YOUR TURN U.S.A. Queensland voters reject Murdochism, conservative law and order push, bigotry and extreme Trump-like nationalist Pauline Hanson's One Nation in voting Labor back in.
"Kevin Rudd petition calls for royal commission into News Corp domination of Australian media"
Jim Chalmers says One Nation and United Australia Party losses in the Queensland election were 'satisfying'
By political reporter Matthew Doran
Posted Yesterday at 12:29pm, updated Yesterday at 2:27pm
VIDEO - 7m Annastacia Palaszczuk claims victory in the Queensland election. (Photo: AAP)
Federal Labor is celebrating the collapse in support for One Nation in the Queensland election, with Pauline Hanson's party experiencing a close to 7 per cent swing away from it at Saturday's poll.
Key points:
* One Nation will hold just one seat in Queensland's Parliament, something Federal Labor's Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers describes as "heartening"
Controversial businessman Clive Palmer did not trouble the scorers by the end of the night, with his United Australia Party failing to pick up any of the 93 Legislative Assembly seats.
His wife, Anna Palmer was contesting a seat.
"One of the really satisfying things from the election last night was to see the collapse in the One Nation vote," Federal Labor's Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers told the ABC's AM program.
"We don't pretend that that's necessarily permanent, but it was very heartening to see that vote collapse.
"And while we're at it, it was very heartening to see the almost complete humiliation of Clive Palmer, who threw millions of dollars at this campaign and barely registered in the tally at the end of the night."
Senator Hanson, and her chief of staff James Ashby, blamed a lack of media coverage of their campaign for the party's poor showing.
"One Nation has always traditionally done very well in the regions, you’ve had no cameramen, there’s no snappers for newspapers out there," he told the ABC.
"The ABC's pretty fat down there in Brisbane, but you do nothing in the regions."
The public broadcaster's footprint and reach in regional Queensland has not changed since the last election.
Mr Ashby argued the bush would "miss out" during the next term of government as a result of Labor's win.
"It'll be the farmers that will suffer, and it will be you down in the south-east corner that will suffer most," he said.
"Your fruit and vegetable prices will go through the roof, we will be stung significantly, the fishermen out there will absolutely be raped and pillaged, and I tell you what it will be Labor's fault.
Despite Labor's strong state result, questions are already being asked about whether the party is at further risk of losing ground to the Greens in inner-city electorates.
Matters of State podcast In the lead up to the Queensland state election Steve Austin and Matt Wordsworth break down the big questions and crucial campaign moments. Read more - https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/matters-of-state/
"Our task is a difficult one, but not an impossible one, which is to stitch together a big constituency for change, from our cities to our outer suburbs to our regions and rural areas," Mr Chalmers said.
"We've known that's the challenge for some time, and we're up for it."
But he took a swing at the Queensland Liberal National Party on the way through.
"The only reason the Greens won South Brisbane is because the Liberals preferenced them," he said.
"So there's twice as many Greens in the Queensland Parliament, at least, today because the Liberals supported them.
"Remember that when the Liberals are going around Queensland pretending they're anti-Green, they actually just gifted them a seat."
Shadow Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the LNP's deal with the Greens gave the minor party seats in Queensland's Parliament.(ABC News: Matt Roberts)
Coronavirus spotlight can't be the only reason for result: Andrews
VIDEO - 51s Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington conceded defeat last night.
"This isn't an excuse … it's just the reality that during a health crisis, the Premier and senior cabinet members from Queensland were out every day, people were listening because they wanted to hear what was happening with COVID," she said.
"That in itself always makes it difficult, but that can't be the only reason." Queensland election 2020 full coverage
Visit our full coverage page for all the latest news on the Queensland state election. Read more
But she argued the LNP primary vote was well below where it needed to be to make a dent in Labor's position.
Despite the Coalition's strong showing in Queensland at the 2019 federal election, the state result was vastly different.
But Ms Andrews argued the election result should not be setting off alarm bells for the Liberal and National parties at a federal level.
