Federal Election 2022: what about our ABC?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORBH2Fjd2Ro, 14 February 2022

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The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) was established as the national public broadcaster in 1932 by an Act of Parliament.

It was formed as a publicly-owned politically independent and fully accountable entity offering a media service to the general public.

Originally funded from radio and later television license fees, in 1973 the funding model was changed to direct federal government funding.

In 1983 it’s name was formally changed to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The ABC Charter contained in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 requires the Corporation to provide innovative and comprehensive radio and television broadcasting which contributes to a sense of national identity, informs, educates, entertains and, reflects the cultural diversity of the Australian community.

It was made exempt from federal government efficiency dividends (created as a cost saving measure by way of annual funding reductions) when the Hawke Labor Government introduced these dividends in 1987-88.

Since 1989 the ABC has been funded by a three-year appropriation known as the triennial funding system.

The first assault on this triennial funding system came in 1996 when the Howard Coalition Government removed $55 million from the ABC triennial budget.

At the September 2013 federal election the Abbott Coalition Government came to power and within its fist year in office it commissioned an efficiency review of the ABC and Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) a separate public television broadcaster created in 1980.

This review was ideologically-driven by a new hard-right prime minister, Tony Abbott, whose broad political agenda included gradually withdrawing federal government from provision of a wide range of services, either through privatisation (via direct sale or leasing to private corporations) or by cost-shifting onto the states.

The review reportedly identified $60 million in savings across both the ABC and SBS. It was used by the Abbott Government to commence direct funding reductions and funding reductions by way of efficiency dividends. Abbott stopped short of implementing the merging of ABC and SBS facilities, pay-for-view for certain ABC online services or proposed entering into a new online service with a commercial media organisation as partner, but nevertheless these remain as recommendations in the redacted “Draft ABC & SBS Efficiency Study” dated April 2014. The Abbott Government then released a 9 page executive summary of the review dated 14 May 2014. The ABC countered by releasing unredacted pages from the Lewis review.

The Turnbull and Morrison Coalition governments continued to drain funding from the ABC, while antipathy towards the public broadcaster grew to ridiculous levels within both Coalition parties.

 

At the Liberal Party annual federal council meeting in June 2018, attended by at least 100 Liberal MPs, Senators and party members, there was an overwhelming vote in favour of a motion to sell the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in its entirety, with the exception of maintaining the Rural Department which is seen as supplying a service which is in the national interest and, is viewed as supporting the interests of powerful rural & regional backers of the Liberal and National parties. That motion has never been rescinded.

Interviewed in the days following that annual council meeting, Treasurer Scott Morrison made a point of saying that it is the ABC's job to defend itself against claims of left-wing bias. "It's not for me to defend the ABC or promote the ABC. I fund the ABC as Treasurer and we do that every year. And I think there are concerns out there in the Australian people about that and I think it is up to the ABC to demonstrate that they are not doing that."

In the 2018-19 Budget Prime Minister Turnbull & Treasurer Morrison froze ABC funding until 2022.

So that by 2020 a Per Capita study revealed that across the three triennial periods which have occurred to date in the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years, the ABC will have lost over $738 million. The last of these cuts being $10 million removed from the ABC operational budget in the Morrison Government's 2021-22 Budget.

In the 2022-23 ‘Election’ Budget Prime Minister Morrison & Treasurer Frydenberg have increased the ABC’s fourth triennial funding period (July 2022 to June 2025) by $87.2 million – with $45.8 million of this going to the Enhanced News Gathering program leaving only an additional $14 million a year until end June 2025 for all other ABC radio and television programming & operating costs.

The government has also announced it will impose new reporting conditions on both public broadcasters, including statements of expectation requiring them to detail the levels of Australian content, and other key services. The Statement of Expectations for the ABC can be found at:

https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/statement-of-expectations-to-the-abc.pdf

The almost irrational hatred Liberal MPs display toward the ABC is never ending and this month reached an unbelievable height with this from Liberal MP for Wentworth Dave Sharma who is standing for re-election on 21 May 2022:

“Finally they nail their colours to the mast! ‘Your’ ABC is running a candidate in Wentworth.”

A re-elected Morrison Government is unlikely to break the habit of a political lifetime and begin to adequately fund the premier national broadcaster.

ABC Alumni response to the Institute of Public Affairs continuing attempts to bring down the nation's principal public broadcaster

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is a large public broadcaster launched in 1939. 

Originally known as the Australian Broadcasting Commission by virtue of the Broadcasting and Television Act 1942. 

The ABC's modern reach includes multiple platforms via radio, television and online. 

In times of national emergency or natural disaster it is the primary source of information, warning and safety instructions for most Australians. 

 The relentless push to have the ABC dismantled and sold off in pieces to commercial media interest continues. 

This is one response to this continuous attempt to whiteant 'Aunty' ABC....

