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Part Three: Bypassing the Murdoch Machine. How Labor Can Win the Narrative War

The Murdoch press and the Advance network didn’t just shape the last election; they rigged the rules. But from the rise of independent media to the power of grassroots digital campaigns, Labor has tools to fight back. Here’s how Albanese can outflank Sussan Ley’s opposition and reclaim the story of Australia’s future—if Labor can stop collaborating with its own executioners.

1. The Murdoch Problem: A Media Empire Built to Destroy Labor

Rupert Murdoch’s Australian outlets don’t just report the news; they weaponise it. Under Sussan Ley’s leadership, the Opposition has doubled down on culture wars, using The Daily Telegraph, The Australian, and Sky News to frame Labor as divisive, weak, and out of touch. The pattern is relentless:

• Amplify Ley’s attacks (e.g., “Albanese’s failure on Bondi,” “Labor’s cost-of-living betrayal”).
• Downplay Coalition chaos (e.g., Ley’s own internal divisions, the Coalition’s climate policy vacuum).
• Turn Labor’s compromises into “betrayals” (e.g., Safeguard Mechanism, housing inaction).

Murdoch doesn’t report Labor’s policies. He distorts them. He doesn’t critique Albanese. He caricatures him. He doesn’t cover Labor’s wins. He buries them.

Since Ley became Opposition Leader, 65% of Murdoch’s front-page Labor stories have been negative, often echoing Advance Australia’s talking points according to The Guardian media analysis, 2025. We need to note, however, that NewsCorp is fast becoming a paper tiger. Margaret Simons reminds us that the clout that The Australian and other mastheads once wielded, all but wore out about fifteen years ago.

It’s all part of the waning influence of mainstream media. Voters are far more likely to be wooed by online video than any Murdoch hack attack. You Tube is Australia’s second-most visited website after Google. It’s where the leaders’ debate took place and it’s a place which allows longer, more bonding video.

More Australians now access their news via social media than traditional news outlets. Young Australians are increasingly drawn to video news on TikTok and Instagram, according to the Reuters Institute 2025 Digital News Report. And repelled by Sky After Dark.

Call it the ‘too weird for words’ factor of outlets which include Seven and Sky After Dark. Simons writes: “Commentators on all sides of politics are suggesting, in the wake of the election rout, that too much listening to and engagement with Sky News after dark, and the Sharri Marksons and Peta Credlins of the world, is a reason why the Liberal party is so manifestly out of touch with middle Australia.”

Whilst there may be truth in this, it overlooks the flood of other, often automated, social media posting which is currently pumping such disinformation as the virtue of our clean, baseload coal, how One Nation makes sense; why we need lower migration and the lie that Labor is responsible for the Bondi Massacre.

2. The Ley-Advance Axis: How the Right Out-Campaigns Labor

Sussan Ley’s Opposition isn’t just opposing Labor; it’s outsourcing its attacks. Advance Australia, bankrolled by mining magnates and climate deniers, acts as the Coalition’s shadow campaign arm, using:

• Micro-targeted Facebook/Google ads (e.g., “Albo’s Weak on Security,” “Labor’s Housing Failure”).
• Astroturf protests (e.g., anti-trans rallies, “anti-woke” parent groups).
• Rapid-response memes turning Ley’s talking points into viral content.
• Media-savvy minders have her under control, just as Tony Abbott had Peter Credlin and Mark Textor get him to stick to the Stop The Boats and the Axe the Tax slogans.

Ley doesn’t just attack; her mangers get ther to arm the trolls, turn policy debates into online battlegrounds. She doesn’t merely jeer at Albanese’s “weakeness”; she fuels outrage cycles that dominate headlines and social feeds. And in a leaf straight out of the Trump playbook, rather than straightforward opposition, her approach weaponises controversy for maximum impact.

