Save Comms Law Centre

SYDNEY -- Your urgent action is needed to stop yet another avenue for public scrutiny and community-interest being silenced - the Communications Law Centre (CLC).

The CLC - the only specialist organisation in Australia that deals with legal and regulatory issues in media and communications from a public interest perspective - will be forced to close at UNSW on 30 June.

Media and communications play a critical role in our democracy. They have a significant influence on our culture. In recent years CLC has informed the public and contributed to public inquiries and reviews on issues such as media ownership, telecommunications regulation and communications convergence.

Without CLC, who will monitor, inform and represent the public's interests in major media and communications issues? Matters on the Government's agenda at this time include: changes to foreign and cross-media ownership laws, the full privatisation of Telstra, and the development of new national broadcasting.

The University of NSW informed CLC last Friday (27 May) that UNSW has decided to 'disestablish' the CLC as a university research centre on 30 June. The university will cease to contribute funds to CLC and states that CLC must be entirely self-funding if it is to remain on campus.

Please write a few lines about the importance of CLC.

Write to the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mark Wainwright, UNSW m.wainwright@unsw.edu.au (cc to admin@comslaw.org.au), urging UNSW to continue to provide accommodation and to contribute funds.

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What does the CLC bring to UNSW and the community?

• The Communications Law Centre is the only specialist organisation in Australia that deals with legal and regulatory issues in media and communications from a public interest perspective.
• Over the last few years the Centre has contributed to numerous Senate Inquiries and other government reviews on issues such as media ownership, telecommunications regulation and communications convergence.
• While the CLC will continue at Victoria University, the Melbourne office only has a very small number of staff and the Centre's policy work on issues such as media ownership and cash for comment has traditionally come out of the Sydney office.
• The timing of the University's decision to close the CLC is very unfortunate: the second half of 2005 will be the most important time for years when key media policy issues (such as the operation of the cross-media rules) and telecommunications issues (such as how to approach regulation of content on mobile phones) will be debated and decided.

Our activities include:

• Teaching - we are a central part of media and communications teaching at UNSW with two undergraduate courses and four postgraduate courses in media and communications law; guest spots in Arts courses and an undergraduate subject offered to Media
• Research - we are finishing a major 3 year ARC research project on how defamation law affects freedom of speech expression (with partners Fairfax, Seven Network, Australian Publishers' Association and Cornwall Stodart); other projects include a current faculty research grant on media ownership and local content; external project funding comes from sources such as Australian Communications Authority, Telecommunications Information and Service Standards Council; Telstra; we have one ARC Discovery application pending (with two Law faculty members) and one DCITA research grant application pending (with UNE); we have one PhD student and one PhD proposal in development for S2 2005; past research work such as a project on unfair terms in telecommunications contracts has had a significant impact on consumer protection outcomes
• Publications - as well as a series of research reports and policy papers, we publish Communications Update including the annual Media Ownership Update. A third edition of Australian Telecommunications Regulation: the Communications Law Centre Guide (edited by Alasdair Grant) was published in 2004 by UNSW Press.
• External Sponsorship - we have a major sponsorship agreement with national law firm Clayton Utz to fund a full time Senior Research Officer for two years; prior to this we took secondees from major law firms for many years
• Policy work - we have a long-established position in media and communications policy circles with many submissions to public inquiries and government reviews and a high national profile on issues such as media ownership, cash for comment, defamation and free speech, censorship and classification, telecommunications consumer protection, online legal issues, privacy.

Are there other options for the CLC?

• The CLC accepts the University's point that it stated in 2003 that the Centre should seek replacement funding beyond 2005 for the core UNSW grant. We also agree that in its current structure, the CLC will not be entirely self-funding beyond this period.
• It was hoped that the value of the Centre to the University was such that the equivalent of one salary could be found among the two associated faculties and University itself. Even if this was not to be the case, we expected that a review would be conducted to measure the viability of the centre and we anticipated that this would provide an opportunity to review its operations and alternative ways of running the Centre.
• We are disappointed that the scheduled review has been cancelled, that alternative models have not been explored, and that after 17 years at UNSW the Centre was provided with less than 5 weeks' notice of its closure - making it difficult to seek alternative arrangements with another institution.

Alternatively, send a brief comment that can be credited to you, to assist CLC to approach other bodies for assistance.

Source: Glenys Stradijot, Campaign Manager, Friends of the ABC (Vic)

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