Friday 29th of March 2024

stoked...

stoked

save our voices...

Prime Minister Tony Abbott had a private dinner with one of the nation's biggest media moguls, Kerry Stokes, in Broome on Saturday night two months after handing the Seven West chairman a win by putting controversial media reforms on hold.

In June, Mr Abbott put on hold reforms proposed by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull that would have abolished the so-called "reach rule", which prohibits TV licence holders from broadcasting to more than 75 per cent of the population, and the two-out-of-three rule, which stops a media company from controlling more than two of a radio station, free-to-air TV station and newspaper.

Seven West, in particular, and News Corp opposed change – which   has the support of regional TV networks, the Nine Network and Fairfax Media – but the Prime Minister has indicated he is unlikely to move on the laws unless there is consensus in the industry, which is an unlikely prospect.

Since the changes were blocked, regional TV networks Prime, WIN, Southern Cross Austereo and Imparja have launched a "save our voices" campaign and warned of local jobs being lost, particularly in regional news, a prospect that has caused growing agitation among Nationals MPs including deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbotts-intimate-dinner-with-kerry-stokes-in-broome-mansion-20150823-gj5pod.html#ixzz3jg6Btwzl 
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the revolving door of prime ministers...

Malcom Turnbull's demise as Australia's 29th prime minister was unusual for many reasons, and truly unique for one: his was the first known prime ministership to be the subject of a billionaires' tug of war between the nation's most powerful media moguls.

The final blow for Mr Turnbull came in the Liberal party room on Friday August 24, but since then the ABC has pieced together an emerging picture of critical contacts with two media titans in the days before, as the prime minister sought to fend off the assault.

It began some weeks ago when Mr Turnbull and Kerry Stokes, the chairman of Seven West Media, began discussing what looked very much to the then-prime minister like a campaign to oust him by News Corp.

He believed it was being led by The Australian newspaper and the Daily Telegraph, egged on by 2GB's Alan Jones and Ray Hadley and Sky News commentators "after dark". 

Mr Stokes sympathised with Mr Turnbull and confided he was worried by what the continual destabilising of the prime minister through the media and from inside the Liberal Party would deliver: a Labor government under Bill Shorten.

"Kerry was frightened about the [industrial relations] regime under Shorten, especially given his mining interests," a source said.

 

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/liberal-leadership-spill-rupert-murdoch-kerry-stokes-influence

 

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