on low wages, are hurting badly, while its core union base is feeling its oats. </p>
<p>Labor’s mantra, before the election and since, has been to get wages moving. The unions demanded, and were given, changes to the industrial relations system to improve their bargaining power in the pursuit of wage rises. </p>
<p>Last year’s jobs summit brought together business and unions (as well as the community sector). But, by the end of it, there was no doubt the unions had the upper hand, which was always going to be the case.</p>
<p>This week a coalition of business groups launched a campaign against the government’s planned “Same Job, Same Pay” legislation, designed especially to stop labour hire companies undercutting wages. </p>
<p>It hasn’t taken long for the traditional scratchy relationship between Labor and business to emerge, although in a relatively mild form – nothing like, for example, the fight between the Rudd government and the miners over the resource super profits tax, which is still fresh in Chalmers’ memory. </p>
<p>What happens to the economy in the period ahead is partially out of the government’s hands, dependent on international factors. </p>
<p>Having said that, a lot will rest with Chalmers and his colleagues. </p>
<p>For instance, if wage pressures do become a worry, will the government require a more creative approach to the problem, including perhaps more innovative submissions to the Fair Work Commission or a tax trade-off with the union movement? </p>
<p>The government urgently needs to find ways to get productivity moving, because that’s the route to sustainable real wage rises. No one, however, underestimates how difficult it is to restart this motor. </p>
<p>To an extent, Chalmers finds himself in a relatively isolated position within the government. </p>
<p>Like all treasurers, he has to be the one who (often) says no to spending ministers. He also should be, to some degree, a counter weight to the colleague who in effect speaks for the unions, Employment Minister Tony Burke. </p>
<p>Inevitably, a treasurer must carry the economic debate for the government, although that burden is always shared between treasurer and prime minister. </p>
<p>In this government, for various reasons, including his many international engagements and his preoccupation with the Voice referendum, Albanese has not been doing as much of the economic heavy lifting as some of his predecessors. As people become increasingly agitated about their circumstances, that might have to change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Chalmers is in the driver’s seat as another Labor government copes with an economic crisis – very different from the GFC, but similar in being driven by circumstances not of the government’s making.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/701242016-12-13T19:06:14Z2016-12-13T19:06:14ZGambling industry finds plenty of political guns for hire to defend the status quo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149556/original/image-20161212-31364-1kraoqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stephen Conroy is to head up a new gambling industry body, Responsible Wagering Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsikas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former Labor senator Stephen Conroy, who left parliament in September, has <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/stephen-conroy-to-head-up-responsible-wagering-australia-body/news-story/654a0ae279758b78584751702968f322">gone to work for</a> the gambling industry as head of a new body, Responsible Wagering Australia.</p>
<p>This is unsurprising. Conroy has been preceded in this course by several colleagues and opponents, including Labor’s former national secretary <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/bitar-says-casino-role-is-to-promote-tourism-20110525-1f4hv.html">Karl Bitar</a> and ex-Labor senator <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/casino-empire-grows-with-help-from-powerful-friends-20130622-2opa0.html">Mark Arbib</a>. <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/a-man-of-influence/2007/05/11/1178390548792.html">David White</a>, a former minister in the Cain-Kirner Victorian Labor government, ended up working as a lobbyist for Tattersalls via lobbyist firm Hawker Britton.</p>
<p>Of the Liberals, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/peta-credlin-takes-up-packer-policy-position-at-consolidated-press-holdings-20160827-gr2inc.html">Peta Credlin</a>, former chief-of-staff to Tony Abbott, works for James Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings, which owns a major share of gambling giant Crown. And one-time federal Liberal minister <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-26/coonan-offered-position-on-casino-board/2856858">Helen Coonan</a> continues to be a board member of Crown.</p>
<p>Former NSW premier <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/horseracing/former-nsw-premier-barry-ofarrell-appointed-racing-australias-new-chief-executive-officer-20161207-gt5qrh.html">Barry O’Farrell</a> recently accepted a job as CEO of the industry body Racing Australia. He replaces former federal National Party minister Peter McGauran, who has gone off to work for Tabcorp.</p>
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<p>So, the gambling industry certainly holds an attraction for former politicians. Perhaps it’s all that money and the attraction of staying in the game – even if at a peripheral level.</p>
<h2>The ‘responsibility’ of gambling</h2>
<p>Conroy’s job seems a little different to most; his new employer is <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/stephen-conroy-to-head-up-responsible-wagering-australia-body/news-story/654a0ae279758b78584751702968f322">Responsible Wagering Australia</a>. It was born from the ashes of the Australian Wagering Council, an industry peak body that imploded under the weight of <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/australian-wagering-council-to-disband-after-inplay-bet-ban/news-story/2b4ee70e82e2839040cbfc9e6917cbd0">its own contradictions</a>. This time around, it looks and sounds like a SAPRO, or social aspect public relations organisation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4110957/">SAPROs</a> have been around for a long time, particularly in the alcohol field. But none have so far popped up in Australia for gambling.</p>
<p>The key international SAPRO is the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3490544/">International Center for Alcohol Policy</a>. Its function is to provide the appearance of concern and action on the part of a specific industry while keeping things on an even keel. Business as usual is very much the unwritten motto of any SAPRO.</p>
<p><a href="https://drinkwise.org.au/">DrinkWise</a> is a good Australian example. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21781203">It says</a> it is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… an independent, not-for-profit organisation. Our primary focus is to help bring about a healthier and safer drinking culture in Australia. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It seeks to do this by promoting change in the way Australians drink alcohol. It is also worried about the age at which young people are introduced to the products manufactured or sold by its <a href="https://drinkwise.org.au/about-us/about/#">14 industry sponsors</a>. And, like the UK gambling SAPRO the Responsible Gambling Trust (recently rebranded as <a href="http://about.gambleaware.org/about/">GambleAware</a>, DrinkWise also commissions research.</p>
<p>Importantly, what DrinkWise does is nuance its message around “responsible drinking” – that is, the idea that individuals are essentially responsible for their own behaviours. The solutions it suggests are those from the more ineffective end of the harm reduction/prevention spectrum, such as education and individual behaviour change.</p>
<p>What you won’t find in DrinkWise’s repertoire (or, indeed, in that of other SAPROs) are interventions that affect the industry’s bottom line. Forget about price increases, restrictions on advertising, or proliferation of alcohol outlets. It’s all about individual responsibility.</p>
<p>Tobacco consumption <a href="http://www.health.gov.au/tobacco">has declined</a> in Australia and some other parts of the world because we stopped telling people what to do (“don’t smoke”) and helped them make better decisions about smoking. </p>
<p>The way to do this was to stop tobacco advertising and sponsorship of sport, restrict where smoking was permitted, increase the price of tobacco, and help people quit. The effect has been a dramatic reduction in the incidence of lung disease, especially <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2953697.htm">lung cancers</a>. None of that would have been achieved had a “responsible smoking” mantra held sway.</p>
<p>The Australian gambling industry, up to this point, has not seen the need to launch a SAPRO. Perhaps the bookies are feeling a little pressured, given the federal government <a href="https://www.mhs.gov.au/media-releases/2016-11-10-coalition-government-introduces-legislation-combat-illegal-offshore-wagering-0">has introduced legislation</a>, including some consumer protection interventions, to help stop people getting hooked on online gambling. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://lovethegame.vic.gov.au/?gclid=CNuyrcOm7tACFYSYvAodoicCxA">bombardment of advertising</a> from bookies inflicted on anyone who watches sport on TV (including lots of kids) has helped make everyone hate the bookies. The evidence is the bookies make a lot of money out of people experiencing <a href="https://financialcounsellingaustralia.org.au/getattachment/Corporate/Home/FINAL-PDF-Duds,-Mugs-and-the-A-List-The-Impact-of-Uncontrolled-Sports-Betting-low-res.pdf">high levels of gambling harm</a>. So, ramping up the “responsible gambling” rhetoric and arguing that you don’t want anyone to get into trouble with your product might seem like a good idea.</p>
<p>“<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14459790701601810">Responsible gambling</a>”, like “responsible drinking”, is a clever-sounding way of deflecting attention away from the product. Gambling, like alcohol and tobacco, is an addictive product that generates significant super profits from those it addicts. This is why the industry has <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25175598">tried very hard</a> through various means to hang on to its current arrangements.</p>
<h2>How will Conroy go?</h2>
<p>Conroy was a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=3L6">senior minister</a> in 2010 when independent MP Andrew Wilkie signed <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20110620/wilkie/docs/agreement.pdf">his agreement</a> with Julia Gillard to introduce a mechanism to let people decide in advance how much they wanted to lose on the pokies. The industry launched a <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/the-lobby-group-that-got-much-more-bang-for-its-buck">massive campaign</a> to stop that happening. </p>
<p>In addition, it has donated <a href="https://theconversation.com/paying-the-piper-and-calling-the-tune-following-clubsnsws-political-donations-60639">considerable amounts</a> to help keep politicians on side.</p>
<p>Conroy is known to be from the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Whatever_it_Takes.html?id=FLdUAAAACAAJ">whatever-it-takes school of politics</a>. His approach to his new job will therefore be interesting to observe. His connections are impeccable and his capacity to persuade appears to have been perfected by years of influence in the ALP’s internal machinations.</p>
<p>Ultimately, his job will be to make sure it is business as usual for the online bookies. If successful, that means hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of Australians will suffer avoidable harm (and in some cases illness and premature death) because of the harms associated with gambling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70124/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Livingstone has received funding from Victorian and South Australian government agencies (the funds for which were derived from hypothecation of gambling tax revenue to research purposes), from the Australian and New Zealand School of Government, and from non-government organisations for research into multiple aspects of poker machine gambling, including regulatory reform, existing harm minimisation practices, and technical characteristics of gambling forms. He has received travel and co-operation grants from the Alberta Problem Gambling Research Centre, the Finnish Institute for Public Health, the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Committee, and the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand. He is a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council funded project researching mechanisms of influence on government by the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries. He has undertaken consultancy research for local governments and non-government organisations in Australia and the UK seeking to restrict or reduce the concentration of poker machines and gambling impacts, and was a member of the Australian government's Ministerial Expert Advisory Group on Gambling in 2010-11. He is a member of the Australian Greens and of the Alliance for Gambling Reform. </span></em></p>The gambling industry certainly holds an attraction for former politicians. Perhaps it’s all that money, and the attraction of staying in the game – even if at a peripheral level.Charles Livingstone, Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/655742016-09-16T09:39:32Z2016-09-16T09:39:32ZThe strange case of Stephen Conroy’s invisible resignation<p>Bill Shorten has lost a very important member of his praetorian guard, in an exit from parliament that came as a complete surprise and was executed in the strangest manner.</p>
<p>Stephen Conroy, Labor’s deputy Senate leader and one of the right faction’s hardest men, has watched Shorten’s back. Yet when Conroy tabled his resignation in the Senate just before 9pm on Thursday, Shorten – who was overseas – wasn’t aware of it.</p>
<p>The two didn’t speak until Friday morning, after some extensive phone tagging. It is not known when this “tagging” began.</p>
<p>Acting leader Tanya Plibersek hadn’t a clue until confronted with a question at a Friday news conference. One Conroy ally thought it was a hoax when the news broke early Friday.</p>
<p>During the debate on the omnibus savings bill Conroy rose, said a few nice things about deputy Senate leader and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann in the context of the legislation, and then added that as it was late he’d “table the rest of my contribution so we can move on”.</p>
<p>No-one thought twice about the “contribution”, assuming it was about the bill. Instead it commenced: “You should always go out on top. This week as captain of the parliamentary soccer team I scored a hat-trick. It must be time to say farewell.”</p>
<p>The text offered multiple thanks, and pointed to his departure being about family: “When you resent being in Canberra because you are missing your daughter’s soccer training it is time to retire from the federal parliament.”</p>
<p>There were two questions on Labor lips. Was there more to Conroy’s quitting, coming so soon after he had gone to an election? And why had he made his announcement in this odd way?</p>
<p>As of Friday no explanation for the departure had emerged beyond his own comments about family. Conroy’s office was recently targeted in police raids over NBN leaks but nobody thinks that has any relevance. His resignation was as hard to explain as that of then-minister Mark Arbib from the Gillard government, just after he was given a plum job.</p>
<p>As for the secretive manner of Conroy’s resignation, catching his own senior colleagues out, that’s simply inexplicable.</p>
<p>Conroy, who was communications minister under Labor, said in a short Friday statement “the National Broadband Network will remain my greatest contribution”, although that project left him with a contested record. </p>
