That Hawke Government legislation got through the Senate with the support of rogue Queensland National Party senators who split from the federal party as Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen launched his 'Joh for PM' campaign. The trivial concessions they extracted from the government have long since disappeared into history.
But what they got, for all its flaws, was a package that trebled the number of commercial TV services in major regional markets in the eastern states, and ensured there would be a significant number of different controllers of commercial media services in all markets.
What the legislation now before the Parliament offers, even with the 'concessions' being discussed, is no wholly new services, but the opportunity for consolidation of existing services. The one certain result is that, if it were to pass, there would soon be fewer owners of Australia's media enterprises.
Advertisement
It's a recipe for increased media concentration, pure and simple.
You really don't have to be a wizard to work it out.
Discuss in our Forums
See what other readers are saying about this article!
Click here to read & post comments.
About the Author
Jock Given is the author of Turning off the Television: Broadcasting’s Uncertain Future and America’s Pie: Trade and Culture after 9/11 and Professor of Media and Communications at Swinburne University’s Institute for Social Research. He was previously Director of the Communications Law Centre, Policy Advisor at the Australian Film Commission and Director Legislation and Industry Economics at the Department of Transport and Communications. In 2003–04, he received the C.H. Currey Fellowship at the State Library of NSW for a project about early wireless entrepreneur Ernest Fisk.
reddit this
Del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
StumbleUpon
