News Corp Australian chief quits amid review

News Corp's Australia chief, Kim Williams, resigned from the company as New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allan reviews its newspapers in the country amid pre-election clashes with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Williams, a near-20 year veteran of the company, would be replaced by Julian Clarke, the company headed by Rupert Murdoch said in a regulatory statement yesterday.

Clarke retired in 2007 as chairman of the Herald and Weekly Times, a News Corp unit that publishes the country's biggest-selling newspaper, Melbourne's Herald Sun.

Allan would be "providing extra editorial leadership" to News Corp's Australian papers for two to three months, according to an internal e-mail from group chief executive Robert Thomson.

Murdoch was seeking to "get rid of" Australia's government in a September 7 election, Rudd said this week after Sydney's best-selling Daily Telegraph urged readers to "kick this mob out" in a front-page editorial on Monday.

"It certainly appears to be a very political decision," said Angus Gluskie, the managing director of White Funds Management. "It certainly seems as though Murdoch wants a particular viewpoint expressed, and that's got a number of issues. It's right at the heart of the independence of the press."