Senator Stephen Conroy fires back at Government

Federal Opposition communications spokesman Senator Stephen Conroy has responded exclusively to radioinfo on the story of the expected Coonan backflip on the Governments media reform laws.

It was reported that Senator Helen Coonan will meet much lobbied Nationals MP Paul Neville to negotiate amendments to the new laws when parliament resumes next week. The changes relate to regional radio and the definition of a trigger event.

Paul Neville has told the Australian he supports a change to controversial ownership provisions that have infuriated the regional radio industry.

“My concerns about local content on radio were never meant to make life a misery for owners. I am fully in favour of removing these anomalies and I have told Helen Coonan that.”

Senator Conroy told radioinfo

“The last minute amendments moved by Helen Coonan were a quick political fix to appease National Party senators, they were poorly drafted and had many unintended consequences. The only way to protect media diversity was to oppose the the entire Bill.

The National Party pretended they had a solution to justify their political cowardice. These proposed changes expose the National Party as once again abandoning their constituents to appease the Liberal Party. The abolition of the cross media laws will see fewer journalists, less diversity of opinion and local news reduced”.