Murdoch News Corp face lawsuit for racism against Kiwi migrants

News Corp, owned by controversial media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is under fire for racist comments about Kiwi immigrants in several of its newspapers and may be sued by Kiwi rights group OzKiwi.

Last Saturday, the Northern Territory News, the Brisbane Courier Mail and several other papers under the News Corp umbrella ran articles describing Kiwi migrants as layabouts flooding into Australia, arrivals through immigration’s back door, and more. The Kiwi rights group believes that the comments violate Australia’s racial Discrimination Act.

The group is taking legal advice as regards suing News Corp, describing the reports as racist verbal violence based on incorrect statistics. A formal letter of complaint has been sent to News Corp, demanding a retraction and apology as the price of avoiding a lawsuit backed by a class action involving over 1,000 signatures to date.

According to an OzKiwi spokesperson, the statistics used to back the controversial racial abuse actually prove the opposite, showing that more New Zealand-born workers are in the workplace than those born in Australia. As regards the accusation that Asian and Pacific Islander immigrants are using New Zealand as a back door to Australia, the spokesperson noted that readers of the newspapers might get a wrong perception of New Zealand as a whole.