Asked if the Coalition needed to address this relationship in order to win government again,Turnbull agreed.
In his 2020 memoirA Bigger Picture,Turnbull claimed fellow media mogul Kerry Stokes told him Murdochplotted to get rid of him as Coalition leader,a claim rejected by spokespeople for News Corp,Seven and the Stokes family.
In their column,Turnbull and Burrow argue that “the burgeoning Sky-aligned faction is driving moderate voters away from the Liberal and National parties,or encouraging self-radicalisation in order to fit in. And that poses a major problem for our democracy”.
“For the Coalition parties,this is a crucial moment.”
Peter Dutton’s office declined to comment. News Corp was contacted for comment.
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The Murdoch royal commission campaign was created in 2020 after Rudd uploaded a video to his social media channels calling the Australian-born media mogul an “arrogant cancer on our democracy” andinviting Australians to sign a petition for a probe into media diversity. It gathered more than 500,000 signatures,including that of Turnbull,and led to Labor and Greens senators recommending ajudicial inquiry into media concentration.
In a February 2021 appearance before the parliamentary inquiry,sparked by Rudd’s push,News Corp Australia’s executive chairman Michael Miller rejected his opponents’ key claim about the extent of News Corp’s ownership of media outlets,arguing the industry was a “picture of diversity,not monopoly”.
“A former prime minister’s objections to News Corp,who then mobilised his social media followers,is in a large part why we’re here,” he said.
Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission was initially created with funding from the Victorian Trades Hall Council but relies on micro-donations from the public. In August,the organisation said it had 43,000 members based on email signups.
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Rudd announced on Sunday he was stepping away from the organisation he helped found to take on his new role as Australia’s ambassador to the United States. “I am immensely pleased with the appointment you will be announcing this week,” Rudd wrote in his resignation letter.
“You are building a seriously formidable team,and it is reassuring to know the campaign will be well-led in its next phase. The most important campaigns are never won easily.”
Turnbull said he believes public figures were fearful of raising questions about defence and national security matters such as AUKUS because they worried about being labelled unpatriotic by the Murdoch press.
“There is a remarkably arid debate and I think that’s because people are intimidated by the right-wing media,” he said.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young,who has led the Greens’ advocacy for the probe,said she hoped Turnbull’s appointment would foster bipartisan support for the campaign whose support would stem largely from progressive voters rather than Liberals.
“Parliament cannot continue to ignore the calls across the country for a royal commission into the Murdoch media mafia,” she said.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weeklyInside Politics newsletter here.