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

As Senator Furner has just, once again, alluded to, following in the footsteps of Senator Cameron previously and Mr Murphy in the other place, these reforms are about vengeance, not vision. These reforms are coming from a government that does not like what the print media and other media outlets have said about it and reported about it and, as a result, it is out to get them. That is the simple fact here: these reforms are about vengeance.

Senator Conroy is proposing to establish the Orwellian titled Public Interest Media Advocate. This will not be an advocate for the public interest; it will be an advocate for the government's interest. That is what Senator Conroy is hoping he gets here. He claimed in answer to questions today that this new statutory body that he proposes to establish would not be a regulator. Yet what he is proposing this advocate will do is to actually accredit media complaints processes, as well as to assess proposals for media acquisitions and mergers against a vaguely defined public interest test. If that is not a new regulator, I do not know what is. It is going to regulate the process of media acquisitions and mergers. It is going to regulate and oversee the processes of media complaints processes. It is very clearly a new regulator. It is a new regulator who will be appointed by the government of the day, could be removed by the government of the day, could be a mate of the government of the day—