<p>More fraught were his efforts to put in place regulations affecting the newspaper industry. Bitterly fought by media companies, the legislation failed but the attempt inflicted damage on the Gillard government, already on the ropes.</p>
<p>Given Conroy’s heavy factional role in Victoria and nationally, his departure will have potential medium-term implications within Labor. Shorten is travelling very well at the moment but if the Turnbull government regained its feet and he slipped back, leadership speculation would start.</p>
<p>Victory at the next election being tantalisingly close on the numbers, Anthony Albanese awaits an opportunity that may or may not come. With Conroy there, Shorten had greater protection for bad times.</p>
<p>A second high-profile resignation was announced more conventionally on Friday, but still came out of the blue. The stepping down of senior bureaucrat Jane Halton, who has headed the finance department since 2014 and previously the health department for 12 years, marks the exit of the longest-serving of the present departmental secretaries.</p>
<p>Halton virtually grew up in the public service. Her father, the late Charles Halton, an Englishman working in Canada, was brought to Australia by the Whitlam government as secretary of the transport department; he later served the Coalition government. </p>
<p>Halton in a Friday message to staff noted she’d beaten her father’s record of time as a secretary, “a personal milestone”.</p>
<p>Her career has had its share of controversy. John Howard’s head of the prime minister’s department, Max Moore-Wilton appointed her to lead the people-smuggling taskforce, putting her on the front line during the first “Pacific solution”, and the “children overboard” affair when the political climate was red hot. </p>
<p>The role gained her enemies and admirers. Margo Kingston’s 2002 profile reported, “she’s famous for shocking dithering blokes round a meeting table with: ‘Haven’t any of you got balls!’”.</p>
<p>As health department secretary Halton struck up a good relationship with then-minister Tony Abbott. After he became prime minister there was some speculation she could become the first woman to head the prime minister’s department, but instead she was appointed the first female secretary of finance. </p>
<p>In his tribute to her, Cormann – who was also finance spokesman in opposition – said: “Senate estimates is more fun with Jane sitting next to you rather than on the other side of the table.”</p>
<p>When estimates convene next month, Cormann will have a different woman beside him – deputy secretary Rosemary Huxtable, who is acting secretary until a permanent appointment is made.</p>
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Bill Shorten has lost a very important member of his praetorian guard, in an exit from parliament that came as a complete surprise and was executed in the strangest manner. Stephen Conroy, Labor’s deputy…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/633072016-08-05T04:37:13Z2016-08-05T04:37:13ZSo, how did the new Senate voting rules work in practice?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133185/original/image-20160805-501-k16skc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In March, the government passed sweeping changes to the way Australians elect their senators.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia has its <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-whos-who-on-the-new-senate-crossbench-62216">new Senate</a>. The Coalition will hold 30 seats, Labor 26, the Greens nine, and there will be 11 other crossbench senators.</p>
<p>In March, the government passed <a href="https://theconversation.com/senate-voting-changes-pass-so-how-do-we-elect-the-upper-house-now-55641">sweeping changes</a> to the way Australians elect their senators. <a href="http://www.prsa.org.au/history.htm#gvt">Group voting tickets</a>, whereby voting “1” above the line meant your preferences were those already lodged by the party you voted “1” for, were abolished. This returned control of preferences to individual voters.</p>
<p>When debating the changes, which Labor and other minor and micro parties opposed, some senators made predictions about the make-up of the new upper house. Labor’s <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F120cdb07-6373-4ce4-8fe5-c2c4cfd5c68c%2F0037%22">Jacinta Collins</a> said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The principal beneficiary of this new voting system will be the Liberal Party … The Liberal Party’s true motivation is to achieve lasting electoral dominance in the Senate for the conservative parties and, over time, a lasting Senate majority in its own right.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In fact, at the 2016 election the Coalition lost a net three Senate positions. It now has its lowest level of representation in the upper house in 70 years.</p>
<p>In February, Labor senator <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2016/s4412096.htm">Stephen Conroy</a> said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The stated aim of these reforms is to wipe out all of the minor party players. On everybody’s calculations, they’ll all be replaced by either a Liberal coalition, a Green or a Labor senator.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In fact, the number of non-Green crossbench senators has increased from eight to 11.</p>
<p>Conroy <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2016/s4412096.htm">also said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… over three million Australians’ votes will be discarded. They’ll be exhausted; they’ll be not used to calculate who’s actually going to get into the Senate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, Conroy claimed more than 20% of Australians would vote and preference candidates who would be excluded before the Senate count was completed. In fact, the incidence of exhausted ballots was less than 6%, not including exhaustions from the last defeated candidate. In other words, over 94% of votes were cast either for elected candidates or the one last defeated candidate.</p>
<p>The new Senate is representative of the wide range of views in Australia – and far more so than the House of Representatives, as the table below indicates:</p>
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<p>The 18.7% of people who voted for “Others” includes many supporters of small parties who preferenced larger parties ahead of other parties. An example would be a supporter of the Arts Party who preferenced one of the major parties ahead of a party like the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. It was never the case that all who voted for the smaller parties would preference another smaller party candidate ahead of any of the major parties.</p>
<p>After the final Senate results were declared, Labor leader Bill Shorten <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-04/final-senate-make-up-confirmed-with-11-crossbenchers/7689788">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The presence in such numbers of One Nation in the Senate is a direct result of Mr Turnbull and Mr Di Natale’s action in terms of their so-called electoral reform. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is no evidence that this is so. Pauline Hanson would have been elected under the previous electoral rules; she received more than one quota. The presence of other senators from her party is due to large numbers of people voting for, and giving preferences to, One Nation. </p>
<p>And, under the previous system, One Nation senators may well have been elected because other smaller parties may have preferenced One Nation ahead of other parties.</p>
<p>The vast majority of voters are represented in the Senate by someone they voted for, or directed their preferences to. The table below shows the percentage of votes that contributed to the election of senators in each of the six states:</p>
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<p>This table is based at the stage when just one defeated candidate remained in the count: this is the fairest way of calculating these figures.</p>
<p>An even higher percentage of ballots contributed to the election of senators. This is because when a candidate is elected, the votes not needed for their election – the “surplus” – are transferred to the candidate next preferred by the voter, but at a lower vote value (the <a href="http://www.prsa.org.au/gregoryj.htm">transfer value</a>).</p>
<p>In South Australia, for example, 269,824 people voted for the ALP above the line and those preferences ended up with the unsuccessful fourth Labor candidate, Anne McEwen. Around 86% of the value of each vote cast for Labor above the line counted to elect the first three candidates, but the remaining 14% of the value of those votes ended up with the unsuccessful last candidate.</p>
<p>Under the previous Senate voting system, all preferences had to be expressed below the line. This meant that, in each of the six states, all 12 senators elected would have a full quota of votes, and at least 12/13 (92.31%) of the votes would contribute to the election of a senator. </p>
<p>So, how did it work this time? Overall, 90.02% of the votes contributed to the election of senators. The difference between that and the 92.31% figure cited above is the extent of exhaustion.</p>
<p>What is exhaustion? Suppose a Tasmanian voted for the following six parties, then left the rest of the ballot paper blank.</p>
<p>1 Citizens Electoral Council</p>
<p>2 Arts Party</p>
<p>3 Voteflux</p>
<p>4 Australian Liberty Alliance</p>
<p>5 Science Party</p>
<p>6 Renewable Energy Party</p>
<p>The candidates for those parties all received few votes and were all excluded from the count early, meaning this Tasmanian voter’s ballot became exhausted, as it indicated no further preferences and thus could not further influence the result.</p>
<p>Much more typically, exhausted ballots come at the end of the count. In Tasmania, for example, 29.5% of all the exhausted ballots were from the surplus of Liberal candidate David Bushby. At the point in the count when his surplus was distributed, three candidates remained: Catryna Bilyk (Labor), Nick McKim (Greens) and Kate McCulloch (One Nation). The value of Bushby’s suplus was distributed as follows:</p>
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<p>Surely it is no surprise that 2,816 of those Liberal supporters had no desire to support any of the three remaining candidates. Voters made deliberate choices either to express preferences or not, according to what they believe.</p>
<p>Another important feature of this Senate election, which has not happened for at least 60 years, was the election of a candidate out of order on their party’s ticket. Despite being listed sixth, Labor’s Lisa Singh was elected ahead of the fourth candidate down the column, Catryna Bilyk. The fifth candidate on the ticket, John Short, was unsuccessful. That happened because 26.8% of Labor voters marked their votes below the line, and 18.2% of those gave their first preference to Singh.</p>
<p>The concerns raised about the changes to the Senate system, and the predictions of loss of representation, did not eventuate. Rather, the new system has worked to produce a house of parliament much more representative of the range and balance of Australians’ political views than the House of Representatives.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-193" class="tc-infographic" height="800" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/193/ad552b7bc32776436af08ccde38e8f64f716ba81/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Morey is the National Secretary of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia. He is a recipient of an Australian Research Council grant, but not for research related to this article,</span></em></p>The new Senate is representative of the wide range of views in Australia – and far more so than the House of Representatives.Stephen Morey, Senior Lecturer, Department of Languages and Linguistics, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/189502013-10-15T19:38:05Z2013-10-15T19:38:05ZPolicy outlook: Coalition likely to take a measured approach on media regulation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32920/original/4tqbccnm-1381643790.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How will new communications minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition approach the vexed issue of media reform?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The media has wasted little time reminding the Coalition government that its rigorous scrutiny of the former Labor government was par for the course. Journalists are snapping at the Coalition’s heels on <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/building-on-semantics-labor-debt-versus-coalition-funding-20131003-2uxcd.html">government debt</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-30/mungo-tony-abbott-indonesia/4988030">asylum seeker arrivals</a>, and <a href="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/trip-ups-in-the-claim-game/story-e6frfkp9-1226735029342">expenses claims</a>.</p>
<p>Already it’s being said that although voters always end up disillusioned with governments, in the present case it - according to one commentator - <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/10/09/disillusionment-sets-in-early-for-a-government-that-promised-better/">“appears to be coming quicker than usual”</a>. While trenchant coverage by some media outlets fanned the agitation for the (ultimately unsuccessful) <a href="https://theconversation.com/low-key-conroy-proposals-are-media-reform-lite-12778">stricter media regulation</a> proposed by the former Labor government in March this year, it has so far not assumed the <a href="http://theconversation.edu.au/bob-browns-misjudged-attack-on-the-murdoch-hate-media-1442">“hate media”</a> proportions that led to Labor’s <a href="http://theconversation.com/uk-and-australian-media-reforms-are-very-different-beasts-12900">Finkelstein exercise</a>.</p>
<p>The Coalition largely benefited from the strident anti-Labor posture some media outlets took during the recent election campaign. Does this absolve the Coalition government of media regulation designs? While in opposition, Malcolm Turnbull forcefully and eloquently led the Coalition’s charge against the media reform package of his predecessor, Stephen Conroy. Turnbull <a href="http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/broadcasting-legislation-amendment-news-media-diversity-bill-2013#.UlfjZ2T4io0">described it</a> as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…the most absurd farce this wretched government has dragged this parliament into.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now, as federal communications minister, Turnbull has affirmed the government’s overall policy of cutting regulation and red tape. He has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2012/s3863199.htm">pledged to review</a> the policy objectives of regulations.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is that objective relevant any longer? If it is not, the regulation should go. If it is still relevant, can we achieve the objective more cost effectively?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On cross-media arrangements, Turnbull said that while the government had no plans to change the cross-media laws and while he was not ruling out any reviews, we “shouldn’t be anticipating any dramatic changes”.</p>
<p>What then might constitute dramatic change? The kind manifested in Conroy’s failed media reform package, widely seen as a full frontal assault on freedom of speech, would rate as dramatic.</p>
