by Robert Manne
It would be tedious and should be unnecessary to detail the remorseless hostility the Murdoch press showed towards the Gillard government. Let one piece of solid research suffice. On 24 February 2011, Gillard announced her government’s intention to legislate for a price on carbon emissions. On 10 July 2011, she announced the details of what was called the “Clean Energy Future” package. A team at the University of Technology, Sydney, led by Wendy Bacon, analysed the climate policy coverage of the major Australian newspapers between these dates. Once neutral articles were eliminated, it turned out that 89% of the articles in the Daily Telegraph, 85% in the Herald Sun, 84% in the Courier-Mail, 83% in the Australian, 69% in the Advertiser and 62% in the Mercury were negative. By comparison, 53% of the stories in the Sydney Morning Herald were negative and 33% in the Age. The hostility of the Murdoch press opinion columnists was even more pronounced. Ninety-six percent of the columns in the Herald Sun were negative, 89% in the Courier-Mail, 85% in both the Australian and Daily Telegraph, 79% in the Advertiser but only 58% in the Mercury. Perhaps this was in part because this was the last Murdoch tabloid that remained Andrew Bolt–free. The Bacon team counted the climate policy words of different journalists and opinion columnists during these months. Bolt contributed an astonishing 33,906, though he was surpassed by Terry McCrann, who contributed 36,887. Even though overall coverage of climate policy in the Australian was several times greater than in any of the tabloids, their most prolific climate policy journalist, Dennis Shanahan, contributed only half as many words as his two across-the-tabloid Murdoch colleagues. Nor was the hostility to the Gillard government climate-change policy of the Murdoch tabloids insignificant. During these months, the question of the carbon price became the central issue in Australian politics. And it was during these months that the popularity of the Gillard government collapsed, with first preferences for the government – for the first time in federal politics since opinion polls were conducted – commonly falling below 30%.
Even though there can be no doubt that the ubiquitous Rupert Murdoch both approved and inspired his Australian newspapers’ climate policy coverage, or that a Murdoch editor who supported the Gillard government or its climate policy would very shortly have been looking for another job, there is no direct evidence about the great man’s thoughts during these months on the carbon price in particular or the Gillard government in general. Fortunately, however, in December 2011, Murdoch – who, before Twitter was invented, conversed with friends and issued directions to subordinates in short, sharp, gruff, tweet-length sentences – became an enthusiastic tweeter. His thinking about Australian politics now instantly became transparent.
This is a little of what he thought. 5 February 2012: “Don’t understand Aussie politics. Can Kevin Rudd really come back and knife Gillard? Weird place mucking up great future.” Followed by: “Gillard once good education minister, now prisoner of minority & Greenies. Rudd still delusional who nobody could work with. Nobody else?” 24 February 2012: “Oz Labor tearing themselves to pieces. Ugly sight. Tony Abbott should just lie low and watch.” 17 May 2013: “Australia itself makes no carbon problem. China does, but what can we do other than meaningless gestures costly to every home?” 26 June 2013: “Australian public now totally disgusted with Labor Party wrecking country with it’s [sic] sordid intrigues.” 19 August 2013: “Conviction politicians hard to find anywhere. Australia’s Tony Abbott a rare exception. Opponent Rudd all over the place convincing nobody.” 7 September 2013: “Aust election public sick of public sector workers and phony welfare scroungers sucking life out of economy.” 19 September 2013: “Great first day by PM Abbott firing top bureaucrats, merging departments and killing carbon tax.”
These were not merely the dyspeptic tweets of a remote, right-wing, elderly former Australian. They were the tweets of the man who owned two thirds of the metropolitan Australian press. His Australian editors no longer needed to wake up in the morning and wonder what Murdoch might be thinking. All they had to do was check his Twitter feed. And from the date the election was called, they did not even need this prompt. Col Allan had landed to provide them with the benefit of his “insight, expertise and talent”.
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When the history of the Gillard–Rudd governments is written, it will, I believe, record both failures and achievements. They will be criticised for the Rudd-based internal instability, for the faulty redesign of the mining tax, for the failure of their asylum-seeker policy, for their mishandling of media reform, and above all for the folly of allowing a price on carbon to be called a carbon tax. But they will be praised for managing the most successful economy in the developed world, laying the foundations for disability insurance welfare reform, and for the introduction, albeit far too timidly, of a policy for dealing with climate change.
