Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Science and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I thank the minister for her comments. I ask: does she recall her comments that the cross-media laws need to be relaxed so that media companies can achieve economies of scale? Minister, isn’t this just a coded way of saying that, under your plan, media companies would be freed to close newsrooms, to sack reporters and to reduce what you are calling acceptable levels of local content? Just how and why does the government think that this is in the interest of people living in regional Australia?