ABC boss vows to fight after Budget 2018 slashes its funding by $83M

Treasurer Scott Morrison has delivered the 2018 Budget and while Baby Boomers and low-to middle-income earners may be seen to have come off reasonably well, the ABC has been hit hard. In fact, the government has decided to freeze the national broadcaster’s budget indexation from July 2019.

The move will cut the ABC’s budget by $84 million over three years, and is compounded by the decision by Morrison to cease an additional $43 million in funding provided to various news and current affair services on the broadcaster. Since 2014, $254 million in budget cuts have been imposed on the ABC.

In a post-budget statement, ABC Managing Director Michelle Guthrie said funding was essential if the ABC was to continue to provide independent and in-depth commentary to Australian audiences.

“The ABC is now more important than ever given the impact of overseas players in the local media industry and the critical role the ABC plays as Australia’s most trusted source of news, analysis and investigative journalism,” Guthrie said.

“Our talented and dedicated content makers consistently deliver award winning public interest journalism, regional services and critically acclaimed original Australian programs and content. Stable, adequate funding is essential if we are to continue to deliver for Australian audiences.”

In a separate statement issued to ABC staff, Guthrie said she was discouraged by the treatment meted out to the broadcaster in the budget.

“I am very disappointed and concerned that after the measures we have introduced in recent years to deliver better and more efficient services, the government has now seen fit to deliver what amounts to a further substantial budget cut,” the ABC reported Guthrie saying in a message distributed to the organisation’s staff.

Guthrie said Morrison’s decision would make it hard for the ABC to meet audience expectations, and vowed to oppose the decision and try to reverse the cuts before they come into effect. Guthrie also called the government’s proposed efficiency review  into the ABC “unnecessary”.

Unlike the ABC, SBS came out relatively well from the budget, with an additional $14.6 million in funding over two years from 2018 and 2019. According to broadcaster, this funding will replace revenue that couldn’t be raised by changes to the advertising regime. In addition, $3 million will be used to support the development of Australian film and television content with the help of the Department of Communications and the Arts.

The Coalition government frequently comes in for a pasting from the ABC’s talk shows, particularly Q and A, which some conservative commentators frequently slam as biased, with a audience artificially crammed with left-leaning activists.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has even gone as far as to say that the ABC is “dead” to him after copping repeated criticism over his decisions on immigration. “The ABC and others report these things how they want to report them and how they want to interpret them,” he told 2GB radio. “They don’t realise how completely dead they are to me. So we just get on with making the decisions that we need to.”

Are you happy with the cuts to the ABC? Or do you think it’s ‘punishment’ for the ABC’s criticism of the conservative Coalition government?