Domainfax is in fake uproar today:
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull spoke to News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch two days before last month’s Liberal Party leadership spill, urging the media mogul to stop a campaign against him.
Mr Turnbull challenged Mr Murdoch over the coverage of his government in News Corp newspapers and its Sky News television channel, arguing the media company was intensifying the leadership turmoil.
Fairfax Media has been told Mr Murdoch played down his part in fuelling the leadership speculation, saying it was primarily a matter for his son Lachlan, who is his co-chairman and a stronger presence in the company’s Australian operations.
Come now. If anything, the leadership spill was pushed by Ray Hadley and Alan Jones at 2GB radio, owned by, wait for it, Domainfax.
Anyone who reads MB will know that it holds no truck with Mr Murdoch. I also agree that some journos got drawn into the stoush as much as actors within it as they were observers of it. That is unprofessional.
But it is important to remember that in the end it was Malcolm that killed his own prime ministership by doing pretty much nothing for years then:
- launching massively unfair tax cuts;
- running mass immigration way too hard for the polity, and
- horribly butchering energy policy.
This had created a fatal split in the conservative vote and he was a dead duck PM having lost more Newspolls consecutively than the predecessor he assassinated on that very basis.
Yes, the conservative media went a bit feral, but Malcolm had it coming from a long way out.
