Change the Laws relating to the Abuse of Power by the Mass Media

In consideration of the comments made by his Honour Justice Brian Sully of the Supreme Court of NSW, at his retirement function and I quote,

"The media, as we know, react with savage vindictiveness to any attempt to apply to them those standards of transparency and accountability that they are insistent on applying to other people The media are not a constitutional arm of government To suggest that [they are] is legal fiction, a political subversion and a moral absurdity. The media are major money-making cartels. They are not knights in shining armour. Their agenda is power. Their strategy is fear and their tactics are a combination of ridicule, sometimes of the most savage personal kind."

The media deal in lies and worse, "finely calibrated half-truths"; they fuse fact and opinion, and there's been a campaign in recent times in the Sydney metropolitan media "which in my time has never been surpassed for the persistent, wilful and vicious mendacity with which it has been conducted".

It's about time the Bar Association did something about it. It should take the fight to the media by insisting they say not what they are against, but what they are for.

We now call on our elected representatives at the Federal Level of Australian politics to amend or create laws, which will hold the Mass Media in Australia to proper standards of transparency and accountability. That is the Mass Media must be held accountable to the wider public of Australia for Misleading and Deceptive conduct in their reporting and or publishing. The Mass Media in Australia must conduct due diligence inquiries and ascertain the truth and full facts of the matter, which they necessarily report upon. This is not an attempt to impede freedom of speech but an action directed at slowing down if not stopping the abuse of the power the Mass Media wields.