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At Large
Gillard Smears Murdoch
Australia’s leftist prime minister attacks with innuendo and prejudice
I said in a story published on July 20 that the Left is using the News of the World scandal to attack the non-Left press, and particularly the Murdoch media, worldwide. As my story was being published, the Labor Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard — like Obama a former leading light of the student radical Left — launched into the most shameless and disgraceful attack on the press that her country has ever seen.
Gillard claimed that News Ltd., the Australian arm of Murdoch’s media empire, had some “hard questions” to answer in light of the UK phone hacking scandal. She declined, however, to say what those questions were.
There has been no suggestion that News Ltd. or its personnel have been involved in any misconduct. There is nothing to suggest that the standards of News Ltd. publications are lower than any others. If the company’s only “crime” is criticizing the Labor government, then perhaps Gillard should be answering to some “hard questions” about her own conduct.
Quite obviously, for the Prime Minister to make such comments and insinuations about a private commercial organization — a major employer throughout the country — without supporting facts or evidence is a serious matter.
To the best of my knowledge, Gillard’s attack on News Ltd. is unprecedented in recent Australian history. It suggests either overweening arrogance or panic. With the government’s popularity at an all-time low, and with even Gillard’s two Labor predecessors turning against her, panic is the more likely explanation.
Australia is fairly undemonstrative about its traditions of liberty, but, like America, it has them in its bones. A snide attack like this by the Prime Minister on the press is simply foreign to modern traditions. I can recall very few remotely comparable incidents in recent years — that is, outside of Chavez’s Venezuela. At the very least, her attack demonstrates an irresponsible attitude to the well-being of Murdoch’s shareholders and employees.
The Murdoch press has grown into the principal forum in Australia for non-Left commentators. It serves an important function. The Left is well-entrenched in all the other big-city dailies, from the Sydney Morning Herald to the Melbourne Age and the Canberra Times, to, of course, the public Australian Broadcasting Commission. All of these outlets broadly and predominantly support Gillard’s proposed tax on carbon-dioxide emissions, which has emerged as the major issue in the next Federal election, and which Labor and the Greens hope to use (Obama-style) for a socialist transformation of the economy.
The chief critic of the carbon-dioxide tax has been — Surprise! Surprise! — the Murdoch press, the most influential organs of which are the up-market national daily The Australian and the Sydney Telegraph. Telegraph features editor Tim Blair runs one of the most popular weblogs in Australia, which satirizes the Left and has been keeping up a running commentary on the carbon-dioxide tax. Blair’s very name appears enough to drive much of the Left into a frenzy, as evidenced by the handful of weblogs that exist solely to attack him.
The Australian Greens Party is already calling for an inquiry into Murdoch’s news operations (similar to the British Liberal Democrats, who are hopping on the bandwagon in the UK) and the shape of the international campaign by the Left against Murdoch grows more obvious and undisguised. Obviously Fox and the U.S. Murdoch titles will be coming into their crosshairs next.
Meanwhile, a sentence leapt at me from the pages of the London Daily Telegraph: “After a year, Lord Leveson will recommend how the press should be regulated and advise on the future conduct of relations between politicians and the press.”
What is, objectively, a relatively minor scandal over alleged (and remember alleged) hacking by a few reporters of a defunct, down-market paper is developing into an international battle for the future of liberty.
About the Author
Hal G.P. Colebatch’s “Immram,” Counterstrike, is being published by Australian publisher Imaginites.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (14) | Leave a comment
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nister| 7.21.11 @ 6:23AM
What color is the sun on your world, Hal?
Dan Hirsch| 7.21.11 @ 7:34AM
There is a very real reason why freedom of speech is in the FIRST amendment to the US Constitution.
And it is under constant attack, open or stealthily, by the central control left, the folks we used to call Communists...who still are.
Don't tread on me!
POST American| 7.21.11 @ 8:30AM
DON'T be taken in by this latest contrived
pillow fight among the Globalists.
