Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I cannot imagine that Senator Stephens seriously thinks that proposals to develop rural and regional businesses can do anything other than help rural constituents who obviously need to have access to the media instead of being frozen in time and looking backwards like the Labor Party looks backwards with everything they do. Not only have they had no plan for the economy, no plan to keep interest rates low, no plan to keep mortgages affordable and no plan for jobs; they do not even have a plan for the fastest growing area of the economy, the media. Rural and regional Australia should not miss out on what are very valuable reforms.