So we can take it as a “yes” that Anthony Albanese, Richard Marles and Penny Wong, as reported by Nine newspapers last week, met with Lachlan Murdoch and News Corp executives on Wednesday. While the office of Communications Minister Michelle Rowland was happy to confirm her non-participation, all we got from the prime minister, deputy prime minister and foreign minister was stony silence — despite repeated efforts to draw an answer.
Not getting an answer from the PMO is of course something we at Crikey are used to — we were persona non grata with Scott Morrison’s office as well, so maybe the old email filters and phone blocks are still in place. But the general silence is more interesting for what it says about Labor’s embarrassment about dealing with a company committed to supporting the Coalition at every turn — and which remains deeply antagonistic to even the unambitious climate action agenda Labor is pursuing.
As we noted last week, we don’t exactly know the purpose of the meeting, so Labor partisans can hold out hope it was some unprecedented laying down of the law from a Labor PM to the Murdochs. The rest of us, more cynical and jaded perhaps, can suspect that in new boss Albanese, we have someone with some traits in common with the old boss Scott Morrison — in particular, a hostility to transparency about which special interests may seek to influence policymakers and what deals might be being done to facilitate that.
But this goes beyond transparency, or the great bipartisan tradition of media moguls dictating policy (and even beyond Lachlan Murdoch’s lawsuit against Crikey).
News Corp is a threat to Australia, the US and the world. In the words of Malcolm Turnbull, it operates like a mafia gang, and “is an absolute threat to our democracy”. Joe Biden is said to have called Rupert Murdoch “the most dangerous man in the world”. The complicity of Fox News in the propagation of the Big Lie about the stolen 2020 election — a lie peddled on Australia’s Sky News as well — and the febrile atmosphere that led to the January 6 insurrection is a matter of public record in the United States.
So why are the three most senior figures in the ALP going to Lachlan Murdoch? Why are they normalising relations with a company that should be beyond the pale of any politician committed to democracy — and to the stability of the United States, which is crucial to Australia?
What’s that line about the standard you walk past is the standard you accept? That extends to walking in to visit a media mogul too.
Thanks Bernard, on the money again. The mere fact that the new PM and his sidekicks themselves traveled to Holt Street and not the other way round says it all really.
Let’s hope a journo at today’s National Press Club asks Albanese publicly – & receives a frank answer.
…crickets….
I’d prefer they had gone to the ABC and promise to adjust its funding to the CPI and authorise the reinsertion of a spine.
Radio Australia also needs to arise from its grave.
Kowtowing to NewsCorpse is sad, and a little frightening – if that is what Labor was doing, I am truly disgusted.
What did it take for Uncle R to succeed on the US? Do you really think Big Money is going to let a blow-in from down under waltz into the big Apple and pick up its tabloid, then go on to build a rather large media empire, without their blessing. So perhaps the Ms are front people for even more powerful players BTS?
It’s much more than a media empire, it’s a for-profit information gathering ecosystem (IGE) and the public record shows it’s not particular about the methods it uses to gather information. If it were human, and by law, the corporation is a human, then it can quite accurately be described as having strong sociopathic traits. And I can’t get whiskey sierra out of my consciousness. That’s what it’s all about. Coming out of the great reset at the very top of the food chain forever more. A dynasty in a brave new world of factory babies.
Surely the upper echelons of the public sector memory are able to pass this information onto successive governments, so The Labor government has been informed of the information gathering abilities of this empire.
Every one has some moment they’d rather forget, perhaps from 40 years ago. You know, stole a packet of cigarettes off the teachers desk type moments. R and L know these moments about everyone who is on their radar. And they know how to let people know they know.
I don’t know what the Labor governments motives are but I do know they live in fear of this IGE. Don’t tangle with a sociopathic bully is always a good rule.
It’s not a good look when the leader of a nation pays homage to a player on his own turf, instead of requiring the player to attend the castle of the leader. What a strategic blunder. Who da boss now?
Thanks Bernard, your important work is much appreciated.