2025-01-28
Responding to reports today that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) reduced fines for Optus and colluded on their media strategy before going public, Greens Communications Spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said:
“The public need to know they have a corporate watchdog with teeth, not a corporate lapdog. The truth is the ACMA has been too weak and too cosy with the big corporations it’s tasked with regulating for too long.
“The ACMA is overdue for a thorough overhaul. They are supposed to regulate these big corporations, not collude with them on communications strategy. The ACMA should reveal the full list of every media statement they have consulted with industry and corporations on before releasing for public consumption.
"The regulator continues to show they are useless when it comes to holding media companies and telcos to account. They are like wet lettuce, whether it’s Optus or the Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O show, as Senate Estimates heard recently.
“Comprehensive reform to communications and media regulation is long overdue, but sadly it has been squibbed by successive Governments. The agency needs a big broom through it.”