The Hina Act requires voting on each candidate, while last week parliament voted on the government's dismissal and appointment proposals together.
Vlaho Bogisic, Aleksandar Adler, Tomislav Radic and Damir Boras were each relieved of duty in the Steering Council with 81 votes for, 20 against, and four and three abstentions.
Gordana Simonovic, Josip Veber, Vlado Rajic and Roman Juric were each appointed to the Council with 81 votes for, 20 and 19 against, and four abstentions.
Last week parliament unanimously elected Slavica Cvitanic to the Council as the representative of the news agency's employees.
Today's vote was preceded by a debate in which HDZ MPs warned about the omission in last week's vote and the fact that the decision to relieve the previous Steering Council of duty was not in line with the law either, as the terms stipulated by Article 13 of the Hina Act were not met.
Under that Article, parliament may relieve a Council member of duty before the expiry of his or her term at his or her request, if the member resigns, if his or her work breaks the law or other regulations pertaining to Hina's work, if the member causes major damage to the agency, and in other cases defined by the law and the Statute.
"Did the former members of the Steering Council request to be relieved? Did they resign? Did they break the law or other regulations? If they did, then we would really like to hear it," said Jasen Mesic of the HDZ.
He recalled that when parliament discussed the Steering Council's performance last spring, it concluded that Hina should be restructured, that the agency was not doing well and that it required changes in order to become strong and relevant again.
Mesic said the HDZ had expected the ruling coalition to embark on those changes by trying to reach a consensus with the opposition, which he said would have reinforced Hina's position in the future and the processes that were inevitable in the agency.
"This evidently isn't the first public tender that will have to be annulled because of irregularities if there will be lawsuits (nor) the first time that we have a problem because of haste and sloppiness. And it would have taken so little effort to reach a political consensus," said Mesic.
Suncana Glavak (HDZ) said the Culture Ministry did not respect the law with regard to obligations in the invitation of applications for Hina's Steering Council.
Zeljko Reiner (HDZ) said the ruling coalition was dismissing the Council's eminent members with only one goal, "to relieve of duty the Hina director, which was very clearly indicated and announced in advance."
Branko Vuksic of the opposition Labour Party, who chairs the parliamentary media committee, dismissed the HDZ's accusations, saying parliament had agreed in a discussion that Hina was not doing its job well, that it did not have a profile and that its contents and operations were poor, for which the Steering Council was responsible and must therefore be dismissed.
"Who is to blame for the poor situation in Hina if not the Steering Council," he asked the HDZ, dismissing its accusations of a political purge.
Vuksic said the ruling coalition was right about the Council and that this issue should not be politicised, which he said the HDZ was doing.
Boro Grubisic of the Croatian Democratic Party of Slavonia and Baranja said the ruling coalition's intention was obviously "to hastily replace the Steering Council and take over political control of Hina through another Steering Council."
He accused the state, as Hina's founder, of stinting the news agency because some media paid a 10 per cent VAT, while Hina paid the full rate of 25 per cent. "Hina was stinted by 15 per cent from the start. The state is destroying its own news agency. Does this make sense? Does it happen anywhere in the world," he asked.