Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

We stand for free speech supported by a free media. It is the most important accountability mechanism to hold this parliament and governments of whatever political persuasion to account. It is what we must fight to preserve at all costs regardless of who the government of the day is. The government proposals that have come forth from the Finkelstein inquiry and the Convergence Review to establish either a news media council or a new independent communications regulator are of course all, in the end, just code for greater government regulation that will give governments of the day greater potential to influence what appears in the media; greater potential to say what it is right to publish or what it is wrong to publish, what is appropriate speech or what is inappropriate speech.

The role of government should not be in that space, save for extremely limited circumstances. This government seeks such an expansionary power to dictate what is the appropriate speech and what is inappropriate speech that all Australians should rightly be concerned. Today Senator Conroy had a chance to at least provide some certainty that an industry under pain and threat will not face greater costs and that free speech in this country will be preserved. He chose to reject the opportunity to provide any such assurances and instead continued with his MO, which has always been to find something to attack instead.