<p>The Coalition is not short on free speech proponents. Turnbull aside, prime minister Tony Abbott <a href="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/tony-abbott-to-champion-freedom-of-speech/story-e6frfkp9-1226710959763#mm-premium">advocated</a> protection for “things that are unsayable in polite company” shortly before the election. Also in opposition, the Coalition’s attorney-general George Brandis stoutly defended freedom of speech, <a href="http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/10/in-defence-of-freedom-of-speech">warning against</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>….a comprehensive challenge – arising from a modern-day puritanism, driven by an ideologue’s intolerance of alternative or dissenting views.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While reflecting the sentiments of Abbott and some of his new ministers as captured above, the Coalition’s <a href="http://lpa.webcontent.s3.amazonaws.com/realsolutions/LPA%20Policy%20Booklet%20210x210_pages.pdf">“Real Solutions” manifesto</a> leaves the door open to supporting “an open and accountable media”, and to working with the media:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…to ensure they actively strengthen their standards so they meet community expectations of the levels of journalism Australians expect and deserve.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Any indelicate handling of such moves, however, runs the obvious risk. Even so, questions have surfaced. There have been calls, for example, to purge the ABC of its alleged anti-Abbott bias, and for a <a href="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/outdated-aunty-needs-new-act/story-e6frfkp9-1226734338818#mm-premium">major review</a> of the ABC’s operations and the ABC Act.</p>
<p>Turnbull has been at pains before and after the election to downplay cuts to the public broadcaster, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3690871.htm">noting</a> in February 2013 that “we don’t have any plans to cut the funding to the ABC”. Since taking office he has acknowledged the ABC as a “vital part” in Australia’s democracy.</p>
<p>The ABC was <a href="http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/ABC-AR-2012-combined-web-revised-17-Oct.pdf">allocated A$1 billion</a> in the 2011 federal budget. Belt-tightening, even for the ABC, is not inconceivable given that the austerity theme <a href="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/budget-takes-33bn-revenue-hit/story-e6frfkp9-1226690156605">entered the discourse</a> even before the election. Will the ABC be quarantined from cuts, and if not, at what point will austerity-driven cuts morph into the kind that resembles the Howard era’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-22/dempster-the-future-of-public-broadcasting/4902904">“campaign of vilification of public broadcasters”</a>? It has been suggested that even a $50 million cut would be “a hammer blow” to the ABC.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32922/original/kzn23r5k-1381645254.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32922/original/kzn23r5k-1381645254.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32922/original/kzn23r5k-1381645254.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32922/original/kzn23r5k-1381645254.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32922/original/kzn23r5k-1381645254.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32922/original/kzn23r5k-1381645254.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32922/original/kzn23r5k-1381645254.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former News Corp CEO Kim Williams led the charge against the former Labor government’s disastrous media reform package in March this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other media regulation areas are fertile for attention. These include regulatory reform sought by commercial broadcasters aimed at <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/national/cut_tv_fees_urges_seven_boss_za4ZjoJbwdv0BAdaO15EmL">lowering or removing broadcast licence fees</a>, which they argue is among the highest in the world and which they say constitute a relic of the pre-internet age. Turnbull recently said that he was “very focused on reducing the cost of doing business in my area”. On that basis, there could be movement in this regard.</p>
<p>Media commentator Mark Day <a href="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/tony-abbott-will-deliver-reform-where-its-needed/story-e6frfkp9-1226714738179#mm-premi">argued</a> that while:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…upsetting the media status quo will be low on Abbott’s priorities, there are a number of matters that must be attended to. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is unfinished business arising from the recent media reviews. It is likely that the print sector’s ongoing review of best practice will continue without too much Coalition prompting. Deadlocked moves <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/oct/10/press-regulation-brian-leveson-commons-mps">in the UK</a> show how arduous and time-consuming this process can be. </p>
<p>The Convergence Review <a href="http://www.archive.dbcde.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/147733/Convergence_Review_Final_Report.pdf">argued</a> the case for a “new approach” to media regulation because many elements of the current regulatory regime are “outdated or unnecessary and other rules are becoming ineffective with the rapid changes in the communications landscape”. This process is likely to continue.</p>
<p>The Coalition promised attention to the Racial Discrimination Act to focus on “offences of incitement and causing fear but not a prohibition on causing offence”. <a href="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/tort-is-not-the-only-privacy-option/story-e6frfkp9-1226737685505">Reform of privacy law</a> to resolve privacy concerns has been looming for some time, and a new <a href="http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/invasions-privacy-ip43">issues paper</a> was recently released. </p>
<p>So, there is no shortage of grist for the media reform mill. And where the reform initiative encroaches on freedom of speech, resistance is likely to follow. Chances are that this time around, however, reform will be pursued in measured doses without resorting to ultimatums, as <a href="https://newmatilda.com/2013/03/13/conroys-all-or-nothing-media-reforms">Stephen Conroy did</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Fernandez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The media has wasted little time reminding the Coalition government that its rigorous scrutiny of the former Labor government was par for the course. Journalists are snapping at the Coalition’s heels on…Joseph Fernandez, Head of Department, Journalism, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155732013-06-26T13:45:48Z2013-06-26T13:45:48ZRudd wins the game of thrones<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/26248/original/xsfymrbb-1372251212.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kevin Rudd is once again the Prime Minister of Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Labor has finally made the decision it ought to have taken long ago, but the counter-revolution has been extremely bloody and there are bodies all over the place.</p>
<p>Not only is there a new Prime Minister but a new deputy PM (Anthony Albanese), and a new Senate leadership combination (Penny Wong, Jacinta Collins).</p>
<p>Six cabinet ministers have quit the frontbench – Wayne Swan, Greg Combet, Stephen Conroy, Peter Garrett, Craig Emerson and Joe Ludwig. Garrett and Emerson will resign from Parliament at the election, as will Julia Gillard, who pledged before the ballot to go if she lost.</p>
<p>Rudd has been restored to the leadership three years to the week after he was pushed out.</p>
<p>In his mind, his return journey has all been about righting a wrong, seizing back what was his – the power, the Prime Ministerial Office, the Lodge.</p>
<p>This rang through his news conference tonight, when he said: “In 2007 the Australian people elected me to be their PM. That is the task that I resume today …”</p>
<p>Rudd’s tortuous course back has been costly to the party and contributed to, although is not responsible for, Gillard’s failures.</p>
<p>His 57-45 margin was comfortable but far from the draft he wanted.</p>
<p>The latest lunge at the leadership by the Rudd forces was much better organised than the one of February last year, let alone the March fiasco when Rudd didn’t stand.</p>
<p>One big difference is that caucus members, faced with horrifying public and private polls, have become more desperate.</p>
<p>It is a great pity they did not have the political nous and hard headedness to realise a year ago that he was their best option. Labor’s prospects would be much better.</p>
<p>Rudd has had to make a liar of himself, after he said in March he would never again be leader of the Labor party.</p>
<p>Today he took responsibility for going back on his word, saying three things had made him change his stand. These were requests from his colleagues, his belief that the Australian people deserved a competitve choice at the election, and his fear that without that Tony Abbott would win the greatest landslide since federation.</p>
<p>In the enthusiasm of tonight Rudd’s so flagrantly breaking his word is lost – seen as one of those things politicians do in these circumstances. Nevertheless it may fuel the cynicism in an already cynical electorate.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/26247/original/bkqxf7pb-1372248670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/26247/original/bkqxf7pb-1372248670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/26247/original/bkqxf7pb-1372248670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/26247/original/bkqxf7pb-1372248670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/26247/original/bkqxf7pb-1372248670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/26247/original/bkqxf7pb-1372248670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/26247/original/bkqxf7pb-1372248670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bill Shorten’s deathknock (though not entirely unexpected) announcement that he was switching sides was important and symbolic – and also involved going back on his word. Only a few hours before the ballot his spokeswoman said he hadn’t changed position.</p>
<p>Shorten’s subdued mood was a massive contrast to three years ago when he helped mastermind, from a Canberra restaurant, the coup against Rudd.</p>
<p>Shorten made no public comments after the ballot.</p>
<p>For him it has been one of the most difficult times in his career. He has been agonising over what to do for the past three weeks, consulting widely. Sources say he only made a final decision in the last day or so, informing the PM late today.</p>
<p>He decided, as he said publicly, that a leadership change was in the best interests of the party, and that it was desirable to be straight with his colleagues.</p>
<p>One factor in his thinking was believed to be the prospect of Tony Abbott getting control of the Senate.</p>
<p>As a future leader of the opposition, it is in Shorten’s interest for Rudd to save as much of the furniture as possible and for the Senate to be kept in a combination of Labor-Green hands rather than swinging to the right.</p>
<p>Shorten did not seek anything from Rudd and nothing was offered.</p>
<p>Rudd will lift Labor’s primary vote, now 29% in this week’s Newspoll. The issue will be by how much - Abbott remains the election favourite.</p>
<p>The new PM is faced with an extraordinarily formidable task in reconstituting the government, pulling the party together, articulating a compelling agenda and fighting an election campaign.</p>
<p>He has to get ministers into key position immediately. Chris Bowen is set to be treasurer. Unfortunately Martin Ferguson, one of those who quit after the March leadership debacle, can’t be brought back because he has already announced his retirement from parliament.</p>
<p>Rudd has said nothing as yet about the election date. If he goes for a poll earlier than Gillard’s September 14 timetable, he will answer the prayers of many Australians.</p>
<p>An earlier date would also assist him with the immediate problems of division and disarray - the pressure will be on for unity – and it also would make maximum use of the honeymoon.</p>
<p>Julia Gillard has helped Rudd by her declaration that she would resign. Time will tell whether Rudd will be victim of leaks during the campaign, as she was, but there will be less motivation because there will be no one on a comeback course.</p>
<p>Rudd’s best quality is his public popularity.</p>
<p>In his news conference he condemned the negativity that has characterised federal politics and declared “I see my role as PM in forging consensus wherever I can”.</p>
<p>But he will not be able to get through just on popularity and generalities and uplifting rhetoric.</p>
<p>He faces tricky questions of policy. The first is what he does about the Gonski school funding program, which Gillard was talking up in parliament today.</p>
<p>Gillard has only two states signed up. Rudd is known to be sceptical about the program, and concerned about its expense. But if he wants to dump it that will be messy, the legislation passed parliament today.</p>
<p>More intractable is the problem of the boats. The opposition can blame Rudd for the restarting of the trade. Maybe he can dodge some of that but what is he going to propose to get the problem under control?</p>
<p>He also has to counter Abbott’s attacks on the carbon tax, by recalibrating the whole issue of carbon pricing - perhaps by promising to bring forward the trading scheme, which would lower the price.</p>
<p>Rudd tonight flagged a strategy of appealing to the youth vote and seeking to improve relations with business. </p>
<p>To young people he said: “I understand why you have switch off. It is hardly a surprise. But I want to ask you to please come back and listen afresh … With your energy, we can start cooking with gas.”</p>
<p>His pitch to business was: “I want to work closely with you. I have worked with you closely in the past, particularly during the GFC … We came through because we worked together. I am saying it loud and clear to businesses, large and small across the country, in partnership we can do great things for the country’s future”.</p>
<p>In her news conference Gillard mentioned the challenge of the hung parliament as well as party divisions for making her three years difficult.</p>
<p>Earlier, the two country independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, who have kept her government afloat, announced they would not recontest their seats.</p>
<p>Their decision is an appropriate epitaph for this strange parliament, which sits for the last time tomorrow.</p>
<p>PS This is the second time that a dog called Reuben living at the Lodge has lost his elite accommodation. The first Reuben was owned by Paul Keating, defeated at the 1996 election. Coups are tough all round.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/15573/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Labor has finally made the decision it ought to have taken long ago, but the counter-revolution has been extremely bloody and there are bodies all over the place. Not only is there a new Prime Minister…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/131232013-03-27T23:35:09Z2013-03-27T23:35:09ZMedia reforms: lessons from a narrow escape to a fragile freedom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21807/original/4w9fmrb3-1364360707.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Media organisations should push for media rights and freedoms on a more regular basis, not only when they're under threat.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is just a week since the Gillard government <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/labor-dumps-media-reform-package/story-fn59niix-1226602222708">withdrew the four media reform bills</a> for which it could not garner the necessary support from the crossbench MPs. </p>
<p>The proposal that concerned me most as a media law scholar and free expression advocate was the <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2013B00049">News Media (Self-regulation) Bill</a>. This would have given an individual the power to deregister bodies, like the <a href="http://www.presscouncil.org.au/">Australian Press Council</a>, if they failed to police effectively the ethical standards of their newspaper and online members.</p>
