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

I find it remarkable that a motion that is clearly a principled motion making a principled statement in support of a free media and freedom of speech in Australia should not only be pilloried by those opposite, but also ridiculed by those on the crossbench and possibly the Labor Party in that they seem to propose voting 'yes' for one part stating a commitment to a free press and yet 'no' to a second part that would in fact enforce that commitment to a free press. Today it appears that the government is going to miss the opportunity to rule out the most heinous aspects of their proposed media reforms from being implemented.