If Tony Abbott wins the next election, Rupert Murdoch will be the dark shadow behind – pulling his strings – truly ruling Australia, writes Rodney E. Lever.
TONY ABBOTT'S two fisted approach to politics was on show again last week.
It shows that he learnt nothing from the parliamentary drubbing he got last year.
His manufactured rage at Craig Thomson, now facing 150 charges of alleged fiduciary fiddling, might well have set the standard of debate for the next eight months. It might also result in a forced appearance by Abbott before the Victorian criminal court to explain his contempt for this institution.
But his most ominous remark was his promise to amend the Fair Work Act. Will the amendment to make union officials more responsible for their member’s money be the only change he intends to make? In any case, union officials are already just as responsible as corporate managers for the money they handle - the very existence of the charges against Thomson show this.
The Labor Party has a lot on its plate in the months remaining of its current term. Prime Minister Gillard has noted her determination to complete her education program and to lift disabled Australians out of the Dickensian era of the past century.
There are many more matters of change and improvement of services on which Labor has embarked since taking office, all of which will certainly be abandoned if the Coalition takes office.
My memory of Australian politics goes back to the days when it was impossible for the old Liberal Party to gain enough votes to govern properly. So much so that they formed an alliance — a coalition with the old Country Party.
Yet even then, little was achieved because the objectives of the Country Party and its Liberal colleagues were so at odds — they could never agree on anything. Today, the Country Party no longer exists Bob Katter is making a valiant ‒ if clumsy ‒ effort to restore the rights of the countrymen of this nation. Today’s so called “Nationals” are virtually Liberals by another name.
The one issue which haunts my mind in this election year is the return of Rupert Murdoch, having been humiliated and embarrassed in his forays in Britain and America. Everybody surely knows now that Murdoch already has Tony Abbott in his pocket.
Once, he thought he had Gough Whitlam in his pocket, but Whitlam’s contempt for Murdoch ended that alliance very quickly. From then on Murdoch has savaged Labor in every election since. His control over what his newspapers publish is greater than any proprietor has ever had in the two centuries that newspapers have been able to present themselves as a reliable source of news.
Murdoch is a fearsome bully. In his time he has sacked and broken more great editors than anybody before him — all dumped because they challenged his personal views against their own knowledge and experience.
The issue of Tony Abbot’s allegiance to this modern dictator may be the most important issue of the 2013 Australian election.
What Murdoch will want from Abbott ‒ and will get from Abbott, if he wins the election ‒ will change Australia forever.
Murdoch will be the dark shadow ruling this country. Certainly his media control will be greater than ever. His links with the Republican Party in America will lead to a closer liaison and the inevitability of our continued involvement in America’s wars and in its future economic growth and/or decline.
Sadly, an independent Australia will no longer exist.