<p>The big stick the so-called <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2013B00047">Public Interest Media Advocate</a> would have wielded was the withdrawal of media companies’ <a href="http://www.privacy.gov.au/materials/types/infosheets/view/6544">journalism exemption</a> from the Privacy Act - a penalty that stood to send newspapers broke through its demands of bureaucratic compliance. I detailed this problem in <a href="https://theconversation.com/conroys-media-reforms-are-too-much-stick-not-enough-carrot-12958">a blog</a> republished on The Conversation last week, describing it as a defacto form of licensing. Many vested political and commercial interests were at stake in this debate. </p>
<p>There are lessons for all to learn from the events of the past fortnight and from the broader media regulation debate of the preceding year. Free expression is often described as a “fragile freedom”, perpetually at risk in a democracy like Australia where it lacks any explicit constitutional protection. </p>
<p>It is a mistake to view free expression through the lens of your own political allegiances. My observation after more than two decades researching in the area and several years as Australia’s correspondent for <a href="http://en.rsf.org/">Reporters Without Borders</a>, is that governments of all political persuasions can present major threats to media freedom.</p>
<p>The conservative Howard government was responsible for <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-12/ten-years-of-anti-terror-laws/2881034">more than 30 anti-terror laws</a> introduced after 2001, many of which impinged on the reportage of important national security issues and cases. It also used Cabinet exemptions to freedom of information laws to deprive the media of access to important documents of legitimate public interest and refused to reform those laws for increased transparency of its processes. </p>
<p>The Rudd Labor government started well by <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2009/03/25/2526032.htm">revamping</a> freedom of information laws under the stewardship of then-Special Minister of State John Faulkner. But communications minister Stephen Conroy’s determined and drawn out <a href="https://theconversation.com/unlimited-government-and-police-control-of-the-internet-theres-no-filter-for-that-10811">push for an internet filtering scheme</a> was an early sign that here was a minister prepared to compromise free expression - and not just that of the big media companies. </p>
<p>He pursued that proposal for four years - and I can attest to the ongoing concern of <a href="http://en.rsf.org/internet.html">Reporters Without Borders’ internet desk</a> and the proposal’s detrimental impact on Australia’s press freedom ranking over that period. The organisation ranked Australia as “under surveillance” on its <a href="http://march12.rsf.org/en/">Enemies of the Internet list</a> in 2012 because of this proposal.</p>
<p>The latest reform push was sparked in a politically-charged retaliation to perceived attacks by the Murdoch press upon both Labor and the Greens against a backdrop of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/news-of-the-world">News of the World saga</a> in the UK. </p>
<p>While there had been discussion of models for reform over the past 18 months, the attempt to rush the bills through parliament in just a few days concerned my colleagues at Reporters Without Borders in Paris. Of special alarm was the statutory self-regulation mechanism involving the loss of privacy law protection that seemed to have no review-based origins, bearing no resemblance to recommendations from the <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/convergence_review">Convergence Review</a> or <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry">Finkelstein models</a> that had been debated.</p>
<p>A clue to its origin came this week with the release of the New Zealand Law Reform Commission’s long-awaited <a href="http://www.lawcom.govt.nz/project/review-regulatory-gaps-and-new-media?quicktabs_23=report">media regulation review</a>. It recommended the withdrawal of privacy and other media exemptions for any news media outlets unwilling to sign up to a pan-industry self-regulator. Perhaps there were some whispers across the Tasman? </p>
<p>Of added concern to Reporters Without Borders was the misuse of its <a href="http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html">World Press Freedom Index</a> ranking system by both Conroy and Gillard in support of their statutory model. They pointed to the fact that the number one country - Finland - has a statutory regulation system, but failed to mention that it does not involve a penalty of almost certain death for recalcitrant companies and that it operates against a backdrop of a constitutional free speech protection.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21808/original/72pwdt7w-1364363493.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21808/original/72pwdt7w-1364363493.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21808/original/72pwdt7w-1364363493.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21808/original/72pwdt7w-1364363493.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21808/original/72pwdt7w-1364363493.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21808/original/72pwdt7w-1364363493.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21808/original/72pwdt7w-1364363493.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The failed media reforms offer some important lessons particularly for Australia’s print media.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Tracey Nearmy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Big media companies also deserved criticism for their failure to distinguish their commercial interests from the broader public interest in free expression. Major media organisations need to “walk the walk” of media freedom on an ongoing basis - and not just “talk the talk” when their businesses are under threat. </p>
<p>The major publishers need to accept some responsibility for this recent attack and its near success, because some mastheads, most notably The Australian and the Daily Telegraph, have been at times unfair in their attacks on individuals with opposing views.</p>
<p>The Australian often describes its critics as “strident”, but that is exactly how it sounded during this latest threat. The Daily Telegraph’s <a href="http://www.pedestrian.tv/news/arts-and-culture/daily-telegraph-likens-stephen-conroy-to-stalin-ov/8628bff0-f903-442d-b1eb-2cb2779c57eb.htm">depiction of Conroy</a> as Joseph Stalin in true London tabloid style was a strategic error for exactly that reason. It demonstrated that some of its editors have failed to grasp the scale of the News of the World saga and the message that such coverage now sends.</p>
<p>News Limited titles <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/08/13/media-and-privacy-ii-we-need-a-bill-of-rights/">campaigned strongly</a> against a Bill of Rights - which would have at least enshrined free expression at a constitutional level as a partial defence to this kind of legislative assault - as is the situation in other western democracies. The major media groups <a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/contentmakers/files/2009/10/ar33.pdf">slashed Press Council funding</a> by 30% four years ago, which I reported at the time, leaving it under-resourced and vulnerable to the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/plan-for-press-council-revamp/story-e6frg906-1225710735806">serious criticism</a> levelled at it in the Finkelstein Inquiry.</p>
<p>The major media groups should take from this episode a resolve to exercise their free expression more responsibly - even to the extent of protecting the right of others to speak against them in their own columns.</p>
<p>They also need to make absolutely sure their new Press Council model operates independently and effectively. Because the world now knows that a respected democracy like Australia might at any moment be just a few votes - and just a few days - away from licensing its press.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13123/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Pearson receives an honorarium for his role as Australian correspondent for Reporters Without Borders. As a journalism professor he has consulted to, and has been paid for freelance writing by, several major news groups including News Limited. He has conducted research funded by the Australian Press Council.</span></em></p>It is just a week since the Gillard government withdrew the four media reform bills for which it could not garner the necessary support from the crossbench MPs. The proposal that concerned me most as a…Mark Pearson, Professor of Journalism and Social Media, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/129632013-03-22T01:20:49Z2013-03-22T01:20:49ZMedia reforms a historic opportunity missed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21599/original/4jsvhcb3-1363913819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">After Conroy's media reforms failed to find any standing, where does media regulation go from here?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>To get an idea of how big an opportunity the federal government missed with its <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-21/labor-pushes-media-reforms-as-mps-tap-rudd/4585436">shambolic attempt at media reform</a>, consider this: the last federal minister to achieve any substantive reform of media self-regulation was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Cass">Dr Moss Cass</a>, Minister for the Media in the Whitlam Government 38 years ago.</p>
<p>Dr Cass, now aged 86, did it by provocation. In August 1975 he issued a media release saying that the establishment of an <a href="http://www.presscouncil.org.au/">Australian Press Council</a> was “desirable and practicable”. For debate only – and not part of his recommendation for a press council – he set out other options for media accountability. They included the establishment of an Australian Newspaper Commission, a kind of print version of the ABC, and – most provocatively of all – a press licensing system.</p>
<p>The newspaper proprietors did the usual thing: they went ballistic. Dr Cass put out another media release in which he said his proposal for a press council had been subjected to “bizarre distortion and hysterical over-reaction”. Some things never change.</p>
<p>But he had scared the proprietors, and now they decided to act. In November 1975 they announced the formation of the Australian Press Council.</p>
<p>Straightaway it ran into one of the biggest problems that Senator Stephen Conroy tried this week to fix: the propensity of the newspaper companies to come and go from the Council as they please – or to not join at all. <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fairfax-sir-warwick-oswald-12475">Sir Warwick Fairfax</a>, then chairman of what is now Fairfax Media, majestically dismissed the Council’s invitation:</p>
<p>“We not only decline to join the Council, we believe that in principle the formation of such a Council was not in the interests of the ideals and aims which newspapers pursue …”</p>
<p>This is of course the self-same Press Council now held up by the newspaper companies as the soul of self-regulatory virtue.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/speeches/2013_-_minister_speeches/005">Conroy tried</a> to overcome the weakness inherent in voluntary membership of the Press Council by introducing a law saying that the newspaper companies must join an approved self-regulatory body or lose their immunity from the operations of the Privacy Act, something they value highly for obvious reasons.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, he messed this up in two ways.</p>
<p>First he opened the possibility that there could be any number of press councils, a ludicrous proposition which would have created endless complexity for the public and self-destructive fragmentation for any system of accountability.</p>
<p>After much behind-the-scenes negotiation, it was proposed that the existing Press Council be the sole accountability body, and the breakaway council formed by <a href="http://www.sevenwestmedia.com.au/">Seven West Media</a> – with the Orwellian name of the Independent Media Council – be grandfathered.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21600/original/vkk92qqz-1363914255.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21600/original/vkk92qqz-1363914255.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21600/original/vkk92qqz-1363914255.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21600/original/vkk92qqz-1363914255.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21600/original/vkk92qqz-1363914255.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21600/original/vkk92qqz-1363914255.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21600/original/vkk92qqz-1363914255.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Professor Julian Disney, Head of the Australian Press Council, speaks at an inquiry into the media reforms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, Conroy proposed to place the approval and monitoring of this accountability body in the hands of a single part-time public servant appointed by the Minister, the so-called <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2013B00047">Public Interest Media Advocate (PIMA)</a>. Such an office would have lacked any real independence, being dependent on the Minister’s department for resources as well as being in thrall to the Minister for tenure.</p>
<p>More behind-the-scenes negotiation led to various proposals for beefing up the independence of this office, including the creation of a panel in place of a single PIMA and its appointment by a committee of the great and good, similar to the process used for appointing the board of the ABC.</p>
<p>By this time, though, two of the independents – Rob Oakeshott and Andrew Wilkie – had written the whole thing off, and late in the week the Government withdrew the bills, just in time to prevent them being engulfed by Simon Crean’s strange leadership tsunami.</p>
<p>So where to from here?</p>
<p>As the cold light of day dawns on the broken landscape of media reform, one gives thanks for <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/julian-disney-3043/profile_bio">Julian Disney</a>.</p>
<p>Professor Disney is the chair of the Press Council. He gave courageous testimony at the Senate committee of inquiry into the media reforms this week, saying he personally was prepared to support some degree of statute-based self-regulation, so long as the statutory involvement was confined to establishing benchmarks and requiring reviews of performance. He also said that the Council itself was divided on this question.</p>
<p>He has been a strong and reforming chair, skilfully using the leverage supplied by the <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry">Finkelstein Inquiry</a> and <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/convergence_review">Convergence Review</a> to extract more money from the newspaper companies to finance the Council, and embarking on a long overdue process of establishing better and more sophisticated media standards on matters such as suicide and access to patients in hospitals.</p>
<p>It was he, as much as anyone, who tried to salvage something sensible from the wreckage of the Conroy juggernaut. It is he who now has to try to ride out the resultant turbulence and keep his own reform program alive. This includes getting the power for the Council to conduct own-motion investigations, and introducing independent triennial reviews of its performance.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of this week’s events, the attitude of the newspaper companies is unpredictable.</p>
<p>Have these events scared them, as Moss Cass’s proposal did in 1975, making them more amenable to Press Council reform, or will they be awash with hubris, thinking they have seen off Conroy and are immune for another 38 years?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To get an idea of how big an opportunity the federal government missed with its shambolic attempt at media reform, consider this: the last federal minister to achieve any substantive reform of media self-regulation…Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/129582013-03-21T00:08:58Z2013-03-21T00:08:58ZConroy’s media reforms are too much stick, not enough carrot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21494/original/sx2hhp3p-1363759248.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stephen Conroy's approach threatens Australia's standing as a free, Western democracy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s a great shame when political and commercial vested interests drown out compelling and principled arguments for free expression in this Australian media reform debate.</p>
