This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The ALP national president, Wayne Swan, has unleashed on the Murdoch media, characterising the global news enterprise as “an additional political party hiding behind the pretence of objectivity and public interest”.

Swan’s comments follow the furore generated by a Daily Telegraph story about Bill Shorten’s mother, Ann, which moved the Labor leader to tears on the hustings on Wednesday.

“Labor and the wider labour movement see the misuse of power by the Murdoch media and other billionaires as an existential threat, not just to our living standards but to the quality and endurance of our democracy,” Swan said.

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“In too many other western democracies, rightwing authoritarians have risen and they’ve done so with the aid of billionaires.

“When billionaires control the public megaphone it can drown out the voice of the people. We have to show people in this campaign that people power can beat billionaire power.”

Swan said the Murdochs “have been for the last decade or so an additional political party hiding behind the pretence of objectivity and public interest”.

The Daily Telegraph report criticised Shorten for failing to mention on ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night that his mother went on to have an “illustrious” career as a barrister after retraining as a lawyer.

Scott Morrison defended Shorten after the story was published, saying he could understand why the story “would have upset him a great deal”. The Liberal leader argued the election should not be about the families of politicians.

On Thursday the deputy Labor leader, Tanya Plibersek, said Labor was not proposing a royal commission into the abuse of media power in Australia, which has been suggested by a former Labor prime minister, Kevin Rudd.

“But I think it is fair enough to call out the fact, that News Limited is doing their very best ... We are happy to call out what is a pretty obvious bias in the News Limited media, aimed at protecting their business interests,” Plibersek said.

“This is a company that between 2013 and 2017 paid no corporate tax in Australia. In 2015 the ATO said this is the number one company to watch, in terms of reducing or avoiding tax.

“More to the point, Rupert Murdoch gave up his Australian citizenship. He does not have a vote in this election. Millions of Australians do.”

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In an emotional press conference after the Daily Telegraph news report, Shorten explained how his mother, who died in 2014, had been forced to take a teacher’s scholarship because she did not have the money to go to university.

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She took a teacher’s scholarship so she could pursue higher learning despite being “very keen to do law”, Shorten said.

The Daily Telegraph report criticised Shorten for failing to mention on Q&A that his mother went on to have an “illustrious” career as a barrister after a midlife career change. Shorten, who has recounted his mother’s story several times in different interviews, said his mother “got about nine briefs in her time [as a barrister]. It was actually a bit dispiriting.”

The prominent News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt was implicitly critical of the Daily Telegraph’s news judgment. “I note that the Herald Sun, my employer, chose not to run this story. I support that decision,” he wrote.