Paddy Manning writes in this 2022 book:
* Lachlan and Sarah decided they’d had enough and moved back to Sydney with their three kids … perhaps for good. Lachlan might not say so publicly, but in his bones he believed Australians had a better way of life. Although Carlson reckoned Australia had turned into a ‘COVID dictatorship’, the country had come through the pandemic with a death rate one – tenth that of the United States and a vaccination rate of 95 per cent. Schools were safe from gun violence. The politics of hate and polarisation had not yet split the lucky country down the middle.
Ironically, those things that made Australia a cocoon for Lachlan and Sarah, and a better place to raise their family, like tougher public health restrictions and gun control, were the very things that Fox News railed against in America, on a nightly basis. Running Fox Corporation from Australia suggested a fundamental disconnect: he was hardly practising what his network’s primetime anchors preached. At work, he was a ruthless five – star general in the culture wars, overseeing the Fox News juggernaut, pumping ‘America First’ and driving earnings growth in the family business – what Senator Elizabeth Warren famously called a ‘hate – for – profit racket’. At home, or on one of his many fabulous holidays, he was a laid – back Australian and all – round smooth operator: spectacularly rich, impeccably mannered, handsome, open – minded, adventurous, savvy, fun.
