NSW Politics: who owns you, pretty baby*

You are a politician facing a state re-election campaign in five months time.

Your political party has just been through a gruelling time at a corruption inquiry.

A powerful multinational media corporation operates in Australia. 

It has a proven track record for corruptly making payments to police and government employees for information, for unlawfully hacking phones and voicemails to obtain material for news stories and gossip columns - with an editor and one of its former journalists gaoled, as well as multiple other employees arrested for their involvement in these activities.

This media corporation asks you to appear in an advertisement for its newspapers.

Do you say yes or no?

Well if you are NSW Premier Mike Baird you say - Yes!

And this is the result.............

http://youtu.be/3EkZR9f9mvU

I spoke with the Premier's office on 17 October 2014 and a staffer confirmed that it actually was him in the advertisement, but could not say if he had received payment for his appearance.

It would seem that along with Prime Minister Abbott, Mike Baird has decided that being joined at the hip to U.S. media mogul Rupert Murdoch is a good political move.

* With sincere apologies to The Four Seasons for mangling their lyrics.