The Carrot and the Stick
The Stick:
At the height of the media ownership review:
Chris Schacht, ALP opposition Communications spokesman on changes to media
ownership laws, 21st August 1997, "for their own political
health they've (the Coalition) got to get (media) proprietors on side".
Margo Kingston, journalist Sydney Morning Herald
(1997):
"Now when you have a man so powerful that he can
buy Graeme Richardson to talk the Labor party
around and
Michael Kroger
to talk the Liberal party around, and Howard
and Costello and Alston jump to his every need no matter how
irrational, no matter how transparently incoherent their arguments, we have
a huge problem. And yes, personally I am very scared, personally, of Mr Packer
taking over Fairfax."