By Kishor Napier-Raman and Liam Mannix
We’ve been keeping a close eye on the David versus Goliath legal battle between independent news site Crikey and billionaire News Corp co-chair Lachlan Murdoch, who sued the publication over an article – in which he isn’t even named – by political editor Bernard Keane on the January 6 hearings.
Crikey has started up a subscription drive, targeted ad campaign and a fundraiser for its legal bills – which could blow out if Murdoch wins in court and gets aggravated damages awarded. At the time of writing, the GoFundMe campaign had raised $285,065 since its Friday launch, with some pretty big names stumping up.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd, a very vocal opponent of News Corp, and chair of Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission, has dropped $5000, while ex-New England MP and key supporter of Labor’s minority government Tony Windsor coughed up $1000.
But Rudd wasn’t to be outdone – on Sunday, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who’s been similarly prominent in both his criticism of News Corp and Murdoch Jr’s lawsuit, matched that $5000 donation.
“Lachlan Murdoch owns boats that are worth more than Crikey,” Turnbull said in a comment he added to his donation.
“Fox’s contribution to the events and context of the January 6 attempted coup are matters of the highest possible public interest and not just to Americans. Those events shook the world and it has to be said that Australians today are far more sanguine about the endurance of American democracy than many, if not most, Americans,” he said.
But the pair aren’t the biggest donors. That would be one Ben Appleton, who gave $10,000. There’s another anonymous donation worth $10,000, and we’re desperately curious about who it might be from.
Get Shaq’d
Images of retired NBA star turned rapper, entrepreneur and meme lord Shaquille “Shaq” O’Neal meeting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney to give support to the Voice to Parliament will probably live on in the annals of Auspol weirdness for years to come.
“Theatre of the absurd,” was the takeaway from Ten’s political editor Peter Van Onselen on ABC’s Insiders yesterday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney were unexpectedly joined by former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
And yet, it was perhaps not even the most absurd moment of Shaq’s Australian tour. That honour falls to a radio interview on Kiis FM with Kyle Sandilands and Jackie-O, where the four-time NBA champion espoused his “theory” that the earth is flat.
“I’ve been living in a house on a lake for thirty years, not once did the lake rotate to the left or rotate to the right,” O’Neal said.
Further evidence included the fact that Shaq’s flight to Australia flew straight and didn’t tip over.
“You don’t have to pick sides, you just have to be open to suggestions of different things,” Sandilands said.
Other engagements included a stop-off at Macquarie Bank’s Sydney HQ for a trip around the trading floor and brief address. The event was facilitated by La Trobe financial chief executive Greg O’Neill, who also chairs the Australian Basketball Players’ Association.
There was also an exclusive 100-person chat at Melbourne co-working space Creative Cubes, and a similarly exclusive address put together by star accountant Brett Kelly, both reported by CBD this month.
Regular punters, meanwhile, paid up to $650 for an audience with the big man. Those turned away at the door – and there were a few – could always settle for a $29.95 pay-per-view special on Kayo Sports.
High voltage
News Corp journalists haven’t been too fond of the electric car over the past few years. “First they came for coal-fired power, now the net-zeroists are coming for the family car,” declared Peta Credlin, channelling German pastor Martin Niemöller on Sky News last year. “Who’s got the guts to stand up to all of that?” Alan Jones, that’s who. “This is another hoax, another hoax,” he told her.
Vikki Campion, partner of ex-deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, this week used her column in the Daily Tele to describe the federal government’s new electric vehicle subsidy as a “socialist tax on large families”.
Interesting, then, to cast one’s eye over the new board members at the Electric Vehicle Council. Who could that be sitting next to Sam McLean from Tesla? My, it’s John Lehmann, managing director of The Australian and the Daily Telegraph. The council’s mission: “we aim to accelerate the electrification of road transport.” We’ll see if that includes “accelerating” News Corp’s EV coverage.
“Alternative fuel vehicles are the future of the family car and our association will help ensure our audiences are fully informed about this once-in-a century transformation in motoring so they can make an affordable transition at the time of their choosing,” Lehmann said in an emailed statement.
“Our news and opinion coverage will continue to reflect the healthy debate about motoring’s future.”
Ayres’ Payneful date
Yesterday’s reopening of the Sydney Football Stadium should’ve been a victory lap for former Sports Minister and NSW Liberal Deputy Leader Stuart Ayres. Then came the John Barilaro scandal, which saw Ayres quit the ministry just weeks out from the grand unveiling.
Not to be deterred, Ayres was spotted skulking into the event with his partner, Liberal Senator and former Foreign Minister Marise Payne. Perhaps they’re big Guy Sebastian fans.
Respectful scientific debate
One of Australia’s most controversial pandemic experts has had quite the month. First, the ANU’s Professor Peter Collignon told The Australian the “worst is over” for the pandemic, and the virus was likely to cause only low-grade illness from now on. That drew a stern rebuke from NSW Scientist of the Year Eddie Holmes – Australia’s leading expert in virus evolution – who told us there was “no real scientific basis to say the worst is over,” Holmes said. “Every prediction I have made about the evolution of this virus has been wrong.”
Collignon wasn’t done drawing Holmes’s ire. He took to Twitter, which has, against all good advice, become the scientific discussion board of choice, this month to let his followers know that he personally remained unconvinced COVID-19 really had come from an animal at the Huanan market. “The Wuhan market in Dec was a super-spreading event, but I don’t see how that completely rules out the lab leak possibility,” he wrote. “We still just don’t know.”
CBD is sure that will be news to Holmes, who just published a very long paper in Science showing the market was just about the least likely super-spreader site in all Wuhan. “It’s like going to Coles in Bendigo on a wet Wednesday afternoon,” he told The Age.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.