Kevin Rudd has accused Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspapers of "taking a club" to his government and failing to put Tony Abbott under any scrutiny.
The prime minister made the claim while responding to the Sydney Daily Telegraph's Friday front page depiction of him as Mr Rude, a character from the Mr Men children's book series.
The story stemmed from claims Mr Rudd was rude to a makeup artist before this week's leaders' debate.
Mr Rudd dismissed the front page story as a "beat up" maintaining that he'd been "in the zone", had smiled at the makeup artist and not one angry word had been exchanged.
"Why is it, that day after day after day, whether it's the Daily Telegraph or the other papers Mr Murdoch owns right across Australia ... they are constantly taking a club to our government and not putting Mr Abbott under one minute's scrutiny?" Mr Rudd said on ABC TV.
"The answer to that is pretty simple: Mr Murdoch wants Mr Abbott to be prime minister, he's said so directly."
Mr Rudd said reporting coming out of the News Corp Australia stable was not exactly a "fair shake of the sauce bottle".
On the first day of the election campaign the Daily Telegraph ran a front-page editorial demanding voters kick Labor out of office.
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