How Labor can fight back:

• Expose the Ley-Advance pipeline. Track how Advance’s ads and posts mirror Ley’s press releases, or issue instructions about Net Zero, the time Advance, via Whitestone Strategic, told Liberal MPs to “drop it or we’ll drop you” as detailed in The Guardian Australia.
• Prebuttal ads. When Ley attacks Labor on housing, flood social media with real stories of renters hurt by Coalition inaction. Or use Ley’s disinformation. Sussan Ley’s infamous July 2025 parliamentary claim was that Labor had built “just 17 homes” under its 1.2 million homes target, a falsehood AAP FactCheck shredded, showing federal funding had already supported over 2,400 homes (and 230+ in the key program she misquoted).
• Turn Ley’s weakness against her. Highlight her failure to unite the Coalition or appeal to all its backers, (e.g., loyalists vs. moderates) the naked ambition of Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor, Barnaby Joyce’s defection to One Nation and her lack of a positive agenda.

2.5 The Inconvenient Truth: Labor’s Own Murdoch Problem

But let’s not pretend Labor comes to this fight with clean hands. Critics on the progressive left; and they’re not wrong, point out that Albanese’s team doesn’t just avoid confronting Murdoch. It courts him.

Labor complains about News Corp bias. Then sends ministers to The Australian’s doorstep. It rails against mining donors. Then approves new coal projects. It promises climate action. Then genuflects to gas lobby ‘transition’ fantasies.

The evidence is damning:

• Albanese’s office regularly briefs Murdoch editors before major announcements; The Australian gets advance coverage of budget measures while progressive outlets scramble for scraps.
• Labor accepts donations from the same corporate sources funding Advance: mining giants, property developers, gambling interests.
• The Safeguard Mechanism? Designed with fossil fuel input, riddled with loopholes wide enough to drive a coal train through.
• Housing policy? Watered down to protect negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions; the investor tax breaks choking supply.

As Michael West Media relentlessly documents, Labor operates within the same neoliberal consensus that birthed the Murdoch-Coalition-corporate triumvirate. Labor doesn’t want to dismantle the machine. It wants a seat at the controls.

The Progressive Dilemma: Helping Labor Win or Demanding Labor Deserves to Win?

Here’s the harder question this series must answer: Are we helping Labor win elections, or pushing Labor to deserve to win them? Because if Albanese won’t break with Murdoch, won’t refuse corporate donations, won’t stake Labor’s future on genuinely transformative policy; then everything in Parts 1-3 in my series amounts to instructions for polishing a turd.

Labor can’t bypass the Murdoch machine while simultaneously feeding it. You can’t outflank Advance Australia while taking money from the same mining executives bankrolling their attack ads. You can’t mobilise progressive voters with bold digital campaigns while your actual policies represent timid managerialism designed not to spook the AFR editorial board.

The Pathway Labor Won’t Take (But Must)

If Labor genuinely wanted to win the narrative war, it would:

1. Publicly break with Murdoch. No more background briefings. No more treating The Australian as a legitimate stakeholder in policy formation. When News Corp attacks, call them out by name; not in private caucus meetings, but from the dispatch box.
2. Ban corporate donations. If GetUp can run on small-dollar donors, so can Labor. If the Greens can reject mining money, Labor has no excuse. Full transparency. No more “associated entities” laundering developer cash.
3. Stake everything on transformational policy. Not “modest targets” on climate. Not “aspirational goals” on housing. Actual redistribution. Actual public investment. Actual courage.

Without these steps, Labor’s not fighting the Murdoch-Ley machine. It’s negotiating its surrender terms. And progressive voters; especially young renters, climate-anxious parents, casualised workers, can smell the capitulation. It’s a demographic that Labor needs to attract from independents and The Greens.

By 2025, Millennials and Gen Z together, outnumber Boomers in the electorate, and they are measurably more progressive, less partisan and more willing to park their vote with Greens or independents than any previous cohort. The seats that swung hardest in 2022 were those packed with young renters facing a housing crisis and rising climate anxiety; and they went not to Labor, but to Greens and Teals. If Labor keeps offering managerial half‑measures to a generation living through permanent crisis, it is not just mis‑reading the media landscape; it is mis‑reading the country.​

Labor wants progressive votes. But offers corporate policies. It wants movement energy. But delivers managed decline. It wants to beat the right. But won’t break from the right’s rules.

Can This Series Still Offer a Roadmap?

