Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. But let me give you an example of the behaviour of some newspapers that are members of the council and the type of issue that Senator Birmingham is asking about. This is the evidence from Professor Dennis Pearce, a chair of the Australian Press Council. What did he tell the Finkelstein inquiry? He said:

Indeed, we had one period when The Australian newspaper did not like an adjudication we made and they withdrew from the Council for a period of months.

Mr Finkelstein asked him:

Was that a direct consequence of a particular adjudication?

And the answer from Professor Pearce was:

It was indeed. They said that our adjudication was wrong, and they were not going to publish it, and they didn't.

He went on to say:

It is the old story … you don't give the person who is going to criticise you too much money, because they'll only criticise you better.

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