I am not arguing that criticism of the Gillard–Rudd governments was illegitimate, although I do believe that nothing but criticism from every News Corp paper on a daily basis over almost two and a half years certainly was. Nor am I arguing that the biased Murdoch press coverage of the 2013 federal election campaign was responsible for the Labor loss. That was inevitable more than two years earlier. What I am arguing is different. It is in principle extraordinarily unhealthy for a single corporation to own two thirds of the metropolitan press. This is the situation in no other Western nation. And it is especially unhealthy when the corporation is owned by an ideologue who has a proven track record of political manipulation and who demands that his newspapers across the globe remain committed to his views, as all 173 did, as we have seen, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Murdoch’s domination of the metropolitan press has two main consequences for our democracy. First, any government, no matter how worthy or unworthy, is now vulnerable should News Corp decide to target it in the way it targeted the Gillard government. Second, while News Corp retains its present dominance, mainstream debate about certain fundamental ideologically sensitive questions – how to respond adequately to the climate change crisis; what levels and kinds of taxation are needed to develop the welfare state; the trajectory of foreign policy during the rise of China; Australia’s Middle Eastern policy; and, of course, media reform – is effectively ruled out in advance.
Some will argue that this analysis is too pessimistic because it overstates the importance of newspapers. It is true that newspaper readership has declined rapidly, especially in recent years. It is also true that the majority of citizens now rely more on online media, television news or radio for their news and views than on newspapers. However, the significance of all this is easily exaggerated. The majority of the most popular news websites are owned by newspapers. Most radio stations and television news programs still rely very heavily on newspapers for their daily content and for their interpretative frames. Most of the multitude of alternative blogs and websites are seen by only a tiny fraction of the population. In societies like ours, newspapers are still the most important news agenda-setters.
Others will argue that, even if News Corp’s present domination of the press in Australia is unhealthy, as eventually the newspaper industry will collapse, there is good reason not to be greatly fussed. This seems to me unconvincing. In part this prediction remains uncertain. And in part it calls to mind Maynard Keynes’ famous answer to arguments of this kind: “In the long run we are all dead.” For anyone who cares about this country, even the next ten years matter greatly. Others find consolation elsewhere, pointing to the fact that Rupert Murdoch is already in his eighties. These people need to be reminded that Murdoch’s mother lived to the age of 103.
For many years, those of us who warned of the dangers to our democracy represented by the stranglehold of the Murdoch press were routinely dismissed as conspiracy theorists. In the face of the outrageous behaviour of the Murdoch press during the 2013 election campaign, this has begun to change. Although it probably did him harm, Kevin Rudd was the first prime minister in recent history to speak honestly about the bias of the Murdoch press. Yet despite the
growing awareness among genuinely liberal-minded citizens about the existence of our “Murdoch problem”, no convincing answer has yet been discovered to the basic political question: what is to be done? In theory, a concerned government could amend the Competition and Consumer Act in a way that required News Corp to sell some of its newspapers. In practice, it is hardly worth thinking about the possibilities and difficulties of framing such legislation. Any government that even considered compulsory divestment would be set upon by the News Corp papers and their powerful conservative supporters with a ferocity that would make the savaging of the Gillard government over its minor Finkelstein-inspired proposals for media reform look mild-mannered and civil. The truth is sad and salutary. News Corp’s domination of the press is a threat to Australia’s democracy. There is now no politically realistic way to overcome this problem.
In August, Bob Hawke claimed that in his long experience of Australian politics he had seen nothing to equal the virulent bias the Murdoch press showed during the 2013 election campaign. I wondered whether he recalled the role his government had played in laying the foundation for this state of affairs when it facilitated News Corp’s domination of the Australian press. And I wondered whether he dimly recalled the warnings about Murdoch of the kind that the Age had issued in its January 1987 editorial: “The effective control of the media is the first step on the road to controlling the values and future direction of our society.”
The Monthly, November 2013
AUSTRALIAN POLITICS
THE SECOND RUDD GOVERNMENT?
For better or for worse, unlike most commentators, my judgements about Australian politics are generally formed not by conversations with Canberra insiders but almost solely by reading history books, listening to radio, watching current affairs television and following the newspapers. As it happens, opinion polls are among my most valuable sources of information. They provide, for example, the only reliable evidence about the question I want to discuss in this article: the relative popularity of our two most recent Labor prime ministers – Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
Kevin Rudd governed Australia for two and a half years. Here, according to Newspoll, is the remarkable story of how his government fared, as measured in “two-party preferred” terms: 63% to 37% (once); 62% to 38% (once); 61% to 39% (once); 60% to 40% (once); 59% to 41% (five times); 58% to 42% (seven times); 57% to 43% (nine times); 56% to 44% (nine times); 55% to 45% (twelve times); 54% to 46% (four times); 53% to 47% (twice); 52% to 48% (five times); 51% to 49% (once); 50% to 50% (once); 49% to 51% (once).
For its first nine months the Gillard government polled respectably, although even in its honeymoon not even remotely as well as Rudd. In April 2011, however, it crashed. Here are the government’s poll results since that time: 48% to 52% (once); 47% to 53% (once); 46% to 54% (three times); 45% to 55% (three times); 44% to 56% (twice); 43% to 57% (three times); 42% to 58% (twice); 41% to 59% (once). Since April 2011 not once has the Gillard government polled as well as the Rudd government polled at its worst. There are very many ways of explaining these numbers. There is however one entirely non-contentious conclusion. Kevin Rudd led one of the most popular governments in Australian political history. Julia Gillard is now leading one of the least popular.
