Rupert Murdoch might be Australia’s greatest entrepreneur and the world’s most powerful man, but he’s also running a corporate gerrymander that would make Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen blush.

However, the dubious system which sees almost 70% of News Corp shares stripped of voting rights will be put to the test at this year’s October AGM in New York after the US Securities and Exchange Commission rejected Rupert’s objections to my shareholder resolution.

News Corp is expected to release its notice of meeting in the coming days – last year it was 8 September – and only then will we know the full form in which the vote will be conducted.

However, the SEC has copied me in on their letter to News Corp dismissing their objections, so I’m fully expecting the following resolution will be put to the minority of shareholders who are entitled to vote:

Resolved: That the News Corporation board of directors submit a proposal to holders of class A and B shares within the next 12 months which, if approved, would create a company with just one class of share.

There is a 445 word supporting statement which I’m anticipating will be sent to more than 100,000 News Corp shareholders around the world.

The full News Corp board is expected to outline detailed arguments as to why Rupert should continue to control almost 40% of the votes at the company when his family only owns about 15% of the shares on issue.

The resolution is particularly pertinent now because it comes immediately after Rupert came up against another outrageous family gerrymander at Dow Jones which almost prevented him getting control of The Wall Street Journal. If Rupert is going to tell corporate America how to behave, then surely it is time to clean up his own corporate governance act.

Running for boards and putting up resolutions will be the core function of new daily videoblog and subscription newsletter venture I’m launching next month called www.maynereport.com. The Australian has a reasonable summary of the project in today’s Media section (not online).

The new owners of Crikey have kindly provided a limited relief from my non-compete agreement such that I can send newsletters to no more than 500 members, as is explained in further detail here.

I’m also delighted to have extended my agreement with Crikey and will continue to provide daily stories into the foreseeable future, whilst building my own niche shareholder activism venture on the side.

Stay tuned for what should be a fun ride – and check out today’s practice videoblog edition about Rupert on YouTube.