Apparently, Dutton supports Pauline for changes in the ABC charter. This does not fare good for our national broadcaster. For the last many years, the Liberals (CONservatives) have worked their guts out to destroy the ABC, bit by bit, and this last announcement sounds like a bad omen. PLEASE, WE NEED TO SAVE THE ABC ! It's not perfect but it's YOUR ABC... Don't let these ignoramus philistines take it away from you... The ABC is your last line of defence against the fake news, the crappy opinions of the merde-och media and the blancmange of the Fairfax stable...

A few months ago Nick Xenophon approached me and the editors of other smaller independent and regional media companies with a reasonable question.

If the senator was to back the government’s plan to scrap rules protecting diversity of media ownership in Australia, paving the way for mergers that would increase the power of the biggest media companies, what could he propose to make sure smaller players were not squeezed out of the market?

But all three parties condemn the government’s insistence that Guardian Australia be excluded entirely, a demand Xenophon attributes to “blind ideology”. This small element of the media deal required some big legislative contortions to implement, revealing a lot about the backroom processes along the way.

The government argued, quite correctly, that the existing media rules were outdated. The big media companies had fleets of lobbyists working overtime trying to get rid of them.

But abolishing even a technologically outdated ban on owning a television and radio station and a newspaper in the same region – and replacing it with far less onerous restrictions – obviously risks worsening the concentration of media ownership in what is already one of the most concentrated media markets in the world.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/15/how-the-coalitions-blind-i...

The best he could get? Xenophon had all the trumps in his hands but he played a five of clubs... What a dork is Xenophon. 

See toon at top...

Public interest journalism is the loser in the Coalition-Xenophon deal which will allow media moguls to wield even greater political power in exchange for a $60m innovation fund to "boost diversity". Paul Budde reports.

THE CHANGES recently proposed to the Broadcasting Services Act will allow for a further concentration of media power in Australia.

While, from a commercial point of view, the traditional media most certainly are under attack from the digital media, the fact is that the traditional media wield a far greater power over national politics than all the (international) digital media put together.

To increase the power of the incumbent players through media reforms might not necessarily have an enormous effect on the everyday media diversity, but it will allow organisations such as the Murdoch press to wield even greater power over Australian politics than is already the case.

We are in uncharted waters and it will be interesting to see what these media reforms will lead to; the trouble is once further concentration has been established, it will be very difficult to wind back the clock.

read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/coalition-xen...

What else is new?.... these pollies are idiots at best or corrupt at worse... 

PRIME MINISTER MALCOLM TURNBULL will be expecting strong editorial support from all major and minor commercial media around Australia at the next election.

Under the guise of delivering reform on outdated and restrictive media laws, and allowing home grown major media players to compete against the likes of Amazon and Facebook, our PM has delivered what Australian media executives have been lobbying so hard for.

In one of the more laughable comments, News Corp's executive chairmanMichael Miller welcomes the “important” passage of the far ranging media package as being a win for regional Australia.

I am not sure how this statement would have been received if one of the Murdoch family had put his name to it.

He could not be claiming Senator Nick Xenophon's $60 million negotiated boost to fund small journalistic enterprises as satisfying the needs of rural and regional Australia, surely?

Anti-siphoning changes will boost Pay TV and profits will rise with no television licensing fees and no limit to agglomeration. The major players will get bigger and, as always, go where the money is, leaving the ABC to service by radio and television the needs of country Australia.

And, with it all, comes a further assault on that spoiler of profits and ratings for the commercial media — our national broadcasters.

Christmas has come early for American media behemoth, Rupert Murdoch, who just needs the British Government to allow him to finally engulf BSkyB for him to achieve enhanced international superpower status.

Let us return, though, to the ABC — a mere pawn in the game of gaining votes in the Senate, particularly from the vindictive Pauline Hanson and (it always pains me to use the nomenclature) her One Nation party.

read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/competitive-n...

who controls information controls the world... Nick Xenophon is an idiot...

Nick Xenophon is a self-interested show pony, who may win votes in South Australia but will never fix anything, says John Passant.

SO, ONE YEAR into his new six year term, South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon has announced he will resign once the High Court has determined his section 44 constitutional eligibility status. He is leaving to contest the South Australian Lower House State seat of Hartley for his new group, SA Best, in the 17 March 2018 election there.

There is a certain irony to this, given that in 2007 he resigned one year into an eight year term in the South Australian Upper House to contest and win a seat in the Senate.

Of course, Xenophon is a self-interested show pony. But that doesn’t tell us much about his popularity or his policies.

At the last Federal election, the Nick Xenophon Team won 24.89% of the South Australian Senate vote. It won three Senate seats and a lower house seat. Labor’s vote was 22.67% and the Liberals 27.46%. Clearly, something is happening.

The decline of the vote for the major parties in South Australia is replicated across Australia, just not (yet?) to the same degree. In other states, one of the beneficiaries of this decline has been Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

With an election due in Queensland on or before 5 May next year – and possibly before the end of this year – the most recent poll suggests One Nation may win 18% of the vote. Given its support is higher in rural and regional areas, the Party could win seats there and hold the balance of power.

By contrast, support for both Labor and the Opposition LNP in Queensland is in the very low 30s.

Obviously, Nick Xenophon is not Pauline Hanson. He is the Liberal Party cloaked in the rhetoric of the "sensible" centre. She is the populist face of reaction.  For many voters, the defining characteristic of both is that they are not Labor, the Liberals, or the Nationals.

Xenophon and his two other Senators often vote for the Government’s legislation, sometimes after extracting a few trinkets for South Australia. His departure from the Senate raises questions about whether this symbiotic relationship will continue. It will.

His replacement, irrespective of whether Xenophon wins or loses the High Court challenge to his eligibility to sit, will be an NXT member. Xenophon too has vowed to continue to run the Senate team after he leaves.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-froth-and-bubble-that-is-nick-xenophon,10801

The ABC chairman, Justin Milne, has told the government the broadcaster will not agree to its “onerous” demands to publish the salaries of individual staff and that parliament will have to decide whether to legislate to force them to do so.

In a letter to the communications minister, Mitch Fifield, Milne said the government’s request last month that the ABC disclose individual names and salaries of all employees earning above a threshold of $200,000 would not be met.

The ABC will instead reveal from January the salaries of the top four executives below the managing director, as well as the members of the board. “The board does not believe that the disclosure and reporting suggested in your letter is warranted or in the best interests of the corporation and its employees,” Milne said. “The requirements are onerous, exceed best practice in the public and private sectors, and will prove counter-productive.

“They will also require overriding the Privacy Act.

“The board notes your intention to legislate to enforce the disclosure requirement. Ultimately, this is a matter for the parliament to decide.”

SBS too has confirmed it has declined to reveal its salaries publicly.

Fifield wrote to Milne last month, before the introduction of legislation to change the ABC Act – which was part of a deal with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation to get the media reform package through the Senate.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/10/abc-chairman-rejects-gover...