Rudd: ‘As Prime Minister, I was still fearful of the Murdoch media beast’, media diversity inquiry begins

Former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has told senators he only ceased being fearful of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp once he left office.

“Australians decided to put their names, in extraordinary numbers, to this petition, because they know that something is crook. They actually know something is rotten and bad here,” he told the senate environment and communications references committee on the first day of an inquiry into media diversity, established after a petition Rudd set up against News Corp gained 500,000 signatures.

Rudd giving evidence to the committee