In the Public Interest?

The Australian Press Council has responded to a Senate Committee Report on regulation of the communications industries.

The Australian Press Council has made a detailed response to the report, In the Public Interest: Monitoring Australia's Media, prepared by the Senate Select Committee on Information Technologies, following an Inquiry which began in 1998. The terms of reference related particularly to the question of privacy in the 'communications industries', presumably the Internet among other media. But the report concentrated on the (self-)regulatory bodies of the established media, in particular the Australian Broadcasting Authority, the Advertising Standards Board and the Press Council.

The Council considers this to be a very disappointing report and urges the Government to take no steps to implement its recommendations.

In general terms, as far as the print media is concerned, the Report identifies a non-existent problem and then proposes an expensive solution that would not resolve the problem that it has invented.

As far as the Press Council is concerned, the nub of the Report is at paragraph 2.17. There the Committee majority asserts that it heard evidence that called into question a number of aspects of the APC, particularly with regard to its effectiveness in four areas:

• lack of pro-active role and enforcement powers;
• time taken to deal with complaints;
• extent of awareness of the complaints process; and
• privacy.

The evidence referred to by the Committee in support of these conclusions is old and comes from well-known critics of the Council. The Committee chose to ignore the material put to it by the Council as it did not fit with the conclusion that the Committee wished to reach.

Pro-activity

In relation to the first criticism, the Council acknowledges that it is not pro-active in the sense of itself identifying and investigating what might be thought to be breaches by the Press of the Council's Statement of Principles where there is no clear evidence of public concern to warrant such an investigation. Nor should it be. For it to do so would be to set itself up as some sort of guardian of morality and self-selected public standards. This would run counter to the concept of freedom of expression (and its adjunct freedom of the Press) that lies at the heart of our democratic society. On the other hand the Council is pro-active in encouraging members of the public to bring matters of concern to the Council for resolution through the Council's mediation and adjudication processes. This is how a body concerned with Press responsibility should act.

The Committee proposes the establishment at taxpayer expense of a Media Complaints Commission (MCC). The report is confusing and ambiguous as to whether this body would be pro-active in the sense that the Committee apparently considers the Council should be. If the MCC was to act in the way that the Committee seems to contemplate it would have to employ an army of reviewers to monitor the hundreds of print publications that appear daily, weekly and monthly throughout the length and breadth of Australia. Presumably this body, appointed by the Government of the day, would consider itself competent to set the standard for what Australians should be entitled to read. Such bodies exist in totalitarian countries throughout the world. It would be a sad day for Australia if it were to follow this pathway.

If this is not to be the role of the MCC, it would be doing nothing that the Council does not already do - at no taxpayer cost.

The Committee refers to a lack of enforcement powers for the Council. It bases its conclusion on two cases where a newspaper has reprinted material that the Council criticised. In so acting, the Committee ignored the fact that the Council has dealt with nearly 4000 complaints in the last ten years. Two acts of non-compliance would compare rather favorably with the record of courts and tribunals in securing compliance with their orders. In the last ten years the publications owned by the constituent members of the Council have published all adjudications of the Council critical of them.

As significant in the consideration of the Committee's discussion and its solution to the issue of enforcement is that the MCC would not have been able to prevent the two publications acting in the manner that they did.

The evidence

The evidence from critics of the Council cited by the Committee goes back, in some cases, to 1990. None have had recent experience of the work of the Council. Stuart Littlemore is well-known for his extreme views relating to the media, including arguments that the Press should be licensed. It is not clear whether the Committee is endorsing this view but the establishment of the MCC would be the first step towards such a position.

The Committee's statement at paragraph 2.29 of the time taken to resolve complaints is misleading and one can but think deliberately included to strengthen the conclusion that the Committee had determined to reach. The Committee quotes a Mr Tebbutt as saying that the Council takes from a few weeks to up to several months to resolve complaints. The Report then notes the contradictory (and accurate) evidence of the Council that matters that do not proceed to adjudication are usually resolved within three weeks. Matters that are adjudicated represent about twenty per cent of the total number of complaints dealt with. They take on average thirteen weeks to resolve. This is a remarkably quick time when compared with courts, tribunals and other bodies which determine matters by adjudication and which, like the Council, are obliged by the rules of natural justice to afford parties an opportunity to present their cases properly. The Committee chooses to ignore the facts and asserts that the average time taken to deal with complaints, meaning all complaints, is 3 months. It uses this misstatement then to assert that the Council's performance is unacceptable. A fair and accurate conclusion would have been to commend the Council on its efficiency.

Public Awareness

The Committee asserts without investigating the matter that the populace at large is unaware of the Council. If investigation were made of the public's awareness of other points of complaint such as the Ombudsman, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the Privacy Commission, etc, it would be revealed that public knowledge of the existence and jurisdiction of these bodies is low. In fact the Council does much more to bring its existence to the attention of the public than those bodies, through regular advertisements in the press, commenting on radio and television on topical issues and conducting public meetings and seminars. Again the Committee has chosen to make assertions that are unsupported by any evidence and which fail to acknowledge the effort the Council puts into carrying out its role effectively.

Finally, the Committee is critical of the Council for not doing something (unspecified) about what the Committee sees as a major problem in Australia of press invasion of privacy. This despite the fact that it was given evidence that complaints about privacy invasion represent a small fraction of complaints to the Council and, significantly, also of complaints to the NSW Privacy Commissioner. The Committee then makes the astonishing leap of claiming that the UK Press Complaints Commission somehow controls privacy invasion in the UK! Perhaps the Committee should have engaged in some empirical research instead of endorsing the remit of an organisation whose effectiveness the Committee was hardly in a position to judge.

The Council urges the Government to look carefully at the recommendations of the Committee. Acceptance would result in the establishment at considerable cost of a body with uncertain powers to deal with concerns that the Report fails to persuade exist.

Dennis Pearce

see also

• Index of Dennis Pearce's material on the website
  
• APC Submission to Senate Committee

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