Page 3000 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 15 August 2018
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The Liberals’ trickle-down asset sale agenda is completely out of touch. The Liberals know that there would be an uproar if they sold the ABC in its current form. Instead, they subject it to death by a thousand cuts. The federal government has cut $282 million from the ABC since 2014, and $83.7 million this year alone. This has resulted in a massive reduction in services, particularly in local and regional coverage. The ABC has had to lay off staff in huge numbers, meaning that the high quality and integrity of the content are under threat. These cuts mean that the ABC cannot fund the production of Australian television programs and series.
Australia’s television and film industry relies on the investment and exposure provided by the government. Great Australian-made programs like Four Corners, Gruen, Australian Story, Bananas in Pyjamas, Rake and Rage, just to name a few, are staples of Australian TV. This is all at risk.
The ABC allows a whole myriad of voices to be heard. It speaks for the broadest cross-section of the Australian community. It highlights marginalised voices. It is used to challenge the ideas of those in power. The ABC provides independent news without bias or agenda, something that people in undemocratic nations are literally dying for.
Indeed, the Liberals’ short-sightedness over the ABC endangers citizens and relations in the Pacific region. Cuts have forced the ABC to end shortwave radio frequencies to the Pacific region which are a vital part of life in those areas. By vacating this space, we hurt our relationships with our neighbours and have allowed other nations to snap up the frequencies, garnering goodwill. Coupled with cuts to foreign aid, we have a Liberal government that is wilfully harming relations with our neighbours.
But I digress, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was an ABC Four Corners program which forced a Liberal government to address the systematic abuse of Indigenous children at Don Dale detention centre. This year it was the ABC who first published information about the Kevin Rudd cabinet documents. The ABC is one of the most accurate, up-to-date and rigorous news bodies in Australia. Cutting ABC services is a downright cynical move against high quality and trustworthy journalism. I consistently hear that we cannot trust politics and mainstream media. In the age of fake news and misinformation, and a widespread distrust of all political sides, the ABC is as necessary as it has ever been.
The ABC has been an integral part of our territory for 65 years. The ABC office is a fixture of Northbourne Ave, and the jobs it provides are part of our community. These cuts endanger this. They are part of an agenda of a federal Liberal government who have time and again attacked Canberra. The ABC is fundamental to our territory, and I have heard from countless Canberrans who oppose this cut.
This is all part of the neoliberal policy bundle. Call public services too bloated or administrative, instigate savage cuts and then claim the organisation is ineffective and needs to be privatised. It is a classic, and we will see a reprisal of it if those over there ever get into power. The ACT branch of the Liberal Party are the most extreme, neoliberal and anti-progressive group in this country. They will privatise public
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