Australian media companies want to be exempt from being investigated for corruption by the National Anti-Corruption Commission

Shane Dowling

2 years ago

Australia’s TV media companies have told the National Anti-Corruption Commission committee that they should be exempt from being investigated for corruption by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). I captured it on video, as per below, and it is amazing how brazen the media companies are thinking they can publicly demand to be above the law.

Free TV Australia CEO Bridget Fair, who represents and lobbies on behalf of Channel 9, 7, 10 and regional TV station owners, was asked on Thursday (20/10/22) by Labor Senator Glenn Sterle why she wrote in her submissions to the NACC committee she believes that the TV companies and their staff should be exempt from being investigated for corruption by the NACC.

Bridget Fair argued, in the below video, that all the TV stations do is provide a service to the government by selling air time and that they don’t want to be “caught up” in the scope of the bill.

(Click here to see Free TV Australia’s submissions. Page 7 is where they ask for an exemption)

Any debate about whether old media companies are corrupt is now dead and buried with the above video. The media are meant to keep governments accountable and expose government corruption but the old media don’t want to be accountable themselves.

Bridget Fair previously worked for Seven owner Kerry Stokes and the attempted “get out of jail free exemption” has his fingerprints all over it.

The reality is that a large percentage of government corruption is with companies that provide goods and/or services to the government corruptly getting those contracts.

In the picture above are Channel 7 owner Kerry Stokes, News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch and Channel 9 Chairman Peter Costello. The reason I added Rupert Murdoch even though he is not part of Free TV Australia is that if the TV Networks were to get an exemption, then Rupert Murdoch and News Corp would be next to get an exemption.

In fact, if TV Networks get an exemption, then most companies such as Banks and Mining companies etc would and the NACC will be totally undermined.

I didn’t watch all the National Anti-Corruption Commission hearings over the last four days, but I did watch some and I’ll read some more of the submissions. But based on what I saw there were crooks all over the place trying to manipulate the NACC legislation to protect themselves by making sure they are never investigated and if they are, it won’t be in public.

This is not a long article but given how scandalous it is for the TV Networks to ask to be above the law it had to be reported. From what I can see no other media have reported the above scandal which is in the public interest so please read below and share.

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