The new body would also regulate every magazine with a print-run above just 3000 copies. That would be the entire magazine industry, from the street press upwards. With such ambition, one might ask why Finkelstein excluded books, email newsletters, and Twitter from his regulatory web.

The specifics of Finkelstein's proposals are bad enough. But they represent something more concerning: a reversal of the principle that it is not the role of governments to stand in judgment of public debate. The report may insist that this government-funded body will be independent, but in reality, it is a government body. And, when it comes to freedom of speech, the state should be subordinate to society - not the other way around.

This principle that has taken centuries to develop should not be abandoned just because some politicians don't think they get a fair shake from newspapers. The media inquiry was obviously political retribution against critical journalism.

The Greens and the government have long believed newspapers report the carbon tax and the national broadband network unfairly (these issues are specifically raised in Finkelstein's report). More broadly, they claim the press has an anti-government bias. Labor senator Doug Cameron said in November: ''The Murdoch press are an absolute disgrace, they are a threat to democracy in this country and we should absolutely be having a look at them.'' Cameron was angry about leadership speculation printed in The Daily Telegraph. Of course the speculation turned out to be entirely true.

Recall that Bob Brown opportunistically used the News of the World phone hacking scandal in Britain to suggest that the Australian government should license journalists and newspapers. But to be fair to Brown, perhaps licensing was not as far-out an idea as it seemed at the time, given Finkelstein's conclusions.