I’ve never spoken to Murdoch about NBN: Abbott
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he’s never discussed Labor’s national broadband network (NBN) project with media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd this week challenged Mr Abbott to say what dealings he’d had with the US-based News Corp chief, who has large print, broadcast and other media assets in Australia.
“I do from time to time talk to Rupert Murdoch,” Abbott told reporters in the federal seat of Bass in Tasmania on Thursday.
“Have I ever spoken to Rupert Murdoch about the NBN? No I haven’t, no I haven’t.”
Labor claims Murdoch’s media are hostile to the $37.4 billion high speed network because it could pose a commercial threat to News Corp’s half-owned pay TV business Foxtel.
You might like
The argument is consumers could opt use fast NBN speeds to download their own visual entertainment at home rather than pay for a Foxtel subscription.
Rudd said Murdoch had a “democratic right” to rail against Labor’s policies through his publications but wondered what was behind it.
“I would like to hear some answers as to what discussions Mr Abbott may have had with Mr Murdoch on the future of Australia’s national broadband network,” he told ABC’s 7:30 program on Wednesday.
Abbott said Rudd was being thin skinned.
Stay informed, daily
“Senior politicians have to accept that sometimes media outlets will back them and sometimes they won’t,” he said.
Abbott pointed to Rudd’s meetings with Murdoch in New York in 2007 and 2010.
“The News group backed Mr Rudd in 2007 – he was very happy to accept their support then,” he added.
“I just think the problem is we’ve got a prime minister with a glass jaw and a thin skin.”
A number of News Corp mastheads have been critical of Labor’s NBN and Murdoch himself has questioned how the government could afford it.
Rudd noted the opposition’s NBN policy was launched by Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull at Fox Studios in Sydney.
Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop said Rudd was in a “dark world of conspiracies”.
New Corp’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper printed an editorial under the headline: “Kick this mob out” on day one of the federal election campaign.
A Telegraph story on Thursday about Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese having a beer with former Labor MP Craig Thomson included a mock-up of the Labor figures as Nazi characters from Hogan’s Heroes.
Albanese was depicted as the bumbling Schultz, Mr Rudd as Colonel Klink and Thomson as POW Colonel Hogan.
