Page 4168 - Week 13 - Thursday, 27 November 2014
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Right across Australia, Friday’s state-based 7.30 programs will be axed, including the ACT’s 7.30 program. That is not the only news program to be affected. The current affairs program Lateline will be cut back, widely regarded as one of the best and most in-depth current affairs programs in Australia. No doubt there are a few coalition ministers pleased to see the ABC lose some of its current affairs capacity.
Before the 2013 election it became quite clear that Tony Abbott was refusing to appear in long-form interviews on programs like Q&A, Lateline or the Insiders. By mid-2013 it had been 1,054 days since Tony Abbott had appeared on Q&A, 72 days since he had appeared on 7.30 and 583 days since he had appeared on Lateline. And this was despite open invitations. Of course when Mr Abbott did appear on 7.30 in 2012 he seemed rather stunned by Leigh Sales’s use of facts and research and ended up notoriously admitting he had not read a report he was using to attack the government of the day.
Other impacts on the ABC will include cuts of 20 jobs to the ABC’s foreign affairs bureaus in Tokyo, Bangkok, New Delhi and New Zealand. In South Australia, TV production outside news and current affairs will be shut down. This led to one of the ultimate moments of irony, with Liberal minister Christopher Pyne starting a petition against the South Australian reductions which were attributable to the millions of dollars cut by his own government.
We all enjoy the arts in this chamber. In fact yesterday members spoke fondly about the arts on a motion presented by Mr Smyth. The cuts to the ABC will mean $6 million will be cut out of ABC radio, with the biggest cuts affecting ABC Classic FM. ABC Newcastle will be downgraded to a regional operation, losing eight staff and two of its key presenters.
We must not forget, of course, that our other public broadcaster, SBS, the Special Broadcasting Service, is also in the firing line, with over $50 million of cuts proposed. As members would know, SBS is very important particularly for its provision of multilingual and multicultural radio and television services. Its goal is to reflect Australia’s multicultural society, and to many Australians who are new to our country, who have English as a second language or who simply have a close connection to their ethnic heritage or are even interested in diverse cultures, SBS provides a very special service.
In an attempt to recover its lost funding SBS is now expected to increase the amount of advertising it shows. The increasing encroachment of advertising into public broadcasting has a variety of negative impacts which I think we are all well aware of.
I would like now to turn to the impact on Canberra of these cuts. Like other coalition policies, the short-sighted cuts to public broadcasting will have a negative impact right here in Canberra. Perhaps the Liberal opposition members will again try to avoid having to talk about this kind of issue, claiming it is solely a federal issue. In fact I see Mr Hanson has done exactly that in his circulated amendment. Heaven forbid we might discuss a matter that has an impact on Canberra even if it is done by the federal
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