Scott Morrison blasts ABC in radio interview over Liberal Party vote to privatise broadcaster

MALCOLM Turnbull has declared the government will never privatise the ABC after rank and file Liberal Party members voted almost two-to-one for the move.

MALCOLM Turnbull has declared the government will never sell the ABC after rank and file Liberal Party members voted almost two-to-one to privatise the broadcaster.

“The ABC will always be in public hands. It will never be sold,” the Prime Minister told reporters in Parliament House today.

“That is my commitment,” he said.

“It is a public broadcaster. It always has been and it always will be.”

The Liberal Party’s peak council voted almost two-to-one on Saturday for a motion arguing the government should privatise the ABC.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has declared the government will never sell the ABC after rank and file Liberal Party members voted almost two-to-one to privatise the broadcaster. Picture: AAP

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack also ruled out the National Party ever supporting the privatisation of the ABC.

He said the broadcaster should invest more of its staff and resources into rural and regional Australia but called it an “invaluable service” for those areas.

“From providing cricket coverage to those driving Australia’s long highways, to its dedicated coverage of the agriculture sector on The Country Hour, as well as its role in supporting emergency services during natural disasters, the ABC is a crucial and much-loved institution in the regions,” Mr McCormack said.

Debate over the ABC’s future also became a political issue earlier this year after the Treasurer announced in the budget that the broadcaster’s funding would be frozen for three years from July 2019, amounting to an $84 million hit to its budget.

Earlier today, Mr Morrison hit out at the ABC in a heated radio interview over speculation the government would privatise the broadcaster.

In a fiery interview with ABC AM radio host Sabra Lane, Mr Morrison said the government would not sell the ABC but said many Australians had lost faith in it’s coverage.

“It is the ABC’s job to demonstrate to the Australian people that they are acting impartially and unbiased,” he told Lane.

“Now, there is a lot of people out there who don’t think you are.”

Scott Morrison has hit out at the ABC in a heated radio interview over a Liberal Party vote to privatise the broadcaster. Picture: Kym Smith

Asked whether he shared that view, Mr Morrison said: “It is not for me to defend the ABC or promote the ABC.”

“I fund the ABC as the Treasurer, I do that every year, and I think there are concerns out there in the Australian public,” he said.

“I think it is for the ABC to demonstrate to the Australian people that they are not doing that.”

ABC AM radio host Sabra Lane. Picture: Supplied

Mr Morrison did not agree or disagree when asked if the vote at the weekend’s annual federal council meeting in Sydney said something about the Liberal Party’s values and priorities, but simply responded rank and file members were “allowed to have that view”.

“The supreme policy making of the Liberal Party is the parliamentary Liberal Party,” he said.

“We are not the Labor Party. The members are entitled to their view. The government is not privatising the ABC.”

Opposition leader Bill Shorten has seized on the vote, saying it was “outrageous” the Liberal Party was considering privatising the ABC.

“If you love the ABC, you’d be wise to not trust Mr Turnbull,” Mr Shorten told reporters in Tasmania on Sunday.

ABC Managing Director Michelle Guthrie during senate estimates in Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Gary Ramage

“This idea that somehow Mr Turnbull and the Liberal Party are two separate entities, two strangers at a bar, is rubbish.”

ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie will give a major speech in defence of the

broadcaster tomorrow at the Melbourne Press Club.

She has previously said policies are being ­driven by a “political vendetta”.

— with AAP

Originally published as Scott Morrison blasts ABC in radio interview over Liberal Party vote to privatise broadcaster