<p>First, I declare my own interest as Australia’s correspondent for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) – an interest in free expression and media freedom.</p>
<p>That said, here are my three reasons the proposed <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r4994">Public Interest Media Advocate proposal</a> for control of press regulation deserves a sudden death.</p>
<h2>It amounts to de facto licensing</h2>
<p>I don’t believe the plan was sinister or Stalinist – I just don’t think the policy wonks looked at the impact of the “stick” end of the “carrot and stick” approach to “enforced self-regulation”. As I <a href="http://journlaw.com/2013/03/14/self-regulation-oxymoron-heralds-the-era-of-death-by-a-thousand-consent-forms-mediareforms/">wrote last week</a>, it would mean “death by a thousand consent forms” for any newspaper/online company who refused to sign up (with $3m plus turnover). </p>
<p>Why? The Privacy Act <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/pa1988108/s7b.html">exemption for journalism</a> exists for good reason: the act is designed for government departments, banks, insurance companies and other large corporates and we all know that journalism is not “just another business”. </p>
<p>Those bodies have predictable dealings with customers and are not in the business of publishing stories about them. The revised Privacy Act – effective from 2014 – gives the Privacy Commissioner tough new powers to audit corporations, wielding <a href="http://www.mallesons.com/publications/marketAlerts/2013/information-technology-update-january-2013/Pages/Privacy-Commissioners-enforcement-powers-to-increase-in-March-2014.aspx">civil penalties</a> of up to $1.7 million. </p>
<p>A relatively small newspaper group would reach the required $3 million annual turnover threshold to qualify and would be crippled by the paperwork involved in complying with the Privacy Act – consent authorities for all personal information collected – the very lifeblood of community news reporting such as people’s ages, workplaces, political and union affiliations.</p>
<p>It would require consent from anyone identifiable in photographs – including those in the background. It would thus set up a statutory market differentiation between such a news organisation and its competitors – other media not subject to the act, including newspaper groups in a press council, broadcast media not subject to this provision, and smaller media of all types exempt from the Privacy Act threshold.</p>
<p>Law firm Minter Ellison <a href="http://www.minterellison.com/publications/media-reform-package-in-response-to-convergence-review-and-finkelstein-inquiry/">issued a release</a> on March 14 with the following stark advice: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The potential loss of the media exemption in the Privacy Act could make it difficult, if not impossible, for news media organisations to effectively continue their operations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, it’s not a “stick” but a shotgun to the head of newspaper companies to be in a registered press council or be out of business. That’s licensing – and “prior restraint” on a news outlet’s ability to publish – a situation abhorrent to our system of law for centuries.</p>
<h2>The bill’s terms damage free political speech</h2>
<p>Section 14 of the bill proclaims that nothing within it should counter the High Court’s freedom to communicate on matters of politics and government. But the very mechanism does that in two ways. </p>
<p>First, the overall effect is to force newspaper companies into a “self-regulator”. The alternative, as per my point above, is almost certain death. Newspapers have long been a key forum for political and governmental debate in our society. How informed about candidates for the upcoming election would voters in Tamworth be without their Northern Daily Leader and its website? </p>
<p>Well, that would be the plight that community would face if its owner – Fairfax – decided to leave the Press Council on principle, could no longer afford the membership fee, or was expelled. </p>
<p>Second, the very Privacy Act that is being held as the threatened “stick” deems “trade union membership” and “political affiliation” as “sensitive information” – subject <a href="http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/6.%20The%20Privacy%20Act%3A%20Some%20Important%20Definitions/sensitive-information">to even more red tape</a>. The mechanism forces a recalcitrant news organisation into a disadvantaged position in its election coverage because its hands would be tied by this level of bureaucratic compliance. </p>
<p>This would mean – at the very least – that the flow of political and government opinion in the community would be unacceptably delayed by privacy consent paperwork. Imagine the impact of such a brake on the web-based and social media divisions of such a newspaper – getting consent from everyone identifiable through a comment thread! This would give ample ammunition for a High Court challenge.</p>
<h2>Australia’s standing as a free democracy is damaged</h2>
<p>We have no written constitutional free expression protection, which sets us apart from other democracies. </p>
<p>Both Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and Prime Minister Julia Gillard cited the <a href="http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html">World Press Freedom Index</a> in recent days, using the argument that Finland is in number one position there despite having a statutory mechanism for its press regulation. </p>
<p>Perhaps – but Finland also has a section in its Constitution guaranteeing free expression and the free flow of information so all laws are formed and applied against that backdrop. It also lacks the hundreds of other media laws that impact on free expression that we have in this country which place us at number 26 on that same index. </p>
<p>We languish there partly because of the very threats to media freedom posed by the recent inquiries into its regulation. </p>
<p>The UK’s latest move is also set against a European human rights free expression framework and is a reaction to much more heinous media acts than we have seen in this country. Australia has spent millions over recent decades “counselling” our Pacific Island and Asian neighbours against exactly these kinds of government interference with a free media – in the form of AusAID training courses and other diplomatic interventions. </p>
<p>Now we send the clear signal that the Australian government is willing to offer a handy lesson in managing adverse publicity – using a cynical device to subject non-compliant newspapers to death by red tape.</p>
<p><em>A version of this piece originally appeared on Mark Pearson’s <a href="http://journlaw.com/2013/03/20/press-regulatory-stick-so-tough-its-licensing-mediareforms/">blog</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As a journalism professor, Mark Pearson has consulted to, or has contributed paid freelance journalism to, several major Australian media groups. He is paid an honorarium as Australian correspondent for Reporters Without Borders. He has conducted research funded partly by the Australian Press Council.</span></em></p>It’s a great shame when political and commercial vested interests drown out compelling and principled arguments for free expression in this Australian media reform debate. First, I declare my own interest…Mark Pearson, Professor of Journalism and Social Media, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127702013-03-13T02:26:18Z2013-03-13T02:26:18ZMedia reform: hysterical attacks on weak Conroy suggestions tell the real story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21183/original/7kdnc447-1363138189.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's media reforms have been called an attack on freedom of speech, but is the criticism deserved?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/03/13/media-wrap-papers-unite-against-press-reforms/">ongoing criticism</a> in the major news media of Communication Minister Stephen Conroy’s very soft and watery proposed media reforms is predictable but still breathtaking.</p>
<p>Conroy’s proposals go nowhere near the recommendations of the <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry">Finkelstein Inquiry</a> to introduce an independent <a href="http://www.news.com.au/business/finkelstein-media-review-calls-for-establishment-of-new-media-body/story-e6frfm1i-1226287387279">News Media Standards Council</a>; and nowhere near the more sweeping changes recommended by the <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/convergence_review">Convergence Review</a> to take Australian media law into a converged, forward-thinking era.</p>
<p>Instead, Conroy has – for the most part – bowed to early criticism and concern from media owners, CEOs, editors-in-chief and conservative commentators and <a href="https://theconversation.com/low-key-conroy-proposals-are-media-reform-lite-12778">opted for some tame options</a> which sound purposeful but will deliver little.</p>
<p>Despite this, the roar about “<a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/news-ltd-ceo-kim-williams-rejects-federal-governments-media-reform-package/story-fncynkc6-1226595433633">Soviet-style</a>” reforms, restrictions on freedom of speech, and government bureaucratic “<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/press-tsar-to-regulate-standards-as-publishers-fume-at-media-overhaul/story-fn59niix-1226595983373">tsars</a>” running the media are deafening.</p>
<p>It is a great irony that one of the most important institutions in our society which exists to protect democracy – the news media – consistently sees itself as above scrutiny, requiring no monitoring except from within its own ranks.</p>
<p>Even Conroy is recognising this morning in a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3714163.htm">necessary defense</a> of some of the reforms that there are no new rules, and that the proposed Public Interest Media Advocate (PIMA) will have no power to act against the press or journalists.</p>
<p>Well, why not?</p>
<p>Why shouldn’t an advocate representing the public and the public interest – supposedly at the heart of the news media’s raison d’etre – be able to impact upon the behaviour of journalists and editors when independent investigations indicate they are, indeed, acting against the public interest?</p>
<p>It should have that power in particular circumstances, especially when the behaviour of news organisations is not meeting the standards and levels of accountability required of such an important political and social institution.</p>
<p>The provision of independent statutory bodies to monitor such policies and positions exists in many parts of the democratic world (and in Australia), and have been proven time and again to be able to exist without government interference.</p>
<p>The key problem the media groups – and those currently dancing to their tune – have with something like a public interest media advocate is captured perfectly in the words of the Institute of Public Affairs’ James Paterson, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/conroys-media-regulation-proposals-fail-the-public-interest-test/story-e6frgd0x-1226595919938">writing for The Australian</a> last night:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Placing this power in the hands of a government regulator inevitably will insert political considerations into what should purely be a commercial decision-making process.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And there you have it. News media are a business, they should be free to make commercial decisions in the best interests of their organisation’s commercial viability.</p>
<p>If that happens to conflict with the public interest, then, the public interest can go hang and no-one can say otherwise.</p>
<p>And they want to make sure that power is preserved. The media get a great deal of traction and kudos from being the “protector” of the public interest, the “watchdog” on government, the public’s only buffer between democracy and Soviet-style dictatorship – but heaven help anyone who dares suggest that their ability to fulfil this role should ever be interrogated.</p>
<p>And heaven help anyone who suggests that someone other than media proprietors and editors – who currently control the Australian Press Council and other self-regulatory bodies, and will continue to – should be the only ones to judge whether they’re doing a good job or not.</p>
<p>Conroy probably thought his reforms, in this election year, were the soft option and would attract minimal criticism. Overwhelmingly disappointing and weak compared to what they could have been, they are really the expected response from a government in a tenuous position.</p>
<p>What Conroy probably didn’t expect was the level of vitriol coming from the media, and the ability of phrases like “<a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/its-war-on-free-speech/story-fndo3ewo-1226595929276">threats to freedom of speech</a>”, “<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/senator-conroys-reckless-and-flawed-media-reforms/story-e6frg71x-1226595928351">political censorship</a>”, and “<a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/governments-grab-for-media-control-termed-a-threat-to-open-media/story-e6frea6u-1226595945214">government-controlled media</a>” to spread like wildfire through the numerous, homogenous news services we currently rely on.</p>
<p>As through history – from numerous <a href="http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/">media inquiries</a> and <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/content/royal-commission-leveson-65-year-struggle-over-press-regulation">Royal Commissions</a> in Britain, Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia – any government who attempts to make the news media accountable to the public is thwarted, viciously.</p>
<p>And that is what we’re now seeing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Forde does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ongoing criticism in the major news media of Communication Minister Stephen Conroy’s very soft and watery proposed media reforms is predictable but still breathtaking. Conroy’s proposals go nowhere…Susan Forde, Associate Professor of Journalism, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127782013-03-12T19:43:03Z2013-03-12T19:43:03ZLow-key Conroy proposals are media reform lite<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21165/original/xwfq8rpq-1363067926.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Senator Stephen Conroy did not have a mandate for significant change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Yesterday, communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy finally presented the government <a href="http://www.afr.com/rw/2009-2014/AFR/2013/03/12/Photos/73ae3770-8ac2-11e2-b3be-e962dfe94952_Reforms%20to%20secure%20media%20quality,%20diversity,%20and%20certainty%20for%20the%20future.pdf">response</a> to the <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/convergence_review">Convergence Review</a> and <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry">Finkelstein review</a>. </p>
<p>It is hard to know how many drafts of this long-awaited response have been generated in the minister’s office, but what has finally been put forward is decidedly low-key. It is focused on current concerns and existing media players more than a convergent media future.</p>
<h2>Core reforms</h2>
<p>Given the fanfare with which the initial media enquiries were announced, and the mix of hope and trepidation that surrounded what they may recommend – a fair part of which was generated by the media itself – a modest set of recommendations has emerged. </p>
