Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I think it is important that these reforms are considered as a package. It is the government's intention to refer the legislation to the Senate Environment and Communications Committee for consideration. We do need to make sure that Australian media does have the capacity to build scale and to compete in a global and converged media market. I was very heartened to hear the comments from my counterpart in the other place, Mr Clare, last night on Sky. He said: 'We have to judge this on its merits. We have to work out what is in the public interest. If you make decisions based on one media company or another, then you are not doing your job properly'. Hear, hear to the observations of Mr Clare. I must say it has been good working with him. I look forward to continuing to work with him, and I very much hope that we can reach agreement on these important media reforms.