The trouble with a dramatisation of Rupert Murdoch’s life is the current, real-world drama is going to be infinitely more entertaining.
Crikey was there for the star-studded (at least for Melbourne media circles) world premiere last night of Rupert, the new David Williamson-penned theatrical biography on the world’s most powerful Australian; read Matthew Knott’s chat with Williamson and the first review of the show on Curtain Call.
But as fictional Rupert declared last night: “I’m not finished yet.” Imagine, for a moment, a Tony Abbott prime ministership. And then get used to it. All those screaming front pages on the evils of the Labor Party, all those election endorsements for the Coalition, won’t come cheap. As Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer write today, the IOU list will be long:
“… with that will come expectations: expectations that Abbott will deliver for the company that helped him into the Lodge. For a company mired in red ink, with mastheads like The Australian losing tens of millions of dollars a year, those expectations may be great indeed.”
Anti-siphoning rules relaxed? More free-to-air TV handouts? More government recruitment ads on Murdoch pages? Curbs on the scope of the ABC? Murdoch will lobby hard. And Abbott may well think he owes him.
Williamson, if nothing else, nails the key to Murdoch’s success across the world: cosying up to the pollies that will return the biggest favours. Abbott could prove very lucrative indeed.
You write this “be very afraid” scare editorial as though the coalition actually need Rupert’s endorsement in order to get elected. This is absurd, along with your conspiracy theorist style list of rewards Abbott might be obliged to give him in return.
I’ve stumbled into a student level propaganda site by mistake. It all obfuscates the urgent need to get rid of one of the most appallingly inept administrations of recent times.
If the only lesson the left can take from the slow motion train wreck we are all witnessing is that something must be done about Murdoch, the ALP is in for a long period in opposition and this would be bad for democracy.
If ever there was an election that was lost by the incumbent rather than won by the opposition this is it.
Keep banging on about the bogey man. You are doing the left no favours at all.