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March 17th, 2013 
Updated
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has conceded the proposed overhaul of media laws may not even be put to a vote.
The Government is facing an uphill battle to pass its reforms, which include plans to increase regulation of journalistic standards and media mergers, when Parliament resumes this week.
The Coalition has already declared it will oppose the legislation, so the votes of crossbench MPs will be crucial.
But independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor have expressed concern about the Government setting a deadline of this week to have the laws passed.
Speaking on ABC TV’s Insiders program this morning, Senator Conroy defended the plans and said a lengthy debate about the issues has already happened.
If it fails, it’ll be because the independents and minor parties don’t want to protect diversity of media in this country.
“Five-and-a-half years this has been on the agenda. To suggest that this suddenly has come out of nowhere – when I’ve been campaigning for five-and-a-half years on the public interest test – is a nonsense,” he said.
“The Parliament knows it’s got a choice: if you want to ensure there is no further concentration in the media in this country, one of the already most concentrated, you vote for the bill.
“If you want to ensure that the Press Council upholds its own standards, you vote for the bill. Those are two very simple problems.”
Senator Conroy said if the bill failed to get the backing of crossbench MPs, it would not be presented for a vote.
“We said last week that if this doesn’t pass we won’t proceed with it. If we don’t think we can pass it, we won’t proceed with it,” he said.
“If it fails, it’ll be because the independents and minor parties don’t want to protect diversity of media in this country, they don’t want to ensure that the Press Council upholds its own self-regulatory standards.”
Mr Oakeshott will sit on the parliamentary committee that is considering one part of the media package on regional content.
Speaking yesterday, he said he would go back to the Government if he was not satisfied by Monday’s committee hearing.
“In the end, if that can’t be resolved, certainly from my point of view, I’m going nowhere fast with this,” he said.
“That would pretty well rule me out completely if we can’t resolve the importance of local content.”
‘Complete contempt’
Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull says the Government is treating the public and the Parliament with “complete contempt”.
Mr Turnbull told Sky News the process has been a “shocking shambles”.
“To say to the Parliament, you’ve got four sitting days to deal with this or the whole thing is off – [that] is just treating the people of Australia and the Parliament that represents them with complete contempt,” he said.
The proposals have sparked a fierce backlash from some sections of the media – particularly from newspaper companies that say the changes will limit press freedom.
They are also concerned by plans for a new media advocate, whose job it would be to oversee the Press Council.
Mr Turnbull said there was no justification for the move and newspaper editors are perfectly entitled to be biased and campaign on issues.
“The essential problem with it is that it has the Government getting involved in the content of newspapers,” he said.
“The ABC has an obligation to be fair and to be balanced.
“The editor of a newspaper may choose to be fair and balanced… but the editor of a newspaper has the perfect right to be biased – because that’s their freedom.”
Senator Conroy said the media advocate would have no role in dealing with individual complaints, but would instead strengthen self-regulation.
Executives from major media companies including Fairfax, News Limited and Seven West will reportedly head to Canberra tomorrow to fight the proposed changes.
Topics:
media,
print-media,
federal-government,
federal-parliament,
australia
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Source Article from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-17/no-vote-on-media-reforms-if-they-will-fail-conroy/4577906
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