The Weekend Australian, October 23-24, 1999
by Finola Burke.
Australia's media laws were designed to restrict rather than encourage competition the Productivity Commission claimed yesterday.
Richard Snape, the presiding commissioner for the inquiry into broadcast laws, said that the whole broadcasting system had been built on a series of "quid quo pros, or, 'if this is done then this will be done'".
"Now we've got a regulatory framework which restricts entry, and also rather prescriptive of technology," he said.
"We're trying to open that up as much as possible to allow a new variety of services, a choice and of course to make it easier for them."
The commission has recommended that Australia scrap its cross-media ownership laws, but only after removing the barriers to entry for new broadcasters and foreign owners. The recommendation also calls for beefed-up powers for the competition watchdog so that it can apply a "special interest test" to media ownership.
The commission said to get diversity of ownership in the media sector, the regulatory barriers to new entrants should first be removed, otherwise what could emerge is further concentration of the media landscape by existing owners.
"The Australian community would be better served by policies which encourage contestability and entry, rather than limits on who can own and control what," the commission said.
News Limited - publisher of The Australian - and Kerry Packer's Publishing and Broadcasting Limited have both been foiled in their attempts to get into each other's industry, namely print and broadcast because of the current laws.
Professor nape pointed out that the commission wanted comments on how the public interest test should be structured, but the commission highlights that "a test that adequately addresses the public interest in promoting diversity of interest of ownership and diversity in the source of opinion and information would be a more flexible alternative than the current approach."
Only then, the commission argued, should the rules restricting television and radio proprietors from owning newspapers or broadcasting licenses in the same market be lifted.
In its report, the commission said, "The pool of possible media owners with media expertise will be enhanced, including those without substantial media interests in Australia."
Professor Snape pointed out that the framework the commission had recommended was one which "we hope will be less litigious" than the current one.
"That is, it would be more of an open system and less constrained by definitions under regulations so that would be, we hope, a much less litigious industry... than in the past," he said.