John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been informed that entrepreneur Dick Smith is with us today in this building. I congratulate him for being, in his own words, 'game to stand up to the Murdoch press and others in big business and actually admit that perpetual growth in the use of resources and energy is not sustainable in a finite world and we must start planning now before the limits are reached'.

Dick Smith has correctly branded News Limited's campaign against proposed media reforms as hypocritical. He said News Limited's claim that proposed media regulations would curtail freedom of speech was claptrap because News Limited regularly censored any criticism of itself. Dick Smith said that it is in News Limited's commercial interests to censor the idea that people are responsible for global warming.

As we have seen so graphically in Britain, News Corporation has one standard for itself and another for everyone else. Its hypocrisy is breathtaking. I urge members to read Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain, written by the great Tom Watson and Martin Hickman, to see how News Corporation's criminal activities have corrupted democracy in Britain.

In Australia, we have seen some of those same double standards and hypocrisy in the attempt to censor Dick Smith. News Limited feels free to criticise everyone but refuses to accept criticism of itself. Why isn't Rupert Murdoch intervening to address Dick Smith's grave concerns for our democracy? We all know why and that is why we need a public interest test and a fit and proper— (Time expired)