Anthony Albanese Defeats Rupert Murdoch to Become 31st Prime Minister of Australia.

Australia has woken up to a new government today as Labor’s Anthony Albanese gained enough seats to form a minority government and stop Murdoch’s Liberal/National Party coalition’s attempt at governing for a fourth consecutive term.

Anthony Albanese, who was Deputy Prime Minister under Kevin Rudd in the last Labor Government of 2013, campaigned on a platform of increased wages for low-income earners, better recognition of Indigenous Australians, action on climate change, and the establishment of a body to investigate corruption in federal politics.

Murdoch, the owner of Newscorp in Australia and Fox News in the United States, campaigned on a platform of transphobia, war-mongering with China, building more coal-fired power stations, and the benefits of paying job-keeper to Newsorp’s largest national advertiser, Harvey-Norman, thus helping to drive the national debt to over $3 Trillion.

It is clear that the Australian voting public has rejected Murdoch’s “Americanisation” of Australian politics, by shifting seismically to the left and electing a record number of Greens Party candidates and Independents in both the Lower House and the Senate, gifting the cross benches the balance of power in a hung parliament. As a result, the Australian federal parliament has never looked so diverse, which has put major pressure on the two-party preferred system and has ultimately denied Murdoch’s attempt to repeat a “Trump-like” rise of far-right western Christian ideology in Australia.

In victory, Albanese will face a true test of leadership as Murdoch will now focus his attack dogs from Sky News (the Aussie version of Fox News) and his print monopoly (Murdoch owns the major print/online masthead in every major city in Australia) on his every move.

Murdoch’s Liberal/National Coalition former “proxy” Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, was last seen early Sunday morning on stage at his Pentecostal church, in tears.

More to come.

DC