CANBERRA, 12 April, 2021 (TON): On Monday, the Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation as the most powerful political force in the country.

While appearing before the Senate inquiry into media diversity in Australia on Monday, Turnbull described the company as a "mafia gang" that uses its influence to pursue its own corporate interests with no accountability.

He said, "News Corp now is like a political party, but with just one member, or one family of members and that is an absolute threat to our democracy."

"The most powerful political actor in Australia is not the Liberal Party, or the National Party or the Labor Party. It is News Corporation and it is utterly unaccountable.

"It's controlled by an American family and their interests are no longer, if they ever were, coextensive with our own."

However, he accused the News Corp as it was a key player in his removal.

"This sounds completely unhinged and it may well be so but there is no doubt that was being undertaken and I had a direct conversation with Rupert about it," Turnbull said.

Turnbull was the second former Prime Minister to appear before the inquiry after Kevin Rudd said before it on February that every politician in Australia was afraid of Murdoch's influence.