The Council also issues statements on policy matters within its areas of interest, including through submissions to parliamentary committees, commissions and other public bodies.
[8] MEAA Media Federal President Marcus Strom said that the arbitrations by the Australian Press Council had been "inconsistent, slow, and increasingly out of touch with community expectations", also citing lack of consequences and publishers completely ignoring adjudication outcomes.
[10] Seeming to overlook the well-settled 'harm minimisation' principle of Journalism ethics and standards, the Press Council dismissed the complaint citing "Freedom of Expression".
In 2015 and several times in 2017, under the leadership of Executive Director John Pender, the Australian Press Council inexplicably dismissed complaints about articles containing obviously gratuitous references to a person's transgender status, often directly contradicting decisions in similar adjudications and well-settled international media ethics principles.
[14] In subsequent legal proceedings, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that the words implied in the Press Council's Adjudication "suggests that state funded medical treatment should be denied to the individual, specifically on the basis of their transgender status" and that the impugned article "calls for violence against transgender people...".
The Council has in the past been criticised for being unable to censure its members in anything more than a minor manner when standards are breached and for being a "toothless tiger" as a result of being funded by the publishers whose work it is meant to evaluate.
[17][18] The former Chairman of Australian Consolidated Press, Kerry Packer described the council as "window dressing" at a 1991 parliamentary inquiry into the print media.
[19] A former chair of the council, Professor Dennis Pearce, told the Finkelstein Media Inquiry Archived 27 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine that the authority was overly influenced by concerns of losing its sponsors and that the industry was reluctant to fund its own watchdog.
[20] The Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown has described the APC as a "hollow vessel" and supports reform towards a statutory body with better funding.
Beginning in August 2014, The Australian newspaper, owned by News Corp Australia, published a series of more than 20 articles and editorials highly critical of the Press Council’s activities and leadership.
The newspaper accused the APC of erratic rulings, inefficiency, and being influenced by the chair, Julian Disney's personal biases.
[26] The Press Council responded by reaffirming support for Disney and condemning The Australian for factual inaccuracies and breaching confidentiality.