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May 24th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda AAP
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has defended the process that led to academic Matthew Ricketson being appointed to head the government’s independent media inquiry alongside former judge Ray Finkelstein.
Senator Conroy on Thursday was quizzed by the opposition over an email sent by his staffer Emma Dawson to senior government figures six days before the inquiry was called.
It states: “We know Matthew Ricketson well … and we have a strong relationship with him.”
The opposition said a week ago that the email, released under Freedom of Information laws, proved the media inquiry was “an entirely political exercise”.
But Senator Conroy has told a Senate estimates hearing there was nothing untoward going on.
The minister said he hadn’t even seen the email before it was released to the media and published in mid-May.
Senator Conroy said Prof Ricketson had already detailed all of the contact he’d had with the minister and Ms Dawson – and it wasn’t extensive.
Prof Ricketson had, for example, invited Senator Conroy to address a group of academics at the University of Canberra.
“He knows me well enough, after many years of dealing with him as a journalist and now as a university academic, to say ‘Hey would you come and do that’,” the minister said.
“I’d define that as a strong relationship.”
The communications minister insisted both Prof Ricketson and Mr Finkelstein “stood out” relatively easily as eminent individuals to head up the inquiry.
While he hadn’t met the former Federal Court judge before his appointment, his name was put forward during a discussion among colleagues.
Communications department Secretary Peter Harris on Thursday told the hearing neither he nor the main departmental officer working on the inquiry had a pre-existing relationship with either Prof Ricketson or Mr Finkelstein.
Mr Harris said the department didn’t prepare a cabinet submission relating to the establishment of any potential media inquiry.
He wasn’t sure if a briefing went to the minister but said the department was later involved in drawing up the inquiry’s terms of reference.
Senator Conroy said he recalled taking a rough draft of the terms of reference to a group of cabinet ministers which subsequently finalised it.
A decision to hold the inquiry was taken in early September.
The so-called Finkelstein inquiry recommended, in early March, an over-arching news media council be created to regulate news and current affairs coverage in print, online, radio and television.
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