April 19, 2012 7:00am by David Farrar

Guest Post: Australia Quirks

A guest post by Peter Freedman:

Australia is full of quirks and oddities. There’s the Queensland time thing for a start.

Then there’s Western Australia. Fiercely parochial and aware it is spearheading the mining boom that keeps the Australian economy moving.

WA groupies have, from time to time, perhaps seriously, but probably not, advocated seceding from Australia to set up its own republic.

And now the Westies have thrown a huge spoke into the wheel of Australian media regulation, with Seven West, the state’s huge media magnate, withdrawing from the Australian Press Council. This follows the Finkelstein Report, which advocated a state-funded media regulator with real teeth.

Most watchers of the media here reckon the Finkelstein model will not eventuate. Smart operators like Jonathan Holmes, host of the ABC Monday night Media Watch, predicted that the newspapers would react by beefing up the largely toothless and under funded self-regulator, the Australian Press Council.

Holmes could not resist a smirk of satisfaction tonight that the three main contributors to the APC – News Ltd, Fairfax and the media union MEAA – had agreed to double the budget of the council from a measly $800,000 a year to $1.6 million in 2012-2013. It also revealed plans to require publisher members to give four years’ notice of intent to leave the council – a response to Finkelstein’s point that newspapers could walk away from the APC at any time.

Too late, though. West Seven had already gone, announcing vague proposals to set up what it quaintly describes as “an independent complaints resolution authority”. Independent from the APC, certainly, but hardly independent from West Seven.

West Seven owns, amongst other things, Channel Seven, Pacific Magazines, the state’s major newspaper, the West Australian, and nearly 40 local and community newspapers.

Its decision to break away has some media watchers speculating that Finkelstein’s Grand Plan (hysterically opposed, of course by virtually all newspaper outlets) may not be dead after all.

There will now be three media regulators in Australia: West’s “independent” outfit, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (dealing with TV, radio and the internet) and the APC.

There is just a possibility the Labor government may have the guts to decide three is two too many and breathe life back into Finkelstein. I sure hope so.