<p>Among the core reforms proposed are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>A press standards model that maintains self-regulation, but beefs up the role of the Press Council and clarifies its standing in relation to online as well as print media;</p></li>
<li><p>The introduction of a Public Interest Test for future media takeovers and mergers, including the creation of a Public Interest Media Advocate (PIMA) to evaluate their implications for media diversity;</p></li>
<li><p>Updating the ABC and SBS charters to explicitly incorporate their online activities as core to their public service mission;</p></li>
<li><p>Continuing allocation of the sixth free-to-air channel to community television, or, put differently, a continuing prohibition on a fourth free-to-air commercial TV service;</p></li>
<li><p>Making permanent the 50% licence fees rebate for commercial television broadcasters, subject to their meeting new Australian content obligations, particularly on their digital multichannels.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Old world thinking</h2>
<p>This package of measures is hardly the “<a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/147780/Convergence_Review_Final_Report_Executive_summary.pdf">new policy and regulatory framework</a>” the Convergence Review believed was the necessary response to technological and audience changes rendering the existing legislative framework redundant.</p>
<p>Yes, the new policy recommends changes to media ownership, news standards, public broadcasting and Australian and local content that are largely with the convergence review recommendations, but these still largely sit within the established media “silos” of print, broadcasting and online media. </p>
<p>More radical proposals, such as setting content standards for Google, or eliminating broadcasting licences altogether, are clearly off the agenda.</p>
<h2>Legislating the public interest</h2>
<p>The proposal for a public interest test for media mergers and acquisitions, and the creation of a Public Interest Media Advocate (PIMA), are the recommendations most consistent with the spirit of the convergence review. </p>
<p>The review proposed that a revised media policy framework needed to be “technology-neutral”, avoiding structural biases for or against any particular media platform or service type, while recognising that public interest questions about media ownership concentration or the loss of local content still matter.</p>
<p>The PIMA proposal walks the line between establishing more flexible, less prescriptive approaches to regulating media ownership, without fully abandoning controls in the interests of securing media diversity. It draws upon the concept of <a href="http://www.gtcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/gtcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/Weeks_SoftLaw_%20Australia.pdf">soft law</a>, whereby legislation establishes a general principle – in this case media diversity – and grants decision makers a degree of autonomy in determining the scope of its application in particular cases. </p>
<p>Soft law is seen by many as a necessary response to rapid technological change, where events are moving too quickly for parliaments to be able to regularly update legislation.</p>
<h2>The politics of change</h2>
<p>Senator Conroy indicated his personal preference for eliminating what he sees as legacy rules, such as the maximum 75% audience reach rule for commercial broadcasters. This rule clearly assumes that services such as broadcast news are only accessed through broadcast media, whereas they are clearly now available to 100% of Australian homes with a reasonably fast internet connection. </p>
<p>It is worth remembering that almost no Australian homes had an internet connection when these initial restrictions were passed, let alone access to YouTube and on-demand media services.</p>
<p>But the politics of legislating for changes to media laws in a political context where the government lacks a majority in either house, and where an election is six months away can also be seen in the Conroy’s response to the reviews.</p>
<h2>A modest proposal</h2>
<p>Rather than presenting a single set of legislative changes to parliament, Conroy has instead opted to unbundle the proposals. This means the licence fee rebate and the changes to the ABC and SBS charters do not hinge on how parliament responds to the PIMA proposal. The former could be passed even if the latter is rejected.</p>
<p>What has finally emerged is a compromise set of changes; a very cautious, and in many ways piecemeal, response to the proposals of the Convergence and Finkelstein reviews. It has probably not modernised media laws sufficiently to “tackle the challenges of the future”, although it does make some overdue changes to existing law. </p>
<p>Given the lack of community consensus as to what media laws should prioritise, it would have been hard to have advanced further without a clearer mandate for change than the federal government currently possesses.</p>
<p>It would appear that a larger overhaul of media policy and regulation to meet the challenges of convergence will need to wait for another occasion. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Flew does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Yesterday, communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy finally presented the government response to the Convergence Review and Finkelstein review. It is hard to know how many drafts of this long-awaited…Terry Flew, Professor of Media and Communications, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/122032013-02-13T08:50:13Z2013-02-13T08:50:13ZThe paucity of information overload<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20234/original/7x5p9fyk-1360739955.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stephen Conroy is still to bring media policy to cabinet.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It might not be a front line issue, but media policy is a significant election year debate.</p>
<p>Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/conroy-pushing-for-rapid-response-on-press-controls/story-e6frg996-1226523109340">still committed</a> to bringing a submission to cabinet in coming weeks or months, despite a long delay caused by differences within the government between those who would like a robust approach following the <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry">Finkelstein Inquiry</a> and others, including the Prime Minister, who do not want to upset the media companies.</p>
<p>The debate has also been heightened by the <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/guardian-reported-to-have-hired-fairfax-canberra-duo-138769">cost cutting</a> and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/news-to-combine-divisions-in-costcutting-sweep-20120620-20nfe.html">staff shedding</a> by the major media organisations, Fairfax and News Limited, and by the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jan/15/guardian-launch-digital-australia-edition">imminent entry</a> of The Guardian into the Australian market.</p>
<p>This week Professor Robert Picard, from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/about/news/item/article/can-society-ensure-quality-news-pro.html">gave a grim assessment</a> of the difficulty for the public of obtaining quality information in the age of information overload.</p>
<p>“We are receiving more information than ever before, but it is a narrow form of information. We get endless flow of events news, disaggregated facts, and massive amounts of sports and entertainment news. These are increasingly shortened and disconnected from other information to limit complexity and allow quicker consumption. This information is replicated and echoed through multiple digital sources—magnifying its availability,” he told the National Press Club in Canberra.</p>
<p>“This expanding information hides the diminishing focus on complex social issues and challenges, the reduction in oversight and pursuit of accountability of social institutions, and an impoverishment of in-depth reporting and analysis.”</p>
<p>“These are occurring because changes in technology and economics are dismantling the traditional financial configurations that made Western media independent and provided the resources needed to carry out regular coverage of social institutions and undertake expensive and time consuming investigations,” Professor Picard said.</p>
<p>Digitalisation had destabilised the business models, he said, with digital developments concurrently stripping wealth from the news industry, forcing newspapers and other news operations to become smaller, reducing news bureaus and staff.</p>
<p>“The digital world is thus producing a paradox in which news and information sources and distribution platforms are increasing, but the capacity of news organisations to provide quality news is diminishing,” he said.</p>
<p>The media had become more dependent on the market and this had rendered them all highly vulnerable to commercialism, vying for larger, more attractive market segments.</p>
<p>“As a result media accentuate competition, manufacture conflict, and create false excitement in a desperate bid to attract audiences. Dialogue has become shouting matches, observation of the human condition has become voyeurism, and even cooking has become competition. Media celebrate mediocrity and folly; give great attention to unaccomplished and mindless individuals; and venerate the common and the mundane,” he said.</p>
<p>“The market pressures are reducing journalistic quality, producing practices that diminish the social value of news content, and diverting the attention of journalists from social activities to those primarily related to the business interests of the enterprises.”</p>
<p>These trends had led to debate about whether public action should be taken and if so what sort of action, including increased regulation, support and incentives to improve content.</p>
<p>Picard canvassed a range of actions that had been taken overseas and the pros and cons of various types of intervention, he also noted that it was not just a case of whether governments should or should not do but said that society should also encourage non-government support for quality news.</p>
<p>“The challenges facing quality news provision are complex and there will be no single easy solution, but it is vital that society address the growing gulf between our aspirations for information society and the information that it is actually providing,” he said.</p>
<p>“As we look forward, the most important issue is not whether traditional news providers survive, but how news will be gathered and distributed in the coming century. The issue involves questions about what institutional and organizational arrangements will emerge to support newsgathering, curating, and analysis. Distribution of news is no longer the challenge, but the business arrangements surrounding it clearly are in question.”</p>
<p>He said it had become increasingly clear that “markets are highly useful for providing some types of information and content, but that they are not able to fully meet the information needs of democratic society.”</p>
<p>Picard did not delve particularly into Australian examples. But here, the situation is complicated by the fact that tax payers already fund a major media player, the ABC, making the advocacy of money to support other news gathering operations more difficult. The ABC itself periodically becomes a political issue, with both sides at times complaining about its coverage. If there is a coalition government elected this year, the national broadcaster could find itself under funding pressure.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Gillard government is likely to tread softly on the issue of standards for the newspaper industry. The real test of its media policy will be whether it maintains Labor’s support for a public interest test on the sale of media assets to be introduced, to prevent even further concentration of an already highly concentrated industry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It might not be a front line issue, but media policy is a significant election year debate. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is still committed to bringing a submission to cabinet in coming weeks…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/109572012-11-26T02:39:59Z2012-11-26T02:39:59ZPorn doesn’t lead to rape culture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/17933/original/q8gpdyzh-1353631771.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Porn often gets the blame for violence against women</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Duncan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Communication Minister Stephen Conroy’s <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/conroy-backflips-on-web-filter/story-e6frg996-1226513379862">recent decision</a> not to impose a mandatory internet filter on sexually explicit content is a welcome injection of realism into the frequently febrile discussion of how to manage public access to online pornography. </p>
<p>With the key exception of child pornography, which should continue to be pursued with all the force of the law, sexually graphic online content will not now be blocked by a committee of faceless censors armed with a secret list of sites they consider offensive. The conclusions of the Law Reform Commission <a href="http://www.alrc.gov.au/news-media/media-release/alrc-recommends-new-national-classification-scheme">classification review</a> have been taken on board.</p>
<p>This outbreak of good sense is partly to do with the difficulty of enforcement in a globalised media culture that respects no state borders and in which the internet interprets censorship as attack and simply reroutes around it. Banning things doesn’t really work anymore, even in countries such as China and Iran, where the authorities continue to try to police the bedrooms and sexual habits of their subjects, and look increasingly out of touch as a result. As Katrien Jacobs’ recent book, <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/.../P/bo12313588.html">People’s Pornography</a>, points out, China is awash with sexually explicit images, and there is very little the Party can do about it.</p>
<p>Conroy’s decision also reflects a sense that the notion of ‘community standards’ which has traditionally shaped legislation on porn and obscenity is problematic in a world of diverse sexual lifestyles and tastes. There are a plurality of life style communities living alongside each other in our towns and cities, and what offends one group might well delight another, especially when it comes to sexual consumerism. In that context, the decision on whose standards come to prevail over society as a whole should not be one for civil servants or self-appointed moral guardians. The days when a lawyer could appeal to an English jury to ban Lady Chattersley’s Lover because it was not something one would wish “one’s wife or servants to read” are long gone. In 2012 one’s wife is very likely to be engrossed in 50 Shades Of Grey, thank you very much.</p>
<p>These trends are evident not just to the government, but a wide cross section of opinion in Australian society. The opposition to mandatory filtering thus transcended party affiliations, and Conroy’s decision has been widely welcomed.</p>
<p>In addition to these big picture considerations, however, there is another set of reasons why Mr Conroy made the right decision.</p>
<p>Legislation to ban, restrict or censor pornography is almost always premised on its perceived negative effects, which cover the range from incitement to violence against women to family break up and sex addiction. The famous feminist dictum that “pornography is the theory, rape is the practice” continues to underpin anti-porn beliefs, while US author Robert Jensen writes with all seriousness in a recent essay that “<a href="http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/pornography-is-what-the-end-of-the-world-looks-like/">pornography is what the end of the world looks like</a>”. Pornography is blamed for misogyny, and for promoting a “rape culture”, amongst myriad other ills. And yet, on almost every indicator, the evidence on social and sexual trends in liberal capitalist societies where pornography is relatively accessible shows the opposite of what such claims would predict.</p>
