Senator CONROY (Victoria—Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Digital Productivity) (14:23): Senator Birmingham, because he is diligent as always, has actually said he is talking about the legislation. What the legislation demonstrates is that the public media interest advocate has no role at all, no legal role, arising from this legislation in dealing with individual complaints or adjudications. It has no role. So I want to congratulate Senator Birmingham because he does appear to have read the legislation and be asking a thoughtful question about the potential impact. I can assure you, Senator Birmingham, that there is not one word, not one sentence in the legislation that has the advocate having anything to do with any of those things. So congratulations. Senator Brandis: Mr President, I raise a point of order on direct relevance. The question referred the minister to the proposed establishment of the office and said: 'Will the minister give one example of egregious handling or dismissal of a complaint about a news story that he would expect to be prevented under his proposed reforms?' That is all he was asked—if he could give a single example. If there is no example he can say so. If there is an example he can say so. But he was not asked about the legislation; he was asked to give a single example of a news story that would be affected by it. The PRESIDENT: There is no point of order. The minister is answering the question. The minister has a minute and three seconds remaining. The minister. Senator CONROY: Thank you, Mr President. But let me give you an example of the behaviour of some newspapers that are members of the council and the type of issue that Senator Birmingham is asking about. This is the evidence from Professor Dennis Pearce, a chair of the Australian Press Council. What did he tell the Finkelstein inquiry? He said: Indeed, we had one period when The Australian newspaper did not like an adjudication we made and they withdrew from the Council for a period of months. Mr Finkelstein asked him: Was that a direct consequence of a particular adjudication? And the answer from Professor Pearce was: It was indeed. They said that our adjudication was wrong, and they were not going to publish it, and they didn't. He went on to say: It is the old story … you don't give the person who is going to criticise you too much money, because they'll only criticise you better. (Time expired)