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Report: Tony Abbott poised to break election promise with ABC cuts

A pre-election promise of "No cuts to the ABC or SBS" is at risk of being jettisoned.

abcsDespite his pre-election promise of no cuts to the ABC, Prime Minister Tony Abbott is set to wield the axe to the broadcaster’s current funding, according to Fairfax today.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the expenditure review committee is considering a number of proposals for trimming the ABC’s budget, all of which involve cuts.

Prior to the 2013 election Tony Abbott promised voters, “No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.”

The ABC was allocated $1.03 billion in the 2013 federal budget. A 2.25 per cent efficiency dividend would see the broadcaster forced to strip around $22.5 million from its budget in the first year – a figure equivalent to almost half the ABC’s annual budget for TV drama.

Further cuts would then be applied in each subsequent year.

ABC managing director Mark Scott told a Senate estimates hearing earlier this year that he could not guarantee any services would be spared if the broadcaster’s funding is cut.

Behind the scenes ABC executives have been planning how they would deal with major funding cuts and the potential merging of departments with SBS.

A spokesman for Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said: “We don’t speculate on the budget”.

55 Responses

  1. Very disgusted about Tony Abbott making this type of announcement. Who want to make ABC deduct more money? What a waste! This point of Tony Abbott drove me mad! ABC is a fantastic TV Network where it covered drama, comedy and mystery shows. And what’s with the merging of SBS? SBS is also a fantastic network with lifestyle and documentary shows. Tony Abbott is making these two networks a lot worse.

  2. @KangaRoo

    To quote Mr Abbott ” These cuts are not targeting the ABC or SBS”

    These ‘efficiencies’ aren’t even targeting the TV/ Media industry in isolation, he stressed these savings are across the board savings, by many different entities, thus my wide raging reference, that I thought should include any entity that benefits from government subsidies allowing complete or partial non-payment of legislated fees.

    So when strongly raising the independence of privately funded Networks and comparing them to those Networks receiving Taxpayer $$$ as such, can I assume you are advocating that the Networks permitted to officially withhold government revenue, via the forfeiture of government $$$, in the form of subsidies, eg. ‘ Licensing Fees’, should be excluded from such efficiency savings, and if so, why should they receive any Taxpayer assistance?

  3. totally disgusted with tony abbott and this liberal govt .reneging on just about every promise they made before the election. this smacks of payback for the ABC not being as friendly towards the liberal party as tony abbott demands .clearly news limited boss rupert murdoch has a closr ear to tony abbott than we realise . when one sees pictures of tony abbott holding a function at parliament house like he did a few friday nights ago exclusively for his news limited mates to thank them for their tremendous support over tthe last 12 months like andrew bolt and company and then seeing pictures of andrew bolt giving a big hug to the prime minister you know tony abbott is out to get the ABC .

  4. The problem with the ABC and a Coalition government where its right wing is ascendant is that they have no constructive commitment to the ABC which means any reform of it is always punitive. But on the other hand when Labor is in power the union, the CPSU, tries to thwart any reform which threatens its ABC membership, even if such reform will increase the amount of content produced. The likely result is that ABC management will not get rid of its top heavy middle management tier, its generous leave and RDO provisions and some stupid bureaucratic practices but pick of the low lying fruit, children’s programs, drama and documentary while the news department will prevail yet again.

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