Australia's government accused a tabloid paper in Rupert Murdoch's media empire on Monday of campaigning for “regime change”, as lawmakers weigh up a possible review of media laws in the wake of the worsening UK phone hacking scandal.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, who for months has bristled at the minority government's treatment by Murdoch papers, accused the company's Daily Telegraph tabloid of bias and trying to bring down ruling Labor, which relies on backing from Green and independent lawmakers to stay in power.
“It's decided it wants to have an election. Ignore the fact that we had an election nine or 10 months ago. Ignore the fact the Australian people put in place a parliament with a minority government,” an exasperated Conroy told Australian radio.
“It has demanded that it knows best and that people should just fall into line with what the Daily Telegraph (says). It is just running a campaign on regime change,” he said.
Conroy's comments follow similar accusations by Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan last week, as the Australian-born Murdoch flew to London to tackle the political storm over phone hacking at the News of the World paper.
The influential Greens, who control the balance of power in Australia's upper house since dead-heat elections last August, have for months accused News Corp's Australian arm, News Ltd, of having a radical anti-government agenda.
Greens Leader Bob Brown, who has labelled journalists working for New Ltd's national broadsheet, The Australian, as “hate media”, called last week for a parliamentary inquiry into media laws in the wake of events in Britain, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard agreeing to discuss a review.
One of the independents who gives the government a one-seat lower house buffer, Rob Oakeshott, also accused News Ltd of running a “malicious” campaign against him, prompted by his support for Gillard and key policies, including a controversial planned tax on carbon emissions now worrying voters.
“I think it really raises the broader question of media in Australia generally, whether the market is big enough to have a couple of players dominating the marketplace,” Oakeshott told state broadcaster the ABC earlier this month.
News Ltd controls 70 percent of Australia's newspaper readership market. Lawmakers will decide whether to support a review of media laws when parliament resumes in August, after the current winter break
News Ltd chief John Hartigan denied last week that there was any widespread campaign against Labor, defending the company's newspaper coverage as aggressive but fair.
“We're the only organisation that really takes it up to the government, and also when they're at record low levels of public support, I think that endears that sense that, 'Hey, there's one organisation out to get us,' rather than the performance of the party,” he told Australian television.
News Corp's Australian shares tumbled more than 7 percent to a two-year low on Monday, as the phone hacking scandal fallout worsened, before ending down 4.1 percent.
The group's woes, which have received front page coverage in Australia, coincide with a decision by Gillard's government to re-open a bitterly-fought tender involving Murdoch's part-owned Sky News for the country's taxpayer-funded overseas TV service.
An independent panel set up to decide the A$223 million Australia Network tender unanimously backed Sky over the incumbent ABC, a source with direct knowledge of the decision told Reuters, but The Age said the panel was later overruled by the government which imposed a new “national interest” hurdle.
Conroy declined to comment on the confidential tender process, but said News Ltd's anti-Labor agenda had been obvious to senior ministers since executives attended a recent meeting at Murdoch's US property at Carmel in California.
“This is a democracy. It is entitled to choose to go down the path it's going, and equally people like myself and (Treasurer) Wayne Swan are entitled to point out their coverage is biased,” Conroy said. - Reuters