While it is logically possible that this year the Gillard government will see a revival of its fortunes, at present this seems rather unlikely unless some disaster befalls the Coalition or its leader. Indeed, if the poll results achieved since April 2011 continue for several months into 2012 there seem to be only two possibilities. Either the federal Labor government will agree to go quietly to an ignominious death. Or it will try to save itself by electing a new leader. Given that the future employment prospects of several dozen Labor backbenchers will by that time be at stake, the latter prospect seems to me by far the more likely.
Here again there are two main possibilities. Either the federal Labor Party (like the recently departed New South Wales Labor Party in its final years) will in desperation try, and perhaps then try again, someone new – like the lacklustre Stephen Smith or the quiet pigeon-fancier Greg Combet or the famously ambitious faction leader who part-orchestrated the Rudd assassination, Bill Shorten. Or it will return to the leader it destroyed. If this indeed turns out to be the way the choice presents itself, my recommendation would be for a return to Rudd.
In general, Kevin Rudd led a very successful government, at least until its final months. It is true, as Rudd has admitted, that he then erred very badly in postponing the introduction of the emissions trading scheme. It is true that his attempt to create a humanly generous asylum-seeker policy came unstuck. And it is true that one of the economic stimulus measures – the home insulation program – blew up in his face. It is however also true that many of the measures that were held against him by his neo-liberal political and ideological enemies in these final months – like the National Broadband Network or the education buildings program – were broadly popular. Even the perhaps clumsily-introduced mining tax might have been well regarded had his cabinet stood by him and had the Murdoch press, in particular the Australian, not embarked upon a disinformation campaign in support of the three great multinational mining giants.
Rudd lost office in part because he made some errors; in part because he made some serious mining and media enemies; but perhaps most importantly of all because he had spectacularly failed to win even the minimal loyalty of his cabinet and caucus colleagues. It cannot however be said too emphatically that he did not lose office because he or his government had lost the confidence of the Australian people. In the last Newspoll taken before the coup, the Rudd government led the Abbott Coalition 52% to 48%. If Gillard now got numbers like this, there would be champagne corks popping in Labor offices across the country.
The enduring popularity of the Rudd government was of course no accident. The single most important reason can be stated simply. Rudd led virtually the only government in the Western world to survive the global financial crisis without falling into recession. The overthrow of Rudd must seem to casual foreign observers of Australian politics almost entirely crazy. There is however more reason for the popularity of the Rudd government than its economic success. In my observation, Australians expect their prime ministers to have a vision for the future of their country and to move confidently on the international stage. Unlike his successor, Julia Gillard – the least impressive Australian prime minister since Billy McMahon – Kevin Rudd had a vision and an international presence. He seemed, to many Australians, to be fashioned from the kind of stuff of which prime ministers are made.
It is not merely foreigners who are mystified by the anti-Rudd coup. The Australian public has never really understood why Rudd was removed. Like members of a mafia gang, Julia Gillard and the faction leaders – Bill Shorten, David Feeney and Mark Arbib – have maintained a code of silence regarding the true reasons for the assassination. In addition, partly through a lack of information, the nation’s journalists have, thus far at least, failed to provide an even remotely adequate account of what actually took place between the conspirators in the weeks, days and hours before the coup. (By contrast, within months of Howard’s near-removal in September 2007, at the time of APEC, excellent, detailed accounts of the episode were written by Pamela Williams in the Australian Financial Review and Paul Kelly in the Australian.) The anti-Rudd coup sits uneasily in the national political imagination. At best it is a mystery; at worst a symbol of something sinister in the culture of the contemporary Labor Party. As it seems to many Australians, especially those who do not belong to the political class, that Rudd has been dealt with unfairly, his restoration to the prime ministership of Australia will seem to them to be the righting of a wrong.
If things go on under Gillard as they are, or if in a few months a new leader from the improbable list of successors is chosen, Labor will almost certainly suffer a defeat only a little less humiliating than the one that brought down New South Wales Labor last year. If however an elec
tion were to be held shortly after the restoration of Rudd, there is a reasonable chance that Labor might put in a respectable performance and even an outside chance that a Rudd government might be returned.
Of course if Rudd were to return to the prime ministership of Australia things would need to be very different this time. In his last political essays, George Orwell often wrote about how individuals were sometimes required to make what he called a “moral effort” in order to be able to acknowledge uncomfortable or unpleasant facts about themselves. If Rudd regained the prime ministership, he and his supporters would have to make the moral effort to understand why his rhetoric so often overreached his performance and why he so comprehensively failed to win the loyalty, trust and affection of his cabinet and caucus colleagues and also of the senior members of the public service. Searching self-criticism, in particular with regard to questions touching on character, is tough. Without it, however, a second Rudd prime ministership would be doomed to failure.