Proud to have an Australian attitude to life

HOW fitting that Rupert Murdoch should launch the world’s biggest-ever media takeover bid in the same week that his flagship national daily, The Australian, celebrates its 50th anniversary.

What a testament to the extraordinary energy, drive and incomparable resilience of a man and a company which have been written off by wishful detractors with an incessant finality over the past 60 years or so. Naturally, The Daily Telegraph, which celebrated its 135th birthday on July 1 with its usual selfless modesty, wishes it younger sister publication all the best for the next half-century, despite the usual claque of Fairfax doomsayers and the negative force of the taxpayer-funded ABC commentariat, praying to Gaia for the opposite. Over the past two months The Australian presented its readers with a précis of its coverage year-to-year and last weekend published a handsome collector’s edition of stories and pictures from its files. The accounts of the first 25 years were written by Mark Day, a former editor of the newspaper, and the last 25 years were explored by Alan Howe, former editor of the Sunday Herald Sun. They should be made available to every student of modern Australian history as they provide snapshots of the events which shaped the nation since July 15, 1964. The greatest test that can be applied to any newspaper is whether it actually lives up to its proprietor’s promise. Reiterating the philosophy which has guided all his media interests since he boldly took hands-on control of The Adelaide News after the death of his father, Sir Keith Murdoch, in 1952, Rupert Murdoch told guests at the celebratory dinner for The Australian on Tuesday: “These are powerful canvases, able to engage, to entertain, to educate, to provoke, to occasionally irritate, and to enlighten.” Certainly, The Australian and The Daily Telegraph strive to meet those challenges on a daily basis — and reliably succeed. What was particularly striking when rereading the essays reprinted from The Australian this week was the freshness of the writing and the currency of the argument for vigorous debate. Contrary to the views of the moribund “progressives”, The Australian has never been the mouthpiece of the hard-Right. Its support for Gough Whitlam at the 1972 election should long have dispelled that falsehood but the Left relies on such fables as touchstones of faith with its impressionable and ideologically-blinded followers. That the newspaper came to the realisation that the Whitlam government was hopeless — though not as dysfunctional as Kevin Rudd’s government proved to be — was in line with the thinking of the majority of Australian voters in the next two federal elections. Writing in the May 5, 1975, edition, senior News Limited executive Douglas Brass, noted: “Sooner or later, in a messy government like this, it seeps through the national consciousness that a bad government is in power. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, even in an apathocracy. The groundswell of mistrust begins to rise.” Brass’ use of the word apathocracy to describe the political lethargy which infected voters 39 years ago would aptly describe the state of mind in which the most recent members of the senate were elected. Who in their right mind would have elected the PUP senators or their Motoring Enthusiast colleague — not that these senators were elected with anything resembling popular acclaim. In 2007 The Australian supported Labor and Rudd, a decision which also undermines its left-wing critics and those who claim the newspaper is just a mouthpiece for its proprietor. Murdoch thought John Howard’s government should have been given another term but his view did not persuade editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell to swing behind the conservatives. Readers may not agree with the editorial views of The Australian, or The Daily Telegraph, but the newspapers always attempt to give both sides of every argument and have not been afraid to voice their own opinions. In the same spirit of true independence, Fox News, has flourished in the US since it was launched more than 20 years ago. Its extraordinary success, the culmination of one of Murdoch’s visionary projects, has helped provide the war chest needed to launch the bid for Time Warner. The initial bid was rejected but Rupert Murdoch will be back. Murdoch is restless, relentless and resilient. Late one night, 26 years ago, when I was editing The Adelaide Advertiser, I accompanied my boss on a memorable walk through the old Advertiser building and down to its laneway exit. There, in the dim light of the stairwell, he told me how he had as a young man in his 20s approached the chairman of Advertiser Newspapers, Sir Lloyd Dumas, with a takeover proposal. Dumas knocked back that proposal without even taking it to the board, Murdoch told me. Murdoch was there, waiting in the laneway with a portmanteau stuffed with cash to show he could raise the deposit, before the next board meeting. Dumas would not entertain the thought of the bid from the boyish rival proprietor. After several takeover attempts were rejected, he bought the company in 1987. A few years later, when I was at Melbourne’s Herald & Weekly Times, he was reminiscing about his father, whose former office I occupied. He told me how he used to come as a schoolboy and sit with his father’s secretary and get help with his homework as he waited for a lift home. Now, 83 years young, Rupert Murdoch is again knocking at the door of a giant competitor. History is again being made. DAMNED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT GAZA ARAB groups want to oust Vic Alhadeff, chairman of the NSW Community Relations Commission, for telling the truth. They claim Alhadeff, also chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, should be removed because he sent an email to the Jewish community last week accusing Palestinians of war crimes against Israel during fighting around Gaza. The NSW government rejected the calls. Communities minister Victor Dominello said “we must not overlook Mr Alhadeff’s substantial achievements in promoting inter-faith understanding across our multicultural communities.” The Arab Council Australia said it was disappointed by the decision, saying Alhadeff’s comments last week “cannot be undone” and the government “gives us no choice but to walk away from the very institution that is supposed to prevent these rifts”. The Arab Council and its supporters on the extreme Left need a reality check. It is the terrorist organisation Hamas which has targeted civilians in the current conflict. It was Hamas which refused to recognise the ceasefire organised by Egypt and continued to rain its showers of rockets on Israel after the Israelis called a halt to their response. It has been Hamas and its partner Fatah which have instructed Palestinians to act as human shields and ignore Israeli warnings of imminent attacks. It has been Hamas and Fatah which have broken the agreements made between the Palestinian Authority and Israel when the Israelis left Gaza in 2005. If the Arab Council and its fellow travellers were interested in harmony in Gaza, they would demand that the terrorists leave the region and let the civilians honour the agreement that was made with Israel and construct pathways to peace. But for all their talk, they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that the Israelis were legally entitled to defend themselves from the rockets being fired from Gaza. Those trying to deny the truth should be ashamed of their tacit support for terrorism.