"People in Queensland have always been able to distinguish between state and federal," she said.
"We have done well in Queensland, we can't be complacent, we never will be complacent.
"So federally, we'll look at what the results were, we'll break that down on a seat-by-seat basis, see how that impacts us."
Ex-PMs unite in Australia in bid to curb power of Murdoch empire
"Kevin Rudd petition calls for royal commission into News Corp domination of Australian media "Kerry O'Brien uses Walkey Awards speech to rally journalists, saying press 'freedom is eroded gradually' "Australia’s Media Raids and the Decline of Press Freedom Worldwide"""
Former rivals to star in Leveson-style inquiry into mogul’s near-monopoly of the country’s media
Rupert Murdoch, left, meets with Donald Trump in Aberdeen in 2016. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/BBC/72 Films/Reuters
Vanessa Thorpe and Amanda Meade Sun 22 Nov 2020 18.30 AEDT
In high public office, both men lived and died at the word of the world’s most influential media mogul, Rupert Murdoch. But now two former Australian prime ministers are at the vanguard of a campaign to redress the balance of power. It is a movement that Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull .. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/malcolm-turnbull , the respective former Labor and Liberal leaders of Australia, hope will go on to undermine all of Murdoch’s international enterprises.
The two former PMs were once rivals but are to appear as joint star witnesses at an upcoming Australian parliamentary inquiry into Murdoch’s dominance of the Australian political debate. Both are to argue that News Corp Australia has become the propaganda arm of the rightwing Liberal government.
Some have hailed the inquiry as the beginning of a worldwide calling-to-account for the 89-year-old Murdoch, the Australian-born powerbroker who has also shaped British politics for the past 40 years, with his stable of right-leaning newspaper titles, and who has until recently promoted and supported Donald Trump’s presidency in America through his US television channel, Fox News.
“This could be an uncomfortable moment for Murdoch,” said David Hardaker, the veteran Australian investigative reporter and broadcaster. “We have two ex-prime ministers working together, and that hasn’t happened before. This is already leading to a senate inquiry that could be something similar to the Leveson inquiry [into the press] in Britain.
“Rudd wanted a royal commission, but that was never going to happen because the government would have to approve it and there is a kind of revolving door between Murdoch’s businesses and the Australian government at the moment, with media advisers and consultants going in and out.”
For Hardaker, the crucial element is the mobilisation of tech industry leaders, already poised to invest in green energy and infrastructure: “That is the locus. It is a big power base with lots of money, but it is blocked by the conservatives and by Murdoch’s denial of climate change, despite his recent apparent acceptance that it actually exists.”
Murdoch owns a major newspaper in each state, except for Western Australia. Queensland is dominated by one major Murdoch title, the Courier Mail. “This is a one-newspaper state, not just a one-newspaper town,” Rudd said. “And anyone who thinks that’s fair in terms of every side of politics having a fair go has got rocks in their head.”
Murdoch also owns Sky News Australia, a rightwing channel modelled on Fox News, and a host of local and regional papers and websites. Although the company was forced to close dozens of its smaller newspapers this year, it has adopted a digital-first strategy, opening new local news websites and growing its digital subscriptions base to 613,300 from 493,200 in 2019.
As a result, some anti-Murdoch commentators are not convinced that attacks from two political grandees will even dent the overwhelming financial interests of the Murdoch empire in Australia, let alone anywhere else.
“In the same way the Leveson inquiry publicly discomfited and briefly broke News Corp’s momentum, the senate inquiry will have some passing impact but nothing enduring or substantial,” said the acclaimed Australian journalist and writer, Dr Chris Wallace, author of How to Win an Election.
Wallace believes that Rudd and Turnbull are attempting to exact an expensive revenge for “the Murdoch media’s blatant politicking”. “They have nothing to lose now they’re out of active politics, so it’s square-up time. The petition is their tool to give the Murdochs a taste of their own medicine. There’s personal motivation in it, of course, but anyone who has ever been bullied by a Murdoch media outlet – and that’s a lot of people – is enjoying it tremendously.”
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