World News – UA – Former Australian Prime Minister Rudd calls for investigation into Murdoch media domination

By Sonali Paul MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called for a major government inquiry into the narrow ownership of Australian media by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, getting more than 46,000 signatures on a petition after just two days Rudd, who served as Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010 and briefly in 2013, filed a petition calling on Parliament to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into what he called "the abuse of media monopoly in Australia, in particular by Murdoch media " "The truth is Murdoch has turned into a cancer, an arrogant cancer for our democracy," Rudd said in a video posted to Twitter on Saturday, urging people to sign the petition, which also called for recommendations to strengthen media diversity The petition, which is due to be submitted to the House of Representatives on Nov 5, had 46,246 signatures on Sunday afternoon, up from a few thousand on Saturday The Australian parliament is not required to respond to petitions, unlike Britain, where petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures are being considered for debate in parliament. petitions to the House of Representatives were rarely acted upon, according to the website of Parliament's Office of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and News Corp did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters Rudd, who became chief of the Australian Labor Party in 2006 and left parliament in 2013 after the party lost an election, previously accused Murdoch of leading a campaign to kill the Labor plan for the national broadband network in 2013 Rudd said Murdoch's newspapers had consistently campaigned in the last 18 federal and state elections for the Conservative Liberal National Party, currently led by Morrison, and against the Labor Party Newspapers owned by Murdoch's News Corp include The Australian, Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, and Courier Mail Overseas, it has publications such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Post in the United States, and The Sun and The Times in Britain Murdoch also controls Fox Corp "There is no longer a level playing field," said Rudd News Corp this year recorded a $ 931 million write-down on its stake in the Australian broadcasting company Foxtel, which has lost subscribers to streaming giants like Netflix Inc , at the same time as its Australian newspapers cede advertisers to Facebook and Google (Reporting by Sonali Paul ; Edited by Ana Nicolaci da Costa and William Mallard)

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