Call for a probe into Murdoch

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 posted on Twitter, urging people to sign the petition, which also called for recommendations to boost media diversity. The petition, due to be submitted to the House of Representatives on November 5, had 46 246 signatures as of yesterday afternoon.

Australia’s parliament is not required to respond to petitions, unlike in Britain, where petitions that obtain more than 100 000 signatures are considered for debate in parliament. Petitions to the House of Representatives have rarely been acted upon, according to the parliament website.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s office and News Corp did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

The newspapers owned by Murdoch’s News Corp include The Australian, the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, and the Courier Mail. Overseas, it owns publications such as The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in the United States, and The Sun and The Times in Britain. Murdoch also controls Fox Corp.