Presentation as ALRC Commissioner to Communications Policy and Research Forum, Sydney, 8 November 2011

1. Reforming the Australian Media Classification Scheme Professor Terry Flew Australian Law Reform Commission Presentation to Communications Policy and Research Forum, Sydney, 8 November, 2011

3. Challenges

6. The ALRC review announced Attorney-General of Australia, the Hon Robert McClelland MP

8. The Inquiry begins Professor Terry Flew, QUT

12. A threshold question: incremental change or root-and-branch reform? "Australia's media content regulation system is like a bowl of spaghetti that's been put to the back of the fridge and gets dragged out every five years, reheated with additional sauce, partly eaten and then put back in the fridge for later. It's complex, tangled and from a media user point of view its impossible to tell which bit of media content connects to which regulatory framework". Professor Catharine Lumby, statement at launch of “The Adaptive Moment: A Fresh Approach to Convergent Media in Australia”, K. Crawford and C. Lumby, Journalism and Media Research Centre, University of New South Wales, 5 May 2011.

14. Verticals and horizontals

16. Policy Instruments Policy Instrument Advantages Disadvantages Direct government regulation (‘command-and-control’ regulation) Legal certainty; enforcement provisions Knowledge gaps; costs; time; non-compliance Self-regulation, co-regulation and quasi-regulation Flexibility; industry knowledge; buy-in; scope to raise standards Risk of tokenism; govt. avoidance of issues; barriers to entry Voluntarism Motivated participation Difficult to target outcomes; interest over time Education and Information Low administrative burden; low cost Private/public interest tensions Economic instruments Behavioural influence; incentives; scope for innovation; flexibility Costs to govt.; inequitable impact; determining outcomes