Rudd calls out ‘cancer on democracy’
MELBOURNE: Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has called for a major government inquiry into the tight ownership of Australian media by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, securing more than 46,000 signatures on a petition after just two days.
Rudd, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2010 and briefly in 2013, filed a petition calling on Parliament to set up a royal commission to investigate what he called the ‘‘abuse of media monopoly in Australia in particular by the Murdoch media’’.
‘‘The truth is Murdoch has become a cancer, an arrogant cancer on our democracy,’’ Rudd said in a video on Twitter on Saturday, urging people to sign the petition. — Reuters