Election 2022: Labor kills off Kevin Rudd’s anti-News Corp crusade

Anthony Albanese has doubled down on his opposition to establishing an inquiry into News Corp or other media companies if Labor wins the election.

Former PM Kevin Rudd. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Anthony Albanese has doubled down on his opposition to establishing an inquiry into News Corp or other media companies if Labor wins the election, delivering a killer blow to Kevin Rudd’s campaign for a media royal commission.

In an exclusive interview with The Australian, the Labor leader said he did not see “a case” for Mr Rudd’s proposal and there was no plan to revisit it or consider any other media regulation should he form a government on May 21.

“I have ruled out a royal commission into News Corporation,” he said. “At this point, I can’t see a case for any other regulation or inquiries. Clearly media policy won’t stay the same forever and we would deal with that on a case-by-case basis. At this stage, I don’t envisage anything being on the immediate horizon.”

Michelle Rowland, Labor’s communications spokeswoman, said “a free press” was a cornerstone of democracy and Labor did not support further media inquiries or a new statutory body to regulate print media. “An inquiry into a particular media company or the established fact of media concentration isn’t the way forward for media policy,” Ms Rowland told The Australian.

“When it comes to fostering media diversity, it’s time to ­implement a program of work that is principles-based, evidence-­informed, expert-led and consultative – one which delivers. A free press is the price we pay for democracy and I’m happy to pay it. I have long called out the fact that Australia has one of the most concentrated media markets in the world and understand the need to foster media diversity, for the sake of our democracy, ­society and economy. The problem isn’t a lack of ­inquiry or ideas, the problem is the lack of best practice implementation of a backlog of recommendations that already exist.”

Ms Rowland said the many ­reviews, inquiries and reports into media law and regulation in ­recent years, such as the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s Digital Platforms Inquiry, had not been properly acted upon to support public-­interest journalism.

“Labor voiced principled ­opposition to the government’s moves to make media concentration worse, with the repeal of the two-out-of-three cross-media control rule, for example, but we have also supported moves to foster the health of the media sector, such as the ACCC’s news media bargaining code, which has seen much-needed funds flow from Google and Facebook to a range of media outlets,” she said.

Mr Rudd established a lobby group, Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission, to campaign for “a royal commission into media diversity”. The governing committee is chaired by Mr Rudd and Luke Hilakari from the Victorian Trades Hall Council.

The group, which has Nine Entertainment’s The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald and online media giants Google and Facebook in its sights, has urged parliament to initiate a royal commission into media diversity.

Labor is eager to avoid a repeat of the Gillard government’s heavy-handed media regulation proposals, initiated by Stephen Conroy and introduced by Mr ­Albanese in the House of Representatives in 2013, which were widely criticised for undermining democracy and freedom of speech. Four of the five bills were later withdrawn.

“There is widespread support for a harmonised media regulatory framework but this doesn’t mean a single statutory body for news standards is warranted; Labor has no plans to regulate print media in this way,” Ms ­Rowland said.