Cartoons of the Week

Cathy Wilcox

Wes Mountain

Graeme MacKay

Quotes of the Week

"It’s hard to think of a more symbolic rendering of all that is wrong with Australian mainstream intellectual life than the decision by Ita Buttrose and her board to offer Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest the Boyer Lectures, the ABC’s premier series of broadcasts designed to explain ourselves to ourselves. I defended Ita Buttrose when she was appointed ABC chair, but this decision is indefensible." [Tim Dunlop, writing in Meanjin Quarterly, 7 August 2020]

“"Scott Morrison could have picked up the phone to two members of his much-vaunted national cabinet this week, to sort out what was truly a bizarre situation. But he didn’t, and his decision not to says a lot about his approach to the pandemic. Morrison’s reluctance to get involved in the six-day border standoff between New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory betrays a style of governance that oscillates between the passive and the reactive, always with an eye to quarantining himself from culpability.” [Journalist Paul Bongiorno writing in The Saturday Paper, 15 August 2020]

PRESS FREEDOM IN AUSTRALIA: Letting The Light In - Part One

It has been reported that the day this article (set out below) was published by the Australian public broadcaster, the then Chief of the Defence Force and Acting-Secretary of Defence referred said article to the Australian Federal Police.

Six days short of two years after that Defence Force complaint and, after a lengthy investigation by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force as well as the arrest of a whistleblower in September 2018, the AFP decided to raid ABC offices at Ultimo on 5 June 2019.

This raises a suspicion that the two raids conducted over the last 48 hours may have been held back so they did not occur during the recent federal election campaign - thus raising politically sensitive questions the Morrison Government might have been obliged to answer before polling day.

As this is the third instance in which journalists and a radio commentator have been approached in the last few weeks by either the federal police or the Dept. of Home Affairs and questioned over source/s of information contained in articles or on air commentary, one has to wonder what the Morrison Government and its agencies are playing at.

The original article……

ABC News, 11 July 2017:

Hundreds of pages of secret defence force documents leaked to the ABC give an unprecedented insight into the clandestine operations of Australia’s elite special forces in Afghanistan, including incidents of troops killing unarmed men and children.

The ABC can reveal that some of the cases detailed in the documents are being investigated as possible unlawful killings.

The Afghan Files

This is one story in a seven-part series based on leaked documents exposing Australian special forces troops’ role in the Afghanistan war. For context, they are best read in order.

This comes a day after the ABC revealed the alleged cover up of the killing of an Afghan boy and another alleged incident in which a father and son were shot dead during a raid.

The documents, many marked AUSTEO — Australian Eyes Only — suggest a growing unease at the highest levels of Defence about the culture of Australia’s special forces as they prosecuted a bloody, secretive war against insurgents across a swathe of southern Afghanistan.

One document from 2014 refers to ingrained “problems” within special forces, an “organisational culture” including a “warrior culture” and a willingness by officers to turn a blind eye to poor behaviour.

Another document refers to a “desensitisation” and “drift in values” among elite Special Air Service soldiers serving in Afghanistan, while others allude to deep divisions between the two elite units which primarily comprise the special forces - the SAS based in Perth and 2 Commando Regiment based in Sydney.

A large proportion of the documents are reports on at least 10 incidents between 2009-2013 in which special forces troops shot dead insurgents, but also unarmed men and children.

The Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force is investigating at least two of the incidents as part of its inquiry into the conduct in Afghanistan of special forces, which includes alleged unlawful killing…..

Read the full article here.

NOTE

* Details of the first AFP raid on the home of a News Corp journalist on 3 June 2019 and the 2018 article which allegedly prompted that raid is at http://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com/2019/06/on-4-june-2019-federal-police-raided.html

* Further ABC stories:

#2 An interrogation, a shooting and no witnesses

#3 What the documents reveal about killings of unarmed Afghans

#4 The spy and the SAS soldier with a loaded Glock#5Who is the enemy? Australia’s secretive rules of engagement

#6 Chaos over severed hands

#7 Relations between Australia’s special forces units on ‘knife edge’

Still waiting on the official report concerning the alleged unlawful killings……

ABC News, 8 March 2019:

A lengthy investigation into possible war crimes committed by elite Australian soldiers in Afghanistan will not be made public before this year's federal election.

Senior military and government figures have told the ABC they are not expecting the long-awaited report by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF) to be ready for release until at least the second half of this year, well after voters go to the polls in May.

In 2016 the IGADF began examining "rumours of possible breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict by members of the Australian Defence Force", but inside the special forces community frustration is growing at how long the process is taking.

One special forces veteran, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the ABC that there were "natural justice impacts" from having the inquiry extended, and that it was "painful" for those involved.

"I can only hope the ultimate findings are of sufficient gravity to justify this extended process," the former high-ranking Commando said.

For almost three years New South Wales Supreme Court Justice and Army Reserve Major General Paul Brereton has been leading the secretive IGADF investigation, which is believed to have uncovered numerous concerns about the conduct of elite soldiers, including several incidents of possible unlawful killings.