<p>In societies such as the US and the UK, for example, the recorded incidence of violence against women has been falling for decades and is at historically low rates. This is true of most violent crime, as Steven Pinker’s <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/21/steven-pinker-on-the-decline-of-violence">recent study</a> of violence in human society shows, but since rape and other forms of violence against women are often presented as a by-product of pornography’s spread since the 1960s, the fact that they are in decline in the most sexually liberal societies is especially notable.</p>
<p>In relation to sexual ethics and moral values, often presented as an example of pornography’s pernicious influence on men, the evidence is similarly counter-intuitive. Surveys such as the <a href="http://www.bsa-29.natcen.ac.uk/media/13421/bsa29_full_report.pdf">British Social Attitudes Survey</a> consistently show that men’s support for the proposition that women are their equals in every sphere of life – the domestic environment, the workplace, the bedroom - has never been higher. Core feminist ideas have become mainstream in a matter of three or four decades. While there is no doubt still much for feminism and the women’s movement to do in reforming the patriarchy, the scale and pace of progress has been remarkable, notwithstanding the “pornographication” of mainstream culture which has occurred.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/17932/original/rtw64rvc-1353631536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/17932/original/rtw64rvc-1353631536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/17932/original/rtw64rvc-1353631536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/17932/original/rtw64rvc-1353631536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/17932/original/rtw64rvc-1353631536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/17932/original/rtw64rvc-1353631536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/17932/original/rtw64rvc-1353631536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">US politician Todd Akin lost votes for claiming women couldn’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape”.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">United States Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now, pornography can’t be given the credit for feminism’s success in changing the way we think as societies about female sexuality and the role of women. But nor can it credibly be argued that the spread of pornography has made sexism, misogyny or violence against women worse. In women’s rights, as in gay rights, our liberal, sexualised cultures have progressed in leaps and bounds, a fact confirmed by the recent US election which saw the sexual reactionaries and the “legitimate rape” brigade <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2229041/US-Election-Results-2012-Rape-pregnancy-gaffes-deliver-defeat-Todd-Akin-Richard-Mourdock.html">convincingly defeated</a>.</p>
<p>Not only has the expansion and growing accessibility of pornography not been bad for us in the ways often claimed by its opponents, it has been good for many people. For decades before gay men and women could identify themselves and practice their sexualities without fear of harassment and worse, pornography served as an outlet for the expression of sexual identity, and a means of accessing sexual pleasure.</p>
<p>Today, gay porn and porn-for-women are major sub-sectors of the porn industry, reflecting hard-fought sexual citizenship rights. Women, it turns out, having won key arguments in the struggle for social and political equality, have increasingly sought access to porn and other forms of sexual culture once available only to men. As British author Caitlin Moran puts it in her bestselling <a href="http://www.how-tobeawoman.com/">How To Be A Woman</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pornography isn’t the problem. It’s the porn industry that’s the problem. What women need to do is effect a 100% increase in the variety of pornography available to us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Porn has been a source of safe sex education in the era of HIV and AIDS, and an instrument of political struggle in China and other authoritarian countries, its use a gesture of defiance and a symbol of freedom. For those who might harbour unusual sexual tastes and preferences, or where a disability or other condition limits sexual relationships, pornography can provide a key point of access to the sexual stimulation human beings instinctively seek.</p>
<p>Pornography has its positive uses and gratifications, in short, where its users increasingly include men and women, gay, straight and everything in between and beyond those categories.</p>
<p>Pornography reflects the society that produces it, we might say, as opposed to creating a society in its own image. All of human sexuality is represented there, for better or worse. Education and regulation have a role to play in enabling adults to navigate this environment, and parents to protect their children from inappropriate exposure. Like internet trolling and other forms of hate speech, giving people the tools to self-censor is what we need, not state censors dictating what the rest of us can watch in the privacy of our own homes.</p>
<p><em>Brian McNair is the author of Porno? Chic! How pornography changed the world and made it a better place.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/10957/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McNair receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Communication Minister Stephen Conroy’s recent decision not to impose a mandatory internet filter on sexually explicit content is a welcome injection of realism into the frequently febrile discussion of…Brian McNair, Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/67482012-04-30T04:30:35Z2012-04-30T04:30:35ZConvergence Review: the call for regulation will be unpopular with established media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10089/original/8mp77t5f-1335758003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communication Minister Stephen Conroy will oversee the government's response to the Convergence Review.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I’m looking forward to the next few days.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/147733/Convergence_Review_Final_Report.pdf">Convergence Review’s key recommendation</a> to introduce a new body to “regulate” the activities of our major 15 media operators – including newspapers – is significant.</p>
<p>I expect the major media ownership groups, particularly those primarily invested in newspapers, will vehemently oppose this move given newspapers have been the one part of the media landscape that has, to date, operated with only the self-regulatory “toothless tiger” of the <a href="http://www.presscouncil.org.au/">Australian Press Council</a> to monitor their quality.</p>
<p>To a large extent this recommendation is an expected outcome given the changing nature of the media industry and the convergence that has occurred. We are overdue for a body that can regulate all news media, not just broadcast as the Australian Communications and Media Authority has done. </p>
<p>And as the review correctly points out, despite the great deal of hype about the diversity that new technology offers, in fact it is just the media through which the information is received that is changing, not the source or content. </p>
<p>The review report notes: “News and commentary consumed by Australians across all platforms is still overwhelmingly provided by the news outlets long familiar to Australians. What has changed most dramatically is how Australians access their news — the source largely remains the same. For example, someone may read a news story on Facebook, but the originator of the article is a newspaper publisher.”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10087/original/9424bk8w-1335757984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10087/original/9424bk8w-1335757984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10087/original/9424bk8w-1335757984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10087/original/9424bk8w-1335757984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10087/original/9424bk8w-1335757984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10087/original/9424bk8w-1335757984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10087/original/9424bk8w-1335757984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Protestors in the UK where the phone hacking scandal has engulfed Rupert Murdoch’s News International operations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Andy Rain</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Another issue which will also feed the controversy stands out. The recommendation to introduce a “public interest test” for any future media acquisitions and mergers.</p>
<p>The issue will further raise the ire (and indeed already has) of major media ownership groups. This recommendation was alluded to in the Review Committee’s interim report released in December so has already attracted some comment.</p>
<p>Media owners have always, in response to inquiry recommendations, run campaigns against any suggestion that their right to carry out their business as and how they see fit should be tampered with. </p>
<p>Their key complaint this time, suggested in <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/146283/News_Limited.pdf">News Ltd’s submission to the Convergence Review</a>, is that the application of a public interest “test” may be difficult to immediately define – in News Ltd’s words, the proposed public interest test is “flawed, entirely subjective, impossibly imprecise, vague and lacking in objective rigour”.</p>
<p>Too often, news media companies use the “public interest” claim when it suits them – when they discover an MP leaving a brothel late at night for example; or when they get wind that an ex-footballer might be having an extra-marital affair. Exposing such information is, apparently, “in the public interest”. It is also, of course, in their own commercial interests.</p>
<p>News Ltd stands by its coverage in recent years, for example, of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manning_Clark#Criticism_of_his_work">Brisbane Courier-Mail’s infamous pursuit of historian Manning Clark</a> as a communist; and also of the <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/hanson-photo-fraud/story-e6frf7kx-1225692406741">organisation’s publication of photographs of Pauline Hanson</a> which have since been proven (and it was obvious at the time), to be false.</p>
<p>These were great commercial decisions, as they spiked News Ltd’s newspaper sales – but terribly flawed, entirely subjective, impossibly imprecise, and certainly lacking in objective rigour. </p>
<p>These incidents raised significant questions about news media standards, but also about the public interest and what it comprises. The introduction of a public interest test on mergers will trigger significant discussion about this very issue. </p>
<p>The related debate about the establishment of a large regulator to cover all media platforms will also give rise to a more careful consideration of this most crucial democratic issue – and will be well worth the cost of the Convergence Review. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10091/original/mjfgmxts-1335758510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10091/original/mjfgmxts-1335758510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10091/original/mjfgmxts-1335758510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10091/original/mjfgmxts-1335758510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10091/original/mjfgmxts-1335758510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10091/original/mjfgmxts-1335758510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10091/original/mjfgmxts-1335758510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Convergence Review reflects the fact that people now consume news in very different ways to in the past.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Julian Stratenschulte</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a final point, the Review identifies another key point that focuses on the desperate need for more local content and “community” voices, something delivered increasingly by not-for-profit community and public broadcasters.</p>
<p>If we need one reminder of the need for a strong not-for-profit media sector which prioritises local information and strong journalism over business concerns, the abandonment of rural and regional communities by commercial radio over the past 10-15 years is evidence enough. </p>
<p>As expected, the Convergence Review doesn’t go far enough. It does not recommend measures which would see a strong independent media emerge and take an important place in our mediascape. </p>
<p>It softly recommends community broadcasting have “access to funding to drive innovation” in delivery of radio and television on digital platforms but offers no substantial policy recommendations to properly support more concrete development of these important local media.</p>
<p>This should be the next step in reviving Australia’s public sphere.</p>
<p>The growth of the internet and the “convergence” of media forms may make cross-media ownership regulation less of a priority now, but it does not remove the need for our news media to provide the public with informed, rigorous, responsible, quality news and current affairs.</p>
<p>This can only be achieved with a broad-ranging and diverse news media sector which has an overriding responsibility to serve the public interest.</p>
<p>The Convergence Review’s suggestion for a new regulator encompassing all media, and the introduction of a public interest test, will go some way towards achieving this provided the legislation developed properly reflects the reality and aims of these recommendations.</p>
<p>We now have months to wait to see the government’s response to this important document which will shape Australian media structures and content into the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/6748/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Forde does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>I’m looking forward to the next few days. The Convergence Review’s key recommendation to introduce a new body to “regulate” the activities of our major 15 media operators – including newspapers – is significant…Susan Forde, Associate Professor of Journalism, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/56612012-03-03T00:13:20Z2012-03-03T00:13:20ZFinkelstein inquiry report cause for ‘cautious optimism’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8307/original/nytkn9gs-1330732553.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Federal court judge Roy Finkelstein (centre) has delivered his media inquiry report.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was a pleasant surprise that the independent Australian media inquiry, examining print, online and the role of the self-regulatory body, the Australian Press Council, was, for the most part, a satisfying document.</p>
<p>It was hard to know what this Inquiry might deliver, given the political events leading up to its announcement. Its timing was in the wake of the phone hacking scandal that closed Britain’s News of the World. Closer to home Greens’ Leader Bob Brown was sparring with News Limited journalists collectively labelling them the “hate media”; while, Prime Minister Julia Gillard waged her own battle with Murdoch’s Australian accusing it of publishing a false report about her “in breach of all known standards of journalism”. Her message was “don’t write crap”.</p>
<p>Five months on, the Inquiry, led by former justice of the Federal Court Ray Finkelstein QC, with the assistance of academic Dr Matthew Ricketson, has opted in favour of spending taxpayers’ money to replace the Australian Press Council (APC) to improve media accountability.
