News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. Photo / AP
Rupert Murdoch's elder son has denied he was present when a former Australian senator alleges a News Corp executive offered him favourable newspaper coverage and "a special relationship" in return for voting against government legislation.
Australian police are investigating former Senator Bill O'Chee's allegations that during a 1998 lunch, News Corp executive Malcolm Colless offered him inducements in the form of editorial favours to vote against the conservative government's legislation on the creation of digital TV in Australia. News Corp stood to profit from the legislation failing.
O'Chee said on Friday that Murdoch's son Lachlan, then a senior News Corp executive, was at the restaurant table during crucial parts of his discussion with Colless about digital television.
Lachlan Murdoch, now an Australian television network board member, dismissed O'Chee's account as a "fabrication".
"I have never been involved in lobbying Mr O'Chee on any issue," Murdoch said at the weekend.
O'Chee stood by his account. "Of course he would say that," he said.
Murdoch accepts that he and O'Chee were at the same upscale restaurant in Brisbane, although he says he no longer has any recollection.
News Corp editor Chris Mitchell recalls going to lunch with Murdoch that day and introducing him to O'Chee as they passed his table on the way out.
"We did not sit down and spoke for a minute before we left to return to work," Mitchell said.
- AP
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