The federal communications minister, Mitch Fifield, has rebuffed Labor’s call for an independent review before removing longstanding media ownership controls designed to stop moguls such as Rupert Murdoch or Kerry Stokes owning television, radio and newspaper assets in the same market.

Federal parliament is set to resume on Tuesday after an eight-week post-poll hiatus and the Turnbull government is expected to bring forward its media reform package in the opening week. The legislation would dump the media regulations known as the 75% reach rule and the two-out-of-three rule.

The reach rule now prevents Nine Entertainment, Seven West Media and the Ten Network from owning their regional affiliates. The two-out-of-three rule restricts cross-media ownership, preventing moguls from controlling a free-to-air TV station, newspapers and radio stations in the same market.

Labor is supportive of scrapping the reach rule but has thus far resisted entreaties from the government to bulldoze the cross-media ownership regime because of concern that Australia already has one of the most concentrated media markets in the developed world.

In an interview with Guardian Australia earlier this month, the shadow communications minister, Michelle Rowland, urged the government to have an independent review of media ownership in Australia to establish the basic facts before moving to scrap regulations that have the specific purpose of maintaining some diversity in media ownership.

But Fifield has rejected that call and confirmed his intention to bring forward the package. “The last thing Australia’s media companies need is another review,” he told Guardian Australia. “It is time for action.”

Labor has offered to split the package to allow the reach rule to be scrapped as a priority while further consideration of ownership is undertaken. Regional media companies have been lobbying extensively around the reach rule issue.

When he took the leadership from Tony Abbott last September, the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, hinted the Coalition might consider splitting the package. But the government is no longer interested in splitting the bill.

Labor has been briefed on the package and the Coalition will use the resumption of parliament to offer briefings to the new crossbench.

“Our media laws need urgent reform to secure the future for Australia’s media industry,” the minister said. “It is vital that this package be considered and passed as a whole.”

Fifield has argued consistently he doesn’t believe diversity is a problem in the Australian media market, citing new entrants in recent years, such as Guardian Australia, to argue the case that the internet solves the diversity problem by removing the traditional barriers to entry, and by allowing consumers to gain access to a huge range of media products both in Australia and around the world.

The minister repeated that argument while signalling his intentions to press ahead with media reform as an all-or-nothing proposition.

“Most Australians would be surprised to know that our media ownership laws ignore the existence of the internet,” Fifield said. “A proliferation of news sources, including online publications like Guardian Australia, mean there is now more diversity than ever before.”

But Rowland has previously countered that argument by noting digital has delivered an appearance of diversity while leaving the fundamentals of Australian ownership structures largely intact.

She has pointed out that seven of the 10 top websites in Australia are still owned by the traditional media companies. “While they are being delivered on different platforms it is clear the concentration of ownership is still there,” Rowland said in mid-August.

