I don’t live in Victoria and I don’t vote in Victoria but from a distance it appears to me that the two main contestants in the upcoming state election are the current Premier representing the ALP, Dan Andrews and Newscorp although, in the latter case it is not clear if it is the dirty digger himself standing or the prodigal son who may be living on his yacht in Port Phillip Bay – but is he on the Victorian electoral roll ?

Truth is it’s neither and they don’t seem all that fussed about the Liberal Party but they both dearly want to destroy the ALP.

At the weekend Newscorp’s Herald Sun had an exclusive on the ‘steps’ that the unfortunate Premier slipped on in March 2021 – senior reporters (I can’t use the term journalists as that would imply that they were purveyors of news and this is certainly not news) had hastened to a holiday home on the Mornington Peninsula to photograph the steps and interview surrounding neighbours. Evidently they had been instructed to rekindle the conspiracy theories that something untoward had happened all those months ago. It was, their editor thought, worthy of a front page and they reported exclusively that the holiday home and the offending steps had – wait for it – a new coat of paint. Clearly, there was nothing happening in the state of Victoria warranting attention on the front page of this right-wing tabloid.

What are we to make of this nonsense ? Has Roop lost his marbles or is there something more sinister afoot ? We do know that the Victorian Liberals tried, at the time of the unfortunate accident, to conjure up social media conspiracies suggesting that the Premier was drunk or had been beaten up. Then the appalling Louise Staley, opposition treasury spokeswoman, gave new impetus to the complicated web of conspiracy theories by demanding that Andrews come clean and answer questions about the conspiracy theories that she and her colleagues had been spreading.

With all the misinformation and disinformation swirling Ambulance Victoria, whose crew had taken Andrews to hospital, and the chief commissioner of police both felt it necessary to take the unprecedented action of issuing statements setting out the facts.

In the meantime SKY News seem to have got the same memo about the Andrews onslaught with fake journalist Peta Credlin producing an exclusive exposé on the Cult of Daniel Andrews : I haven’t seen this effort by Credlin and probably won’t go out of my way to watch it. Suffice to say that l anticipate that it will be another hit job on the Premier of Victoria.

Two former prime ministers, Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd have called for an enquiry into media diversity in Australia which, if adopted by the new Labor government will obviously take a close look at the dominance of Newscorp in the press and increasingly on television where they now dominate payTV and are demanding exclusivity of many sporting codes. They are also increasingly penetrating free to air television in regional areas where Sky after Dark is becoming a FOX News surrogate peddling extreme far right dissension and climate change denial and misinformation.

I believe an enquiry is overdue, what do you think ?