Tony Abbott gave media proprietor Rupert Murdoch a detailed briefing on his controversial $5.5 billion paid parental leave scheme before he announced it without consulting his shadow cabinet or MPs.
The revelation about the scheme – which continues to be a contentious issue within the Coalition and between the government and the business community – is in a new biography of Treasurer Joe Hockey. In the book, Mr Hockey claims Mr Abbott only made a vague reference to the plan to him before it was announced in opposition.
Madonna King, the author of Hockey: Not Your Average Joe, writes neither the Coalition party room nor the businesses who would pay a levy to fund the expensive scheme were consulted before it was announced in 2010. But Mr Abbott “conferred with one leading business figure, the media proprietor Rupert Murdoch, who had been in Australia the month before”.
The book says Mr Abbott, a former Murdoch employee and then the new leader of the Liberal Party, “like many before him, had dinner with Murdoch, where he gave the media mogul a full rundown on the scheme – supplying enough detail for Murdoch to later have his Australian-based editors briefed on Abbott’s plan, which [Murdoch] considered a visionary approach to dealing with a real problem in his workforce”.
Laura Tingle’s full report, AFR, here (paywalled)
• James Massola, SMH: Joe Hockey biography by Madonna King reveals Treasurer wanted tougher budget
