(1) Has the Minister seen the report titled “Harradine holds trump on media law” by Cosima Marriner published in The Sydney Morning Herald on 24 June 2003 which reported that the Government is against Senator Harradine's amendment to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2002 that would prevent Rupert Murdoch buying a TV station or Kerry Packer buying John Fairfax Holdings Ltd, the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald.

(2) Can he explain how it would be in the public interest to allow Mr Murdoch to buy a television network and Mr Packer to be the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald.

(1) Yes.

(2) It is in the public interest to allow Australian companies to be competitive on an international stage by realising the benefits of scale and scope that cross media mergers can provide. Well resourced media companies that do not have to rely solely on cost cutting for improving profitability are more likely to deliver the program diversity and high quality news and information services the public desire. It is also in the public interest to increase the competitiveness of small to medium sized firms and new entrants, by allowing them to attain the necessary economies of scale and scope to compete effectively against the larger incumbents.

At the same time there are a number of amendments to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2002 which provide strong safeguards to protect diversity of news and media opinion, and prevent market dominance by any media group. These include:

· an amendment stipulating that a cross-media merger cannot be approved unless five independently owned commercial media outlets (across radio, associated newspapers and TV) in metropolitan markets, and four in regional markets, remain in the market after the cross-media acquisition occurs;

· an extension of the `two out of three rule' to metropolitan markets;

· a restriction on newspaper ownership to one newspaper per market where the person also holds a cross-media exemption certificate for that market (relevant newspapers are those included on the ABA's Associated Newspaper Register); and

· a requirement to review the ownership and control provisions in three years time.