Gillard government declares it's time to sink the slipper into the reptiles of the media ... Thank you Rupert ... Theodora opines
The Murdoch press, certainly in this country, posses the unfortunate attributes of being both arrogant and dopey.
It has been behind the Right to Know blitz, while campaigning against a privacy law and a Bill of Rights.
A privacy law has been hovering in the wings for years, ever since the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2008 recommended a statutory cause of action with remedies of injunction and damages.
To anticipate a law of privacy without a countervailing right of free speech spells trouble for the sort of journalism favoured by the News tabloids.
Yet, on ideological grounds, News Ltd went in boots and all on the Bill of Rights, so much so that nervy little Kevin Rudd diced the idea.
The pollies have been waiting for a particularly egregious moment of media misbehaviour to wheel out a brand, spanking new privacy regime.
It's being put through the filter of a "public discussion". With the media being tarnished by Rupert's hacks in London it will not be surprising if the public thinks a good strong dose of privacy salts is just the medicine the reptiles need.
Since ACMA botched its handling Channel 7's spying on former NSW minister David Campbell at a gay sauna, it's clear that the regulator is not up to the task.
One can only pray it won't make a similar hash of the convergence inquiry, and the new regulatory regime that will flow from that.
The government says that any new law will only apply to "serious invasions of privacy". That would be nice, however, a judge's view of "serious" is unlikely to be the same as that of the freedom loving media's.
Attorney General Robert (Potato Head) McClelland was blathering on about the freedom of political communication as discovered by the High Court ... but you can count on two fingers the occasions this has assisted the media in defending defamation cases.
It won't hold out any better prospects in privacy litigation.
The difficulty for the media is that some perfectly good public interest stories are going to be caught by this law.
The subject of a contentious story will be able to apply to the courts for an ex parte interim injunction, even in cases where only portion of the proposed article touches on a matter of privacy.
By the time a full hearing takes place, if the publisher is fortunate enough to have the injunction lifted, the timeliness of the story will, in all likelihood, be stone, cold motherless dead.
News Ltd hates the Labor government and has opposed just about every sensible social and economic reform it's proposed.
Now that the government is on the skids it's got nothing to lose if it sends the reptiles into a complete tizz by flagging a privacy law.
Incidentally, lawyers should uncorking the Bolly, because this is going to be an absolute picnic.
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Talking of picnics, Bernie Teague and Frank Vincent (both ex-VicSupremes) have been installed by the Press Council to audit John (Harto) Hartigan's audit of News Ltd's possibly dicy third party expenditures.
The two crusty ex-beaks won't be responsible for any part of the review itself. Their main role will be to sprinkle holy water over it or, if something is really wrong, to blow the whistle.
The point of the exercise is to follow the money and in the process track down undesirable journalistic practices, such as the payment of private investigators, technology experts, police or people in a position to give favours to journalists in return for bribes.
Presumably the review itself will be done by News Ltd insiders.
The expenditure on the company's lawyers, internal and external should be part of this investigation.
Bruce Guthrie mentioned in his book Man Bites Murdoch that leading up to his court case against News Ltd for unfair dismissal, six computers were stolen from his home.
The thieves did not take jewellery, money or other valuables, only computers and iPods.
One of the computers contained all of Guthrie's correspondence with his lawyers about the forthcoming trial.
This piece of criminality may have been unrelated to the case, but it nonetheless gives rise to an unpleasant suspicion that it might be connected.
In 2009 in another case against The Daily Telegraph, the plaintiff noticed his mail had disappeared, he was being photographed for months on end and on three separate occasions three different women propositioned him.
He was sure this was done in an attempt to compromise his defamation action.
Greg Baxter, News Ltd's top spinner, denied that the company itself would do these things, but said:
"External lawyers defending News in Australia in defamation proceedings have occasionally used private investigators in accordance with standard Australian litigation practice."
He added, "our code of conduct permits covert surveillance only with the approval of an editor and only if all other avenues have been exhausted".
If private dicks working for the company's lawyers have acted criminally can we safely assume this will be uncovered by the review and further flushed out by bloodhounds Teague and Vincent?
Another thought that bears exploration is that at the time much of the hacking and bribing of coppers was taking place in London, News Corp, the holding company, was domiciled in Australia.
It only moved from Adelaide to Delaware in November 2004.
Australian law has a part to play in the examination of the company's criminality.
Meanwhile, the swell continues to build for some sort of inquiry into the media. The government looks like coming on board with the Greens, but who will conduct the inquiry and what it will look into is unclear right now.
Concentration of pay TV and newspaper ownership surely is one pressing issue that needs to be addressed in this country.
At the moment the major voice is that of a wizened old walnut with a megaphone.
Theodora