Extract from The Guardian
Turnbull says Joe Biden’s victory means the US will again take a leading role on climate change and Australia must get with the program
Last modified on Sun 8 Nov 2020 16.07 AEDT
Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull have a history: an uneasy collaboration on climate policy before the Liberal party grabbed that prospect out of Turnbull’s hands in 2009, then, years later, a significant falling out about Rudd’s desire to run the United Nations.
More recently there’s been a rapprochement between the two around the campaign for a royal commission that Rudd is spearheading to draw attention to the oversized influence of Rupert Murdoch in both global and local politics courtesy of the market dominance of his media properties – influence the former Labor prime minister characterises as a “cancer”.
The two former Australian prime ministers, both dispatched from the office by their respective political parties before they faced the voters a second time, fronted the ABC on Sunday morning to mark, as Turnbull put it, the defeat of “Murdoch’s man in the White House”.
Viewers were less than 30 seconds into the joint appearance before Rudd observed, referencing an unknown pundit in the United States, that it would be optimal if Donald Trump decided over the next little while to “put on his big boy pants … and act like a grown-up in this period of transition”.
Whether or not Americans enjoyed a smooth handover of power during the coming hours, days and weeks, Rudd said, was a function of whether Trump could be a grown-up and “the attitude of the Murdoch media and the Fox network in the future”.
The globe-trotting Murdoch, naturally, was entirely absent from Sunday’s trial in absentia on the national broadcaster, and his American media outlets are currently creeping away from a president now surplus to requirements. It’s possible Trump and Murdoch are working up a new reality television pilot, Billionaire Bust Up.
But courtesy of the constant invocation – the frequent summoning of the patron saint of poison by the ghosts of Australian prime ministers past – Murdoch was also resolutely present on Sunday morning in the land of his birth.
The mogul was introduced again during the discussion about climate change. Turnbull saw Joe Biden’s ambitious climate change policy as an opportunity for his successor, Scott Morrison, to pivot.
“I can speak with some authority on this,” Turnbull said.
“Morrison’s concern is that the combination of the right wing of the Liberal party and the National party, and the rightwing media, mostly owned by Murdoch, will go after him as they went after me, if he is seen to do anything that suggests he is taking climate change seriously or too seriously.
“So he is basically walking on eggshells. Now, Trump has lost. Murdoch’s man in the White House has been defeated and the Americans are going to be taking a leading position, globally, on climate action once again. Biden has flagged that this is going to be part of America’s international trade agenda, as well as the Europeans. Now, we have the opportunity in Australia to be a clean energy superpower.”
The departure of Murdoch’s man meant that Morrison would not have to persist with all the “political piffle” of a gas-led recovery, Turnbull said. “This is the time to pivot, otherwise, he’s going to look out on the extreme with Saudi Arabia, for heaven’s sake, as some kind of a carbon economy – really, we can do so much better than that, and now is the time for Scott to move.”
After some analysis about the incoming administration and China, the interview tracked back to media reform and Rudd’s call for the Murdoch royal commission.
“Malcolm and I disagree on a multitude of things,” Rudd noted, in case that fact wasn’t clear to viewers.
“But Murdoch’s treatment of Malcolm Turnbull in 2018, directly interfering into the internal politics of the Liberal party, to do what he could through his editors to bring about a leadership change to Morrison and/or Dutton at the time, is a disgrace, and it needs to be called out.”
That behaviour, Rudd said, was “symptomatic of a broader cancer on our democracy, and my principle motivation in putting this petition together has been to bring to the surface this national conversation – rather than people being too frightened to talk about it”.
Turnbull professed himself “not normally a fan of royal commissions” (too much programmatic specificity was implied rather than stated). “However, I do think that there is a profound problem with the way the Murdoch media in particular, and media more generally, is operating at the moment,” he said.
Turnbull’s media critique (which included a reprise of his contribution before the launch of Guardian Australia) was more broad-ranging: hyper-polarisation, the death of the curated commons, the capacity for people to live in “siloed echo chamber[s] that reinforce their prejudices; that appeals to the worst demons of their nature rather than the better angels”. If we wanted to see how bad things could get, Turnbull ventured, we need only look to America.
There was one last flourish. Turnbull suggested that David Speers, the host of Insiders but formerly the political editor at Sky News, may have some thoughts to share if the royal commission came to pass.
“Someone like yourself, David, you should have the opportunity to tell the truth about what it was like working in Sky News,” he said. “Because you were there in the belly of the beast. You couldn’t bear it any longer and you left.”
Speers, always rigorously diplomatic, remained so. “I will always tell the truth, Malcolm Turnbull, and that’s not as dark and dire as you characterise there.”
Then he added: “I am very happy to be here at the public broadcaster.” Speers smiled genially at Rudd and Turnbull who smiled back at him, beatifically, in split-screen.
“Years ago, I would have doubted there would be so much agreement between the two of you,” Speers noted, a modest return of serve. “But I appreciate you coming together.”
Rudd’s petition has attracted more than 500,000 signatures and is expected to be tabled in parliament this week.
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