Dinner with Rupert Murdoch has long been a rite of passage for Australian political leaders. But Opposition leader Bill Shorten has indicated he is not interested in a special meeting with the media mogul.
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Mr Shorten reportedly has a standing invitation to meet with Mr Murdoch if he is in the United States. But the Labor leader says he would prefer to meet with News Corp's Australia-based representatives.
"News Limited [sic] and Mr Murdoch shouldn't take that as any view on him, in particular. I will deal with their local management, just as I deal with the local management of the ABC," Mr Shorten told the ABC's 7.30 program on Tuesday night.
Former prime ministers Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd all met with Mr Murdoch in New York in a bid to encourage positive coverage of their governments. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has not met Mr Murdoch during his five months in the job.
But Mr Shorten said he would not worry about "things I can't change".
"Some elements of the media are very aggressive critics of Labor. But I'm not going to whinge about that. When you're on the Labor side, when you're on the working people's side, you don't own the big banks, you don't own the big private health insurers and you don't own the big media."
Labor's communication spokesperson Michelle Rowland said Mr Shorten was more focussed on policy problems, such as the concentration of media ownership, rather than personalities.
"It's not like he goes out of his way to have anything as a conflict of personalities," Ms Rowland said.
Sydney University Emeritus Professor in government and international relations Rodney Tiffen says it is unlikely that Mr Shorten has risked losing votes by knocking back Mr Murdoch's invitation.
"The [News Corp] papers’ anti-Labor line has been consistent for quite some time," he said.
"The readers of the Murdoch papers are not going to be the potential swinging voters."
Mr Shorten's comments come amid fierce debate about the role of News Corp in Australian political debate.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull spoke to Mr Murdoch in the lead up to the Liberal leadership spill, asking the media tycoon to stop a campaign against him.
Since leaving the Lodge, Mr Rudd has also become an outspoken critic of News Corp describing Mr Murdoch as "the greatest cancer on the Australian democracy".
"Murdoch is not just a news organisation. Murdoch operates as a political party, acting in pursuit of clearly defined commercial interests, in addition to his far-right ideological world view," Mr Rudd wrote last year.
News Corp Australia has been contacted for comment.
