Maybe Rupert wants to stop the boats

Follow @MigloMT

The Murdoch conspiracy has been gaining a bit of traction over the last couple of weeks, being kicked along by Paul Sheehan’s article in The Age Murdoch’s vicious attacks on Rudd: it’s business where Sheehan echoes our earlier claim that:

News Corp hates the government’s National Broadband Network (NBN). The company has formed a view that it poses a threat to the business model of by far its most important asset in Australia, the Foxtel cable TV monopoly it jointly owns with Telstra.

The claim has found its way to the top office in the land, with even Kevin Rudd recognising that:

Murdoch’s views on the election campaign largely mirrored those of conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott, who has promised to downsize the planned broadband network.

“Does he sense it represents a commercial challenge to Foxtel, to the major cash-cow for his company, or not?” asked Rudd, referring to the planned broadband network.

Meanwhile, even the British press has picked up on the story, agreeing that the conspiracy is well and truly hatched and is evident in the destructive attacks the Murdoch media have launched against the government, saying:

The reason for Murdoch’s dramatic intervention in the current election has caused some debate. One interpretation of Murdoch is that he acts only for commercial advantage. Reflecting this, Paul Sheehan in the Sun-Herald argued that Murdoch wants to destroy Rudd and Labor because they are building the National Broadband Network (NBN). The NBN’s capacity to allow the quick downloading of movies and other content would be a threat to Murdoch’s Foxtel TV operation, so the argument goes.

Of course, this is all scoffed at by Tony Abbott.

Maybe Tony Abbott hasn’t been paying attention to the vile attacks on the Australian Government by the Murdoch media. Or from Murdoch himself, who recently tweeted:

Australian public now totally disgusted with Labor Party wrecking country with it's sordid intrigues. Now for a quick election.

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) June 26, 2013

So Mr Murdoch believes that Labor has wrecked the country. How wrong could he be? As Alan Austin points out in today’s Independent Australia, “profound falsehoods about Australia’s economy are repeated relentlessly” and the Murdoch media are the ones leading this charge. I’ve been to America a few times in the last couple of years and I am struck by the number of people who comment how envious they are of Australia’s economic position and, in particular, how our government guided us through the global financial crisis. Mr Murdoch is the one American I know of – and the only one publicly – to openly condemn our economic status. He says it’s bad. The evidence shows the contrary.

But unlike other Americans, Mr Murdoch has immense financial interests in this country. Of course he wants to protect them. Even nurture them. Old Rupert can only be supporting the Coalition for no other reason than they offer the best deal in protecting those interests. They simply have no other policy that could possibly attract his fanatical support. It has to be the NBN, or the destruction of it, more’s the point.

Or maybe – and I say this jokingly – he is only behind the Opposition because he wants the boats stopped.

What do you think?