As the Prime Minister readies to announce the date of the election, the Treasurer has brought down his fourth budget – and for the ABC and the SBS the news isn’t altogether bad.
The government has kept a promise made a few weeks ago to increase funding for both public broadcasters, committing a combined total of $4.3billion to both over the next three years. Of that, the ABC will receive $1.077b in 2022-2023, leaving it in a better net position overall when you take into account the government’s decision to scrap the indexation freeze.
Still, the recent history of public broadcaster funding isn’t great: since 2014, the ABC’s budget has been cumulatively cut by more than half a billion dollars. This does not include the $200m lost due to the cancellation of a 10-year Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade contract that funded the Australia Network television service in the Asia-Pacific. That was painful for the broadcaster and may prove painful for the government as it grapples with the implications of China’s latest move in the South Pacific – the signing of a security agreement between the Solomon Islands and China. It’s been well known for years that China wants to establish a military base in the South Pacific. The soft power of the Australia Network might have been no match for the hard dollars China is investing in the region but it certainly would have helped to achieve at least one of the Australian government's objectives – influence.
And as Jonathan Holmes, former Media Watch host and now chair of ABC Alumni (an organisation of former ABC employees of which I am also a member), says in an interview with CMT for this newsletter, the government’s estimate of future inflation is one the ABC will need to keep a careful eye on.
Watch the interview here.
Monica Attard, CMT Co-Director
This was originally printed in our Newsletter on 1 April - to read it, click here or please subscribe here.