News Corp co-chairman says Rupert Murdoch ‘definitely never said’ that adding, his ‘mind doesn’t work like that’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Lachlan Murdoch has categorically denied his father ever said that Malcolm Turnbull had to be removed from office, a story which the former prime minister has claimed is true.

In September last year it was reported by the Australian Financial Review and the ABC that Rupert Murdoch told Seven West proprietor Kerry Stokes: “Malcolm has got to go.”

The former prime minister confirmed the story on ABC’s Q&A program, arguing that News Corp played a role in his political demise.

But four months later the News Corp co-chairman has spoken out to deny the incendiary charge.

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In an upcoming edition of the Monthly magazine, journalist Pamela Williams quotes Lachlan directly contradicting the version of events which Turnbull says took place at News Corp’s Surry Hills headquarters on 16 August at a meeting between Rupert, Lachlan and Stokes.

“I was the only other person in the meeting and KRM [Rupert] definitely never said ‘Malcolm’s got to go’ or mused on how business would be better under a Labor government,” he told the Schwarz Media publication.

“His mind doesn’t work like that and I have never heard him say anything like it.”

The former prime minister, who was removed a week after the meeting between media moguls took place, was warned in a phone call from Stokes that the executive chairman of News Corp was intent on removing him from power, Guardian Australia reported in September.

According to sources close to Turnbull, the former prime minister said Stokes relayed in a conversation in mid August that he had been in contact with Murdoch and had discussed a News Corp push for a leadership change.

Stokes is said to have replied that the likely result of such a campaign would be to deliver government to Labor and Bill Shorten.

Murdoch, according to both reports, brushed aside Stokes’s concerns, saying Labor would only be in office for three years.

“They’ll only be in for three years – it won’t be so bad,” the AFR reported Murdoch as saying. “I did alright under Labor and the Painters and Dockers; I can make money under Shorten and the CFMEU.”



