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April 8th, 2013 
COMMUNICATIONS Minister Stephen Conroy says Labor will consider what policies on media reform, if any, it will take to September’s election.
The government withdrew four bills last month after it could not gain the support of the crossbenchers for them to pass the lower house.
Senator Conroy said the old policies were rejected by the parliament.
“We will work through it over the next month or two what we will consider taking to the election,” Senator Conroy told ABC television on Monday night.
The four bills included proposals to introduce a new public interest test for media mergers and acquisitions and to establish an advocate to ensure press councils upheld standards and dealt with complaints.
Two non-contentious bills to reduce licence fees for commercial television broadcasters and make changes to the level of local content broadcast passed.
Senator Conroy said the failed bills were dead.
“That is no longer our policy,” he said.
The minister slammed Sydney’s Daily Telegraph for its story on the $37.4 billion national broadband network (NBN) on Monday.
The paper quoted coalition analysis suggesting the final cost of the NBN could push up to $90 billion and it would take an extra four years to complete.
“Let’s be clear, today’s Daily Telegraph is back to the bad old days, it’s back to a campaign against the NBN Co, a campaign against the government,” Senator Conroy said.
“The Daily Telegraph did not even seek comment from my office about these claims of $90 billion.”
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