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The Australian newspaper on the printing press at the News Ltd plant at Mile End in Adelaide. Picture: Brett Hartwig Source: The Advertiser

A LEADING Australian ad buyer believes proposed media reforms would mean the same limits on free press as experienced in Russia and Cuba.

Speaking at a Queensland University of Technology business leaders forum in Brisbane yesterday, Harold Mitchell said the reforms proposed by the independent media inquiry were "crap", designed by people who did not understand free choice.

"Firstly, they believe that there should be no freedom of the press, but, you know, through all the centuries the greatest way a society can ever continue is by having a free society," he said.

"You control thoughts and it just won't happen."

Founder of Mitchell & Partners, Mr Mitchell is executive chairman of Aegis Media Pacific, a company that buys commercial space on all media for some of the world's biggest brands. Mr Mitchell told the QUT forum some of the reforms proposed could have an equivalent effect to jailing newspaper editors who offend vested interests.

"Now, what sort of a world are we living in when that would be a notion we should have?" he said.

The report by retired judge Ray Finkelstein QC proposes sweeping regulation of newspapers, urging the Government to set up a taxpayer-funded body to regulate all news across all media: A statutory watchdog to set standards and handle complaints.

After the release, Kim Williams, chief executive of News Limited - publisher of The Advertiser - questioned the role of government in the proposed body. "The spectre of a government-funded overseer of a free press in an open and forward-looking democracy like ours cannot be justified," he said.

Mr Mitchell also railed at the inquiry's suggestion that some newspapers might need government subsidies to preserve quality journalism.

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Media reforms 'bad as Russia, Cuba'