Australia

I would assume that none of us find Peta Credlins political leanings to be surprising, but I am hopeful it may be starting to more apparent to the general public.

I think the answer to the headlines question is easy, there is a strong possibility Credlin is a Murdoch shill, and protentially always has been. If you haven't already you should watch 'Nemesis' on the ABC about the LNPs tenure from Tony to Scummo.

During Tony's tenure, he keeps getting more and more advice from Credlin, or only discusses issues with her, and ignores the position of the remaining MPs in his party, prioritising Credlins positions. After Tony got toppled, all of a sudden you see Credlin on Sky News as a host dishing out opinions about the direction the country should take and screeching whenever the government goes against those 'opinions', as sky news does.

According to the below report from the guardian, there was a rumour floating around that Sky News offered Credlin a position after she left the Fedral government when Tony was toppled (published 21/3/2016):

"Sky News has declined to confirm a rumour that former chief of staff to Tony Abbott, Peta Credlin, is considering an offer to join the 24-hour news channel as a commentator for the federal election."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/21/the-bolt-report-to-be-resurrected-on-sky-news-five-nights-a-week?CMP=share_btn_url

Followed by this article 10 days later (31/3/2016): https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/31/peta-credlin-joins-sky-news-as-2016-election-campaign-commentator?CMP=share_btn_url

I also found this statement from the above article very interesting, though I can't say it is still the case as these articles are from 8 years ago

Sky News is one third-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Europe, with the rest owned by Nine and Seven.

Credlins Wikipedia page states:

As a political commentator and self-described journalist, Credlin has been described as a partisan

And has her credentials listed as:

She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne with a concentration in constitutional law, politics and history in 1998

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peta_Credlin

This is potentially a better source, or a least is a second source giving the same info:

Peta Credlin has a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne with a concentration in constitutional law, politics and history. Peta is admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor in Victoria and has a further post-graduate qualification in law from the Australian National University.

https://www.mckinnonprize.org.au/panellists/ms-peta-credlin/

The below article refers to a book written by Niki Savva who, according to Wikipedia, is an author/journalist and former senior advisor to Johnny H and Peter Costello. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niki_Savva

"It wasn’t just those rumours, it was everything else to do with their behaviour. Their behaviour, the way they ran the office, the way they ran the government, ultimately led to their downfall,” Savva said. “That is what people inside the Coalition genuinely believe and so many people told him [Abbott], they warned him about this, and he wouldn’t listen.”

And naturally some heavy hypocrisy from Peta in her response

"Niki Savva never made contact with me or my office on any of the claims in her book,’’ Abbott told News Corp on Sunday. “I’m not going to rake over old coals and I don’t respond to scurrilous gossip.”

Credlin said, also to News Corp: “After 16 years in politics, I’ve always made it my practice not to comment on gossip or stories from unnamed sources.

“Sadly, modern politics is full of both. So I’m hardly going to change this practice especially when the so-called journalist didn’t make any effort to contact me. This book says a lot more about her lack of ethics than it will ever say about me.”

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/06/abbott-and-credlins-destructive-approach-led-to-downfall-says-author?CMP=share_btn_url

There is also this article from 2014 (published 24/2/2014), though the article doesnt go into a great amount of detail, and the link to another report in it is broken, but at the same time AFR is a fairly right leaning publication and it doesnt seem Tony sued them for defamation, which seems to be the general way people in the political class seem to want to obfuscate their involvement in such things. I guess he wasnt as concerned about his hat as Bruce was:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has denied any knowledge of almost $900 million that the Tax Office paid to Rupert Murdoch ’s News Corporation between September and January.

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/news-to-me-abbott-says-of-882m-cash-for-murdoch-s-news-corp-20140218-ixrok

And then there is when Tony made comments like this in 2014 (published 16/7/2014):

The Australian newspaper is Rupert Murdoch's 'gift to our nation'' Prime Minister Tony Abbott has told a gala dinner in Sydney to celebrate the publication's 50th birthday.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/tony-abbott-praises-the-australian-as-rupert-murdochs-gift-to-our-nation-20140716-3bzwg.html

Now, somewhat unsurprising, Tony was offered a position on the Fox News board of directors in 2023, which he accepted, because supposedly Australia's LNP MPs are all experts in media and therefore deserve to have obtained these prestigious positions within News Corp without any prior experience in media. Oh whoops, my mistake, according to the below source (Fox's own website), Tony worked as a journalist at The Bulletin and The Australian (strange he worked for these institutions prior to entering parliment according to the below):

Tony Abbott AC was elected as a Director of Fox Corporation in November 2023. Mr. Abbott served as the 28th Prime Minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He was Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia from 2009 to 2015 and a member of parliament from 1994 to 2019. Prior to entering parliament, Mr. Abbott worked as a journalist at The Bulletin and The Australian.

https://www.foxcorporation.com/management/board-of-directors/tony-abbott-ac/

So, there appeared to be a strong relationship between Tony and Murdoch before he was toppled as PM, potentially even going back to before he entered politicas, according to Fox itself. The person who Tony was closest to in the parliament (which, again, can be seen documented further in 'Nemesis'), his chief of staff, an employee of the government, not an elected official, were making decisions for the majority of the party and direction of the government, without consulting the rest of the party's elected representatives, which is, you know, the whole point of having political parties and representatives in a democratic nation.

While none of the above conclusively connects Credlin to Murdoch prior to her being hired by Sky News in 2016, I think it definitely leaves questions needing to be asked about Credlins credibility throughout her political career, her subsequent career as a political commentator, and what has now been further demonstrated as her having direct connections to members of the VIC LNP, who she is actively "dispensing advice from the sidelines" to.

Who knows, maybe she is just a useful idiot who got hired to be a commentator by Murdoch after she demonstrated herself (the Barrister and Solicitor) to be such a useful idiot, under the other useful idiot Tony in parliament, and it was just a match made in arrogance from then on. But I think there is also fair reason to suspect that she wasn't just a useful idiot, and was instead complicit in everything, but I can't say (or demonstrate) for certain (please don't sue me for defamation Peta, I havent stated certainities, just speculations, plus your hat isn't that important).