“Our editing process – for all professional media – is high stakes because we can be charged with contempt of court,our journalists can be threatened with jail,we can be taken to the Press Council,and we can be held up to scrutiny by other organisations,which is completely different to the misinformation industry that is perpetuated by and is a driver of,frankly,profit online,” Mr Campbell told the inquiry in February.

Mr Turnbull echoed many of Mr Rudd’s concerns,saying he had experienced “bullying and standover tactics” from News Corp when he served in the Parliament.

He said the political might of the Murdoch empire represented “an absolute threat to our democracy” – a threat he said America had already witnessed on January 6 when rioters stormed the US Capitol building. Mr Turnbull said the Murdoch-controlled Fox News had amplified the civil unrest that led to rioting by promoting the lie that US President Joe Biden had stolen the election from Donald Trump.

“If you don’t think that isn’t a threat to American democracy and undermining the strength and capability of our most important ally. Then,you know,you are kidding yourself,” Mr Turnbull said.

He also claimed that News Corp’s “problematic” influence was evident in its lobbying for the news media bargaining code laws,which forces Google and Facebook to compensate media companies for using their content on their platforms.

“The power that you represent – your Parliament,our Parliament – has been used to shake down two big tech platforms,Google and Facebook,to give money to media companies,the leading protagonist of which was News Corp,and we don’t know what they were paid,” Mr Turnbull said.

Nine Entertainment Co,owner of this masthead,also heavily lobbied the government to pass the media code. The laws were supported by other major media outlets,including the ABC and Guardian Australia.

Facebook Australia policy director Mia Garlick said the company had struck content deals with at least six publishers – Seven,News Corp,Schwartz Media,Private Media,Solstice Media and Sky News – but declined to disclose the size of deals,citing commercial in confidence. Nine has alsosigned a letter of intent with the tech giant for use of its news articles. Ms Garlick said the company would launch its news platform,Facebook News,by the end of 2021.

News Corp is the country’s biggest newspaper owner,with titles including national broadsheetThe Australian and Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph,Melbourne’sHerald Sun,Brisbane’sTheCourier Mail and Adelaide’sTheAdvertiser.News Corp also owns Australia’s second-biggest news website news.com.au and 24-hour channel Sky News Australia.

Nine is also a dominant player in Australian media and ownsThe Sydney Morning Herald,The AgeandThe Australian Financial Review newspapers and a range of radio stations and television assets. The ABC is the third major player through television,radio and the nation’s most-visited news website.

Executives from regional media companies Prime Media Group,WIN Corp and Imparja gave evidence on Monday that their struggling business model had forced job cuts and newsroom closures. The companies arelobbying the Morrison government to change media laws preventing the industry from consolidating.

“The reality is that if any one of us wasn’t here,diversity is dead in regional Australia,” Prime Media chief executive Ian Audsley said. “That needs to be fixed and the only way it can be fixed is to enable us to rearrange ourselves in a more economically sustainable way.“

Andrew Jaspan,co-founder of news website The Conversation and former editor ofThe Age,said Australia was witnessing a “spiralling concentration” in its media market,which posed an “unprecedented and real threat” to democracy. He listed the merger of Nine and Fairfax Media in 2018,and News Corp and Nine’s decision to walk away from newswire service AAP as key events that had reinforced the dominance of those two players.

“What is the real issue we face here with media concentration? It entrenches excessive political and ideological power in the hands of the few,giving them the ability to set the public agenda[and] determine political decision making[and] public and media policy,” Mr Jaspan said.