This is a dead-set lie by Murdoch’s CEO, Michael Miller, telling senators that I “proactively approached” them to write an article on China last Saturday. Nothing in that statement is true.

Here are the facts... THREAD /1

On February 5, the US magazine @ForeignAffairs published a lengthy essay I had written entitled “Short of War: How to Keep US-Chinese Confrontation from Ending in Calamity”. You can read it here: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-02-05/kevin-rudd-usa-chinese-confrontation-short-of-war /2

On February 9, I sent the essay to literally hundreds of folks in the global policy community for their thoughts & feedback. One of them was Alan Howe, a journalist I’ve known for many years, who’s now at The Australian. We don’t agree on everything but I do value his opinion. /3

Alan responded to my email saying The Australian wanted to publish an extract. I hadn’t read his email yet, so he sent me a follow-up text message on 11 Feb. We spoke on the phone and I told him that, as the essay was now in the public domain, there was nothing stopping them. /4

At no stage did I “proactively approach” their newspaper to publish anything, nor did I write a single original word for them. Every bit of the extract had appeared already in @ForeignAffairs. Miller would have known that — it was printed at the bottom of their article. /5

Murdoch’s CEO Michael Miller has misled the Senate. He must now retract his false statement and apologise to senators for misleading them. #MurdochRoyalCommission