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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-11-12 Daily Xml
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MEDIA INDEPENDENCE

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (15:16): Everyone in this place should get a copy of last week's Independent Weekly and read the article by Tom Richardson called, 'An Implacable Hatred'. I think it is a sad indictment of where politics in this state have gone. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are inalienable Australian rights but something that must be seriously questioned after reading the article by Tom Richardson.

It is fair to say that members in this place and anyone in public life are fair game for the press, and it is fair also to say that from time to time I have had the odd disagreement with the media, whether with radio personalities, the print media, or whatever. However, it disturbed me greatly when I read that article to think about where South Australia is going in relation to the press, particularly under the Rann Labor government. I think it is quite frightening, and certainly journalists in this state must be concerned for their future when they read what has happened, as outlined in that article. I believe it is quite disgusting, and I wonder to what levels this government will stoop to control and attempt to manipulate the media in South Australia.

The end of the article states that, during the Cold War, they used to say, 'Why don't ya just go and live in Russia?' It is getting that way here, in my view. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we have let politics in this state degenerate to the stage they are now, whereby the Rann Labor government is trying to orchestrate, manipulate and organise the lives of people who work in the media and, as outlined in Mr Richardson's article, in the print media. I do not intend to read the article, but I will read one piece. Mr Richardson says:

The principle of the media as a fourth estate suggests that it's not up to politicians to dictate who reports news, or how they do it. Whatever the rationale, if the newspaper had adhered to a government's request to remove a particular reporter, for whatever reason, the credibility of that paper would never survive.

He goes on to say:

...if anyone in the media is comfortable with the principle of a state government getting to decide who reports the news, and how, in the lead-up to an election, then, as they used to say during the Cold War: 'Why don't ya just go and live in Russia?'

I call on members in this place to seriously challenge the Rann Labor government and the apparatchiks who work in that place about who they think they are. Who on earth do they think they are? How dare they try to say who can say what and who cannot say what, and what they should and should not do in the press?

As I indicated earlier, I have had my run-ins with the press, the local press, radio personalities and radio media in Adelaide and other places and will wear that: it is all part of it. However, I think it is disgraceful and it is a sign of a government in free fall when they do what has been written and suggested in the article by Tom Richardson in last week's Independent Weekly.

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