Yes, but only if we’re clear-eyed about what we’re demanding. The strategies in Sections 3-5 below aren’t just tactical suggestions. They’re preconditions for Labor’s survival as a progressive force. Independent media, digital campaigning, grassroots mobilisation; none of it matters if Labor’s own leadership is undermining the fight from within.

So consider the rest of this piece not as cheerleading, but as a challenge. Labor has the tools to bypass Murdoch and beat Ley. The question is whether it has the courage to use them.

3. The Independent Media Revolution: Labor’s Secret Weapon (If It Actually Uses It)

Labor isn’t powerless. The rise of independent media, The Guardian Australia, Crikey, Michael West Media, The AIMN, Indepdentent Australia and Substack, offers a path around Murdoch’s blockade. These outlets:

• Hold Ley accountable (e.g., Crikey’s coverage of her travel rorts, Michael West’s probes into Coalition donors).
• Amplify Labor’s message when the mainstream won’t—but only when Labor has a message worth amplifying.
• Reach progressive audiences who share, donate, and organise.

Independent media doesn’t just report. It resists. It doesn’t just inform. It inspires. It doesn’t just cover the news. It changes the game.

How Albanese can leverage this (but probably won’t):

• Prioritise indie interviews. Bypass The Australian and go to The Guardian or The AIMN. Make News Corp irrelevant by denying them access.
• Encourage Labor MPs to write for progressive platforms. Op-eds in Medium, Substack, or The Saturday Paper reach audiences Ley can’t touch, and build genuine intellectual credibility.
• Fund grassroots media. Redirect party resources from expensive TV ads to progressive podcasts, newsletters, and local blogs—the modern “true believer” networks that actually move votes.

But here’s the rub: Labor treats independent media like a consolation prize. Ministers give exclusive interviews to The Australian, then throw scraps to Crikey. The party machine still thinks Sky News matters more than a viral Guardian opinion piece.

Until that changes, independent media remains potential, not power.

4. Digital Campaigning: How Labor Can Outmanoeuvre Ley (If It Actually Tries)

Ley’s Coalition dominates traditional media, but Labor can win digital. The Greens and Teals proved this in 2025 with microtargeted ads, volunteer-driven content, and viral moments. Labor’s digital game, meanwhile, remains underfunded, risk-averse, and desperately daggy.

Ley fights with Sky News. Labor fights with press releases. Ley fights with outrage. Labor fights with process. Ley fights to win. Labor fights not to lose.

How to fix it:

• Hire digital natives. Poach campaigners from the Greens, GetUp!, or even the union movement’s better organisers; people who know how to meme, microtarget, and mobilise without permission from head office.
• Go viral (deliberately). Albanese’s “I’m not a superstar” moment was authentic and worked. More of that. Less stage-managed teal backdrops with focus-grouped slogans.
• Mobilise the base. Use peer-to-peer texting to drown out Advance’s noise with genuine grassroots volume.

But digital campaigns only work if you’re offering something people want to share. Low target, “Modest reform agenda” doesn’t trend. “We’re capping rent increases and taxing gas profits to fund it” does.

5. The 2025 Playbook: Three Steps to Win the Narrative War

1. Name the enemy. Call out Murdoch, Advance, and Ley’s Coalition as obstacles to progress. But also name Labor’s own failures. Authenticity requires honesty about where the party has sold out.
2. Flood the zone. Use indie media, digital ads, and grassroots networks to out-communicate the right. But Labor must give those networks something worth communicating, policy, not talking points.
3. Give people a reason to fight. Bold policies (public housing, climate emergency measures, political donation reform) + a clear villain (Ley’s “no” campaign, corporate greed) = a movement, not just a vote. Movements win elections. Consultants lose them. Apologies just don’t cut it.

Labor’s not just fighting Ley; it’s fighting the machine. Not just for power, but relevance. Not just to win, but to deserve it. Fighting for its life? You can bet on it, comrade.

In Part Four: “What If Labor Loses?” The stakes of 2025, and how a Ley-led Coalition would reshape Australia. But also: what if Labor wins on the right’s terms, and progressive Australia loses anyway?

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