The 1982 ABT Pay TV Inquiry revealed the complexities of broadcasting policy discourse in contemporary Australian government. The inquiry became a crucible in which discourses of public interest, and alliances of private interests, were distilled. Throughout the inquiry, and in the resulting report, the ‘public interest’ was continuously invoked to purchase legitimacy in the policy process. Yet the ‘public interest’ is a contested, malleable concept with no definite singular meaning. This paper examines and explains the various concepts which were used to underpin notions of the public interest in a contested policy zone.
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Matthew Pearce teaches in the Departments of Politics and Media Studies at Macquarie University. He is currently completing his PhD thesis on Australia's Pay TV policies.
