Rupert Murdoch Hasn't Changed A Bit. Possibly.

From the little I've seen, the Murdoch press appears to very much have gone all in for the LNP during the Queensland state election and clearly failed.  And maybe the "little I've seen" part is key.  Back in the distant past when Rupert had shallower wrinkles and a little more hair, he appeared a lot more impartial.  Both sides of politics would court him and he would play the role of kingmaker.  So maybe it's not Rupert that has changed but the times.

It's very easy to go without consuming traditional media these days.  Personally I don't watch TV, listen to radio, or read newspapers.  While I am probably an exceptional example, the traditional media has clearly lost a lot of its grip and the more they try to tighten their grip the more minds slip through their fingers.  And there is a big age differential between the minds they lose and the minds they keep.  As a result Rupert's media empire is simply less valuable to the major party with younger demographics than it is to the Coalition with its older voting base.  And so Labor did not need to court Murdoch as badly as the Coalition.

Now it might seem like a bad play to go all in with one end of the political spectrum, why not keep to the old position of power in the apparent center?  Well, because that's only apparent power, which doesn't translate directly into money.  But if most of the people who purchase your products are old and trending conservative, then having your media push conservative issues a lot of the time can help sell papers and raise ratings, and so it may not be a bad business choice.  So rather than Rupert having undergone some big change in his personality as he aged, I think he might well still be what he always was, a business man who is currently trying to make the most profit possible out of a sunset industry in deep decline.  To the detriment of the planet and us all. 

NOTE:  I should mention that people don't get more conservative as they get older, on average they get more progressive.  It's just that society as a whole progresses further than they do.  (I firmly hope that, when I reach a ripe old age, I will be regarded as a monster.)