The tweets of Murdoch's self-destruction

02 February 2015

Rupert Murdoch’s tweets about the Prince Philip knighthood were as bizarre as the knighthood itself. It’s clear that the Prime Minister will not comply with Murdoch’s wishes because they were expressed so publicly and in such a self-discrediting manner.

But if his directions had been issued behind closed doors, they might have been taken seriously and acted upon.

Who is really in power is always an interesting, important and often depressing question. The common good so often has little to do with the way the nation is governed. In many areas of public policy, vested interests rule.

Former top public servant turned blogger John Menadue is often critical of the influence the multinational drug companies and other interests on government health policy. He wrote during the week that the reason reform is so difficult is that health ministers are in office but not in power. ‘The AMA has a long and dubious history in opposing key health reforms going back to its opposition to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme In 1942’.

Vested interests have stymied most, if not all, areas of policy reform in recent years, especially taxation. That has to be the only explanation for why negative gearing and superannuation concessions for the wealthy have remained untouched during the so-called budget emergency.

Often the vested interests will manipulate public opinion with expensive public relations campaigns that turn the public will against the public good. That is the case with the mining companies and the super profits tax that was repealed by the Abbott Government.

De facto government by vested interests can be legal or illegal. Recently we have been witnessing the proceedings of the ICAC in NSW, and in the 80s in Queensland there was the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct. The Commission’s successful outcome led to the public interest and the workings of government being brought back into alignment, for a time.

The former Commissioner Tony Fitzgerald gave a rare and notable interview on Wednesday to the ABC’s Leigh Sales, in the lead up to Saturday’s state election. He said that as post corruption inquiry premier Wayne Goss set a new high standard for good governance, Campbell Newman has set a new low standard.

Wayne Goss himself was an outstanding personality, a great leader, a man of great integrity… And then Beattie came in, and I'd say that throughout that period, from Borbidge, Beattie and then Anna Bligh, although I

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The tweets of Murdoch's self-destruction

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