AGAIN
FACT IS Rupert Murdoch remains at the very
forefront of cynical Fabian Globalist front ops.
That youtube tape of the former Fabian PM
Rudd on all fours to the RED Chinese regime
has been getting around. Word's been getting
around too that Australia's being betrayed and
swallowed.
Murdoch's an Oxford Fabian. His FAKE ;right'
Globalist cover op FOX 'News' has done invaluable
service to the cause of American economic takedown and dumbdown.
--------------DON'T BE DECEIVED--------------
Dai Alanye | 7.21.11 @ 3:28PM
Paranoia can be a harmful condition, and treatment should be sought for it.
Citizen Jerry| 7.21.11 @ 10:45AM
Methinks our good friends the Aussies need another John Howard. Their current PM seems to be a waste of space -- and an annoying one as well.
POST American| 7.21.11 @ 11:05AM
Surely a Globalist multi-op.
The need for straw dogs as word IS spreading
like wildfire about their ACTUAL agenda.
Much like the Strauss Khan set up.
Also, figures nicely to bring in further restrictions
on the press, ANY press.
But for all that at least some token, but nonetheless
refreshing, esposure of 'the club'.
nister| 7.21.11 @ 1:15PM
Don't like going off topic, but Strauss Kahn was yanked off a plane and arrested. Odd behavior for an innocent man, n'est-ce pas?
sparch| 7.21.11 @ 1:52PM
The easiest way to loose our liberty and freedom is pillary our enemies to the point they lose theirs. Once one segment loses it's rights, we all will in a short period of time.
Doctor Right| 7.21.11 @ 2:05PM
I once lived in Australia, so it holds a special place in my heart. It's a breathtakingly beautiful place, and the people have an independent outlook to life that's on the one hand once similar to how we Americans view the world, yet also distinctly different.
That said, it is amazing and highly coincidental that, given a citizenry that's basically center right, both our nations are governed by absolute, ideological retards.
Julia Gillard is a disgrace. The only thing that makes here even slightly more tolerable than her predecessor, the wretched Kevin Rudd, is that she doesn't pick her ear-wax and eat it on national TV (don't ask - just go to YouTube).
Is this our destiny? To be ruled over by a brainless, witless cadre of elites?
...Where is our Reagan?
john dubose| 7.21.11 @ 5:50PM
It is well to remember that no corporation or individual can do global damage or broad evil without the help of a government. Corrupt or not, Murdock only publishes and broadcasts.
Silenceing him by gov power would be far worse than anything he could do by snooping and blabing.
pissedaussie| 7.21.11 @ 8:44PM
What a pile of trash. Gillard did not attach Murdoch she said Australians may have questions - which we do =like why Murdoch owns 70 % of media in this country. Spreading rubbish like this is dangerous
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masly | 7.21.11 @ 11:37PM
What a pile of trash. Gillard did not attach Murdoch she said Australians may have questions - which we do =like why Murdoch.I am a 28 years old doctor, mature and beautiful.and now I am seeking a good man who can give me real love , so i got a username Andromeda2002 on--s'e'ek'c'ou'ga'r.c óm--.it is the first and best club for y'ounger women and old'er men, or older women and y'ounger men,to int'eract with each other. Maybe you wanna ch'eck 'it out or tell your friends!
POST American| 7.22.11 @ 12:11AM
BOTTOM LINE
-Murdoch and this latest front op
dust up among confirmed Fabians
is NOT to be taken seriously.
BTW --catch how FOX 'News' is now
openly coming out against the Tea Party
and pushing 'Bailouts' and 'border realism'
(ie collapse) ---without a single critical murmur
about the 1.5 quadrillion in FAKE derivatives
debt --or the ILLEGAL private and psychopathic
'FED'.
DO get with ALAN WATT.
DO get with the DEEEE-program.
---------DO NOT BE DECEIVED----------