Prime Minister John Howard has hosed down hopes that his government will push ahead with reforms to the media industry, warning he will not waste political capital on the issue, given resistance to the changes by News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch.

Writing in today’s AFR, David Crowe says Mr. Howard has cautioned that the government had made no decision on the time frame for the changes, casting doubt on comments by Communications Minister Helen Coonan earlier this month that new laws could be in place before the end of the year.

Mr Howard’s comments come amid a round of last minute lobbying by media executives who want to counter Mr. Murdoch’s arguments and convince the government to relax ownership rules.

The AFR reports that Senator Coonan is close to completing a “directions paper” to be considered by federal cabvarchar(15) in mid-July that holds the line on many of her reforms such as ways to introduce new digital TV services.

But with federal cabvarchar(15) set to discuss the matter within weeks, Mr. Murdoch’s public call for the government to “make it an open go for everybody otherwise leave it alone” has triggered speculation the reform package will be scaled down.

Mr. Howard yesterday reprised warnings he made early last year that he would not go ahead with reform if the industry was divided. He cast doubt on the minister’s preferred time frame and the nature of the federal cabvarchar(15) discussion which some in the industry hoped would be a full consideration of a detailed cabinet submission.

The Nationals are also resisting the changes out of concern that mergers would endanger media diversity in the bush.

They are unlikely to put forward a firm proposal soon because their main spokesman on the issue, Queensland MP Paul Neville, is overseas for four weeks.