It is a brave and definitive stance. It is preferable to beefing up the existing Press Council, which has been dogged with its “toothless tiger” tag for too much of its 36 years. The recommendation to create the cross-media super regulator, the News Media Council, is a reason for cautious optimism.</p>
<p>I say “cautious” because even during the short five months it took the Inquiry to travel the major cities, hear submissions and produce its impressive 468 pages, there have been shifts in the Australian media landscape. </p>
<p>Billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart, who joined WA protestors to chant against the Federal Government’s mining tax, last month lifted her five per cent shareholding in Fairfax Media to 14 per cent. Already with a 10 per cent share in television network Ten, the move raised questions of whether these media share acquisitions were a strategy to get her voice better heard above the din.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8306/original/zf534p2z-1330732466.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8306/original/zf534p2z-1330732466.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8306/original/zf534p2z-1330732466.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8306/original/zf534p2z-1330732466.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8306/original/zf534p2z-1330732466.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8306/original/zf534p2z-1330732466.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8306/original/zf534p2z-1330732466.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Communications Minister Stephen Conroy now has to act on the recommendations of the Finkelstein media inquiry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porrit</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Back in 1981 Justice Ralph Norris warned of the potential for harm to society when too few own too much. The retired Supreme Court judge had reviewed Victoria’s print media and identified that concentration of ownership was “high” — and that was before News Limited acquired the Herald and Weekly Times. Loss of diversity in the expression of opinion was one concern, he stated. The second, was “the power of a very few men to influence the outlook and opinions of large numbers of people, and consequently the decisions made in society.” </p>
<p>If that sounds familiar, it might be because today, speaking on radio and writing in the Monthly magazine, Federal treasurer Wayne Swan accused a number of Australia’s wealthiest citizens — Rinehart, Clive Palmer and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest — of overstepping their reach and using their wealth and influence to alter public policy to serve their self-interests.</p>
<p>Yet, concentration of media ownership was not the focus of this latest media review. This is despite the jaw-dropping fact Australia has the highest concentration of print ownership of any democracy, with the duopoly of Fairfax Media and News Limited (Murdoch) accounting for 90 per cent of its daily newspapers.</p>
<p>It is true that the latest Inquiry did acknowledge concentrated ownership shrinks the number of independent voices available to readers. And, it did find that this is particularly problematic in regional Australia where many towns have fewer media choices than the city; and where local outlets were likely to be under-resourced and understaffed. But, while the Inquiry understood that this could be damaging to the democratic function of our society, disappointingly it passed the buck to Government to investigate with “some urgency”. </p>
<p>The Inquiry’s recommendations are a departure from the desirable model of self-regulation that works well in many democracies. Nonetheless, the new super-regulator will be taxpayer-funded, and at arms length from government. This is better than a compulsory media-levy option because it will not disadvantage start-ups or small outlets. The proposal to have an independent panel appointing a broad mix from within the industry and community is also a positive move. </p>
<p>Unlike the APC, no longer will media proprietors have the option of withdrawing their participation, or much-needed funds. This makes it a fairer system for consumers, and a more even playing field for media organisations. The perhaps unfair exception is that fly-by-night bloggers, often responsible for much vitriol, and the ‘lonely pamphleteer’ will not be held to account if their audiences are small.</p>
<p>The report is the product of hard work, and should be compulsory reading for any student of journalism. Filled with case studies, overseas comparisons and media history, it is far from the stodgy document you might expect to be handed to Government. If the proposals are enacted, let’s hope these new measures can curtail the ‘crap’. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/5661/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Carson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It was a pleasant surprise that the independent Australian media inquiry, examining print, online and the role of the self-regulatory body, the Australian Press Council, was, for the most part, a satisfying…Andrea Carson, Honorary Research Fellow Centre for Advancing Journalism , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/15672011-06-02T20:49:44Z2011-06-02T20:49:44ZIt’s no secret, the NBN’s been left to tender mercies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1493/original/NBN.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">NBN Co chief Mike Quigley and Stephen Conroy still face many tough tasks.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that NBN Co has found a way to move forward from the crucial cost-of-construction issue must have surely lifted the Gillard Government’s spirits.</p>
<p>NBN Co, the government-owned corporation in charge of the National Broadband Network rollout, announced the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/industry-sectors/contractors-race-for-broadband-leftovers-after-big-win-by-silcar/story-e6frg9hx-1226067501021">appointment of Silcar</a>, a Leighton Thiess-Siemens joint venture, to lead a $1.1 billion build of the project through Queensland, New South Wales, and the ACT. </p>
<p>It also <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/ericsson-wins-11bn-nbn-wireless-contract/story-e6frg8zx-1226067487697">appointed Ericsson</a> to take charge of 4G wireless broadband connections in rural areas. NBN is apparently deep in negotiations with a select group of other companies in a controlled bidding process for the remainder of the work, aiming to seal the deal by the end of August.</p>
<p>These deals will steady the government’s nerve on the project in the short term, especially on the threat of a labour-cost blowout. But too many questions around the $43 billion project remain unresolved.</p>
<p>Ever since NBN Co unexpectedly suspended its tender process on April Fool’s Day this year, the once-in-a-lifetime infrastructure project has been embroiled in deepening criticism and controversy. </p>
<p>NBN Co said at the time that judged the cost of contractor bids as being far too high. </p>
<p>The controversy intensified when the NBN’s construction chief, Patrick Flannigan, suddenly resigned a few days after the tender suspension. </p>
<p>Since then, the Federal Opposition and other critics have not missed an opportunity to raise these concerns about cost blowouts. </p>
<p>Not to mention muddying the water with other issues, like the controversy around NBN Co chief Mike Quigley’s disclosure of bribery allegations against Alcatel-Lucent America – a company he used to run (although there was never any suggestion of impropriety on Quigley’s part).</p>
<p>Ever since it was dreamt up on the back on an envelope by then-opposition leader Kevin Rudd and aspirant shadow communications minister Stephen Conroy, the NBN has been something of a grand illusion. </p>
<p>The NBN has had the rare distinction, in these jaded political times, of being twice-endorsed by an electorate still keen on big ideas – even if they never had many of them to choose from. </p>
<p>The NBN was the shining star in the lowly firmament of Gillard’s shaky 2010 victory, remarkable for the endorsement it attracted, rather spontaneously avowed, by so many dubious citizens. </p>
<p>So what’s the hold-up? When is the NBN coming to a plug in the wall, or wireless device, near you?</p>
<p>Well, that’s the problem with big ideas, especially when we are talking technology, and next-generation networks in particular. Unlike the shiny, super-modern, chic design we might associate with an Apple store or an off-the-shelf widget from the electronic entertainment megastore of your choice, building networks across a country as large as Australia is a messy affair.</p>
<p>It’s not just the curse of our geography that makes it messy. It’s also because the path of technology infrastructure is messy at the best of times, especially when it’s a network as big, wide, and complex as the NBN. </p>
<p>As we discovered with the rollout of pay television infrastructure by Telstra and Optus, and partners, in the mid-1990s, the “stuff” of broadband internet might be merrily uploaded and downloaded by users — but someone has to get down and dirty, and actually dig the holes, lay the cables, and put the kit together. </p>
<p>The crucial construction element of the NBN is a whopping part of the cost, as the <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/broadband/national_broadband_network/national_broadband_network_implementation_study">McKinsey feasibility study</a> clearly showed two years ago. </p>
<p>The government is vulnerable to attacks on the inflation of the NBN’s costs. It faces a classic problem of getting the best value for money, while ensuring speedy rollout of the infrastructure. </p>
<p>In a strong economy running at near capacity, skilled workers come at a premium. A colossal project such as the NBN requires an unprecedented scale of expertise. </p>
<p>However, this is a practical problem that can be solved with a different approach, such as direct negotiation with contractors and unions. </p>
<p>While revelling in NBN’s discomfiture, the Coalition’s most convincing line of attack lies in opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull’s cogent arguments that the project’s $43 billion is better spent on technology-agnostic enhancements. </p>
<p>Turnbull competently argues that we should not tie ourselves ourselves to a predominantly fibre-based network. </p>
<p>There is a direct line to be drawn from the policies of the Coalition when in government to its recipe for government involvement in broadband today. </p>
<p>The Coalition specialised in piecemeal additions and fixes to address market failure in telecommunications. That approach, taken as a whole, had merit, but were often poorly integrated, and often came in response to the parliamentary balance of power at the time (when the Democrats and Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine were in the ascendancy). </p>
<p>The result was not entirely of their making, but by the time they left office, there was a widespread dissatisfaction with Australian broadband availability. </p>
<p>Burnishing its nation-building credentials, Labor promised to lay the foundations for the digital economy of the 21st century, with fibre to the home. It had two demons to slay. </p>
<p>The ghost of Telstra’s dominance, still very much haunting future internet in Australia, has been exorcised with a heady amalgam of structural separation (latest drafts of which have been just released) and the prospective agreement on migration of Telstra’s customers to the NBN. </p>
<p>The other ghost in the machine has been the immense cost of the NBN, once Labor decided to build it (after their first tender failed). </p>
<p>Here Labor fashioned a public-private partnership, in the arms-length form of NBN. NBN is a vehicle to build the wholesale networks, carry and recoup the costs, until it could be privatised. This left the taxpayer as the guarantor of first, and last, resort. Hence this latest agreement to sustain NBN’s momentum, this time with a ‘value-for-money’ fibre rollout. </p>
<p>Again, the problem is that wedging between the government’s desire to oversell the NBN — now the quest of 20 hand-picked network ‘champions’, and the opposition’s lack of a genuine alternative for an assured national digital platform, is the hapless taxpayer and ultimate user of the service. </p>
<p>Citizens are underwriting the build, and not really being consulted on what they’ll get. Little wonder that users are flocking to available mobile media and wireless technologies, where the broadband action is here today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/1567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerard Goggin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The news that NBN Co has found a way to move forward from the crucial cost-of-construction issue must have surely lifted the Gillard Government’s spirits. NBN Co, the government-owned corporation in charge…Gerard Goggin, Professor of Media and Communications , University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.