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Murdoch backs bush and wants troops to stay { April 7 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/07/1081222511084.htmlhttp://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/07/1081222511084.html
Murdoch backs Bush and wants troops to stay
April 7, 2004 - 11:55AM
Media baron Rupert Murdoch today backed George Bush to win a second term, said Australian troops should see the job through in Iraq, and said he would push for changes to Australia's cross-media and foreign media ownership laws, despite shifting News Corporation to the US.
The News Corporation chairman said today the coalition of the willing had largely been successful and Australia needed to maintain its presence.
"We have no alternative - we must see the job through," Mr Murdoch told 2GB radio.
Mr Murdoch said the continuing violence in Iraq was isolated and had been misrepresented.
"I think it's been misrepresented. (There has been) tremendous progress in Iraq - all the kids are back at school, 10 per cent more than when Saddam Hussein was there," Mr Murdoch said.
"There's 100 per cent more fresh water. Most of Iraq is doing extremely well.
"There's one small part where the Sunnis ... are giving trouble and more by, I think, giving cover to international terrorists and people from the Taliban and from Afghanistan coming in.
"They're really trying to kill Americans, they're trying to kill people from the United Nations, anyone who is trying to come in and help get their country going properly."
He also said George W Bush would win a second term at the US presidential election in November because the American people strongly supported the president's efforts in Iraq and the resurging US economy.
"They're with him on that, completely. He's going to walk it (the election) in," he said.
"The economy's doing extremely well and there is an international crisis.
"You've got to understand, America was attacked. 9-11 changed America - it was a big moment in history."
When questioned whether President Bush had answered the terror threat adequately, Mr Murdoch said: "Oh yeah. I mean, they deployed all their resources, everything."
And Mr Murdoch said Australia had done the right thing in joining the US in the war in Iraq.
"And the Australian government stood absolutely firm with them. This country's got no alternative, it must stand with America."
He indicated he would continue to argue for greater freedom when it came to cross-media and foreign media ownership in Australia.
"We think that there is so much media now, with the internet it's so easy and so cheap to start a newspaper or start a magazine that there's just millions of voices," he said.
"We don't really have to worry; the old ideas of it being too concentrated, I think that's just fading away."
Mr Murdoch said the new primary listing in the US was expected to significantly expand the company's shareholder base and increase demand for its shares, hence driving the share price higher.
"It's already up," Mr Murdoch said today in reference to a 1.5 per cent rise by News Corp's American Depository Receipts on the New York Stock Exchange overnight.
"Everybody will be a lot better off."
Mr Murdoch, who gave up his Australian citizenship in 1985 to become an American, said that of the top five US media investment firms, three were predominantly index style managers and only had investments of about $US4 million in News Corp.
By contrast all of them, all of them had investments of at least $US900 million in Time Warner, Disney, Viacom and Comcast, he said.
Mr Murdoch said he believed the primary reason behind his company being undervalued against its peers was that it still had foreign issuer status in the US.
Influential United States broking house Merrill Lynch overnight threw its support behind News Corp's US incorporation, saying it should be a "huge positive" for share price performance.
"The company's foreign domicile and preferred share structure have hindered the ability of many large US-based institutions from investing in the company's shares," analyst Jessica Reif Cohen said.
"The likely inclusion in key US indices, as well as Australian indices, is very positive for shares.
"We anticipate the company will meet requirements for listing on the NYSE and will remain fully-listed on the Australian Stock Exchange."
While the move places control of several Australian daily metropolitan newspapers firmly in foreign hands, readers are not likely to notice much difference.
No major job losses are expected as a result of News Corp officially becoming an American company and there is unlikely to be any government pressure put on Rupert Murdoch to sell his media assets here.
News Corp shares rose 55 US cents to $US37.43 on the NYSE overnight.
AAP
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/07/1081222511084.html
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