Extra funding for ABC as freeze on indexation ends
The Morrison government has committed to a $3.28bn support package and will scrap its indexation freeze on the public broadcaster’s budget.
The Morrison government has given the ABC a pre-election pay rise, committing to a $3.28bn support package over the next three years and scrapping its controversial indexation freeze on the national broadcaster’s budget.
The funding boost, announced ahead of next month’s federal budget, amounts to an increase of just over 1 per cent per annum from July this year to June 2025.
SBS will receive $953.7m over the next three years, an increase of $56.7m over the current triennium.
In announcing the new funding commitment for the ABC and SBS, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the early announcement of the financial boost would assist the public broadcasters to “develop their forward plans”.
The fresh deal was welcomed by ABC chair Ita Buttrose, who just two months ago delivered a blistering attack on the Morrison government, accusing it of “political interference”, intimidatory behaviour and presiding over sustained cuts to ABC funding.
“I am delighted with the government’s decision to commit $3.3bn over the next three years to the ABC,” Ms Buttrose said on Sunday night.
“It will allow the national broadcaster to continue doing what it does best – provide information and entertainment to Australians wherever they live.”
The level of taxpayer money assigned to the ABC has been a sore point in relations between the Coalition government and the national broadcaster for more than eight years, but the uneasy union hit rock bottom in 2018 when then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull froze the indexation of the organisation’s funding.
Despite no reduction in the base funding to the ABC – in fact, funding increased in real terms each year in the last triennium agreement between 2019 and this year – executives at the national broadcaster branded the indexation as an $84m funding cut over three years, a claim staunchly rejected by the Coalition.
Federal budget papers show government funding of the ABC was $1.062bn in 2019-20, $1.065bn in 2020-21 and $1.070bn in 2021-22. Funding for the next triennium agreement will begin at $1.077bn in 2022-23, and rise to $1.094bn in 2023-24 and $1.113bn in 2024-25.
Writing in The Australian today, Mr Fletcher warned that there were some “expectations” attached to the granting of the additional money, including a demand for a sharper focus on “impartial journalism”.
“The Morrison government is providing the ABC and SBS with the funding they need to do their important work. At the same time we are setting clear expectations about additional public reporting of how they use their resources,” he said.
“And all Australians will rightly expect that where there are clear requirements set out by law, for example about impartial journalism, the board and management of ABC and SBS will take care to ensure those requirements are met.” Mr Fletcher warns that the ABC executive and editorial staff should be alive to attempts by Labor to politicise the ABC in an election year.
“The board and ABC editorial staff will need to resist the siren-call of the Labor Party,” Mr Fletcher says.
“Labor will do everything it can to politicise the ABC and has already, revealingly, launched a fundraising drive on that basis. When Anthony Albanese uses the #ourabc hashtag on Twitter we all know what he’s driving at.”
Mr Fletcher also wrote to the ABC and SBS on Sunday to request two additional forms of annual reporting.
“I am asking the ABC and SBS to report each year on the quantity and type of Australian content they commission and show. I have asked our media regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, to agree to the format of this report with the two national broadcasters, and to align this as much as possible with the reporting requirements on the commercial broadcasters.
“Second, I have asked the ABC to include in its future annual reports a range of metrics regarding its delivery of rural and regional activities, including the number of ABC staff employed in rural and regional Australia.”
Mr Fletcher on Monday will also outline a raft of reforms to the media sector, including a $10m journalist fund to support public interest journalism in the regions, and a $7.3m TV development program to improve free-to-air television services across the country.
A National Broadcasters Reporting Framework will also be established.
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