Page 491 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 8 March 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
whole-of-government budget savings necessitated by the $10 billion budget deficit—that is right, the $10 billion budget deficit—inherited from the previous Labor government.
As an aside, I heard a news story last night. The newsreader was talking about the debt reductions federally. She said “billion” and then thought it could not have been that bad in the past. She said, “I mean millions.” Well, no. It was billions under the Labor government.
Since that period in 1996 and 1997, though, the Howard government increased the ABC’s funding to the extent that its current funding levels exceed those under the Labor government prior to the 1996 election. Furthermore, in providing additional funding for the ABC’s national interest initiatives program and additional program purchasing funding in the 2004-05 budget, the federal government was providing the ABC with its first additional funding for programming since the mid-1980s. Remember the figures I cited in relation to the performance of the federal Labor government and the slashing they inflicted on the ABC at that time.
In 1995-96 we were looking at a time of change federally. The ABC received total government funding of $522 million. When that figure is indexed to reflect today’s terms, that equates to about $704 million compared to the total government funding of $792.9 million the ABC received this year. Therefore, my statement that the ABC receives more than it did in the final year of the Labor government is most certainly correct.
I have just a few concluding comments. The regional and local programming funding the federal government has provided for the ABC since 2001 is the first additional funding for ABC content by any government since the early 1980s, more than 20 years ago. This funding has provided $72.1 million over four years for the creation of new regional and rural programming, and the government has made a further $54.4 million commitment to the program over the three-year period from 2005-06.
In addition to the regional programming fund, the federal government also committed an additional $4.2 million per year, which I referred to earlier, both ongoing and indexed, to assist the ABC to meet the increasing costs of purchasing new television programs. Certainly, in terms of this being the final year of the funding triennium, the ABC’s funding levels will obviously be considered as part of the 2005-06 budget process. Certainly the information that we have seen presented there, much of which seemed to have been overlooked in Ms Porter’s remarks, demonstrates a far greater commitment to supporting the broadcaster than occurred prior to 1996.
I think the ABC fulfils an important role. Like all organisations it may well have areas where it can improve its efficiency and the management of its resources. That is something that the review will determine, and that will obviously be examined by our colleagues federally. But I repeat that I do not think the ABC’s funding arrangements are in fact a matter that we should be concerning ourselves with here in the Assembly. That is the role of the commonwealth parliament and the commonwealth government, and I struggle to understand why this matter is brought before the Assembly.
The opposition will not be opposing the motion that has been put forward, but I would like to see more local issues tackled. I will say in relation to the ABC that I am pleased
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .