Comforting to read this in The Australian:
THE Liberal Party federal council has unanimously backed a call to reject the key recommendation of the Finkelstein inquiry into the media.
Mr Finklstein's report called for the establishment of a super regulator, the News Media Council, that would oversee print, electronic and online media.
The Liberal motion criticised the council and the public interest test for media ownership as an attack on liberty and free expression.
Moving the motion, Victorian delegates attacked the mooted moves as "de facto licensing of the press."
Opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis called the plans a "shocking intimidation of the freedom of the press" and warned of an "insidious" and "subtle depreciation of freedom of speech" under Labor.
"Nothing is more central than freedom of speech," he said, foreshadowing a strong Coalition campaign on freedom of expression in the lead up to the poll.