Many in the ADF had originally anticipated the inquiry would be completed by 2018, but in a statement to the ABC the Defence Department has confirmed the independent IGADF inquiry is "ongoing"……

Read the full article here.

Government of Nauru: Turnbull's will comes first

Image of Nauru at abc.net.au

The small island Republic of Nauru’s official motto is "God's Will First”.

I strongly suspect that Nauru has unofficially changed it to “Turnbull's Will First” ahead of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s visit to the Pacific Islands Forum, with an eye turned towards protecting annual funding coming from the Australian Government.

Australia is Nauru’s largest trade, investment and development assistance partner, providing development assistance worth $26.1 million in 2017-18 and $25.9 million in 2018-19.

While revenue associated with the presence of the Australian regional processing centre and its ancillary service providers represents Nauru's most significant revenue stream.

That particular multimillion dollar revenue stream is said to financially benefit some of Nauru’s most powerful families.

So banning ABC employees from entering the country would have been an easy decision for the Government of Nauru to make given the current Australian prime minister’s well known animus towards the Australian Public Broadcasting Corporation.

Statement from Republic of Nauru – Update for media attending Sept 2018 Pacific Islands Forum

Published by  NauruNews at  July 2, 2018

The Government of Nauru looks forward to welcoming media from across the Pacific region and further afield, to cover the upcoming Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in September. Due to very limited accommodation we have had to place restrictions on the number of people from all sectors who are able to attend, including government delegations and the media. There has been no restrictions placed on media attendance for any reason other than this indisputable fact of accommodation and facility availability. We are confident that a wide cross section of media will attend, as they have for previous forums. Of course, as is the case for anyone entering Nauru – and indeed every other sovereign nation – all are expected to abide by their visa guidelines (in this instance a specific PIF media visa will be issued with no associated fees), respect the laws of our country, and not engage in activities that cause or encourage disruption or civil unrest.

We recognise that media from Australia have a unique interest in Nauru due to our partnership with Australia as part of its border security operations. While we will ensure that some media representatives from Australia will attend along with other Pacific and wider media, we will be requesting they follow all guidelines and directions of authorities in order to ensure the safety and security of citizens and residents of Nauru. There are unique security and safety issues in Nauru that must be considered and respected, and the Government reserves the right to revoke the visa of any person that breaches their visa conditions.

We are ensuring that along with other media from Australia, at least one Australian TV news outlet will be able to cover the PIF and footage will be available to other outlets who are not able to attend.

It is important that media representatives travelling with national political leaders or heads of state – specifically from Australia and New Zealand – are aware that they still must apply for accreditation and an appropriate visa through the website of the Government of Nauru, as per normal procedures. No person can enter Nauru without a valid visa and anyone attempting to do so, irrespective of who they are travelling with, will not be allowed entry. Accreditation applications have now closed as per PIF guidelines, however applications will still be accepted until 5pm Nauru Time on July 3, 2018, from any representatives who wish to travel to PIF as part of a ‘pool’ with their national leader and has not yet applied. Again, these spots are limited (particularly by accommodation) and will be included in (not separate from) the overall media numbers which are still to be finalised. Media that have been issued accreditation will be advised soon, as will those applicants who we could not accommodate.

It should be noted that no representative from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation will be granted a visa to enter Nauru under any circumstances, due to this organisation’s blatant interference in Nauru’s domestic politics prior to the 2016 election, harassment of and lack of respect towards our President in Australia, false and defamatory allegations against members of our Government, and continued biased and false reporting about our country. It is our right, as it is the right of every nation, to choose who is allowed to enter.

ABC News reported on 2 July 2017:

ABC News Director Gaven Morris responded, saying the broadcaster "vigorously defends our role in doing independent reporting on our region".

"The ABC does not intend to vacate our position in the media pool covering the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru," Mr Morris said.

"The Nauruan Government should not be allowed to dictate who fills the positions in an Australian media pool.

"It can hardly claim it is 'welcoming the media' if it dictates who that media will be and bans Australia's public broadcaster."

For the cameras Malcolm Bligh Turnbull pretends he has no power to intercede.

.@TurnbullMalcolm: It'll be regrettable not having media at the Pacific Islands Forum, but we must respect Nauru's sovereignty to determine who comes into their country. We support press freedom, but it is a matter for Nauru.

MORE: https://t.co/DfiGD6qzMe #SkyLiveNow pic.twitter.com/kHxeNH0l8B

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) July 3, 2018

Even if Turnbull didn't want to make a personal approach to the President of Nauru - for heaven's sake - we have gone to the expense of maintaining a High Commission on that 21 km² slip of an island since August 2009. 

If he so wished Malcolm Turnbull can make the High Commissioner earn her generous salary by having her present a formal request from the Australian foreign minister to allow ABC jounalists and a camera crew to attend the Pacific Islands Forum.

However, as it is highly likely that Nauru's ban is only an anticipation of Turnbull's wishes I won't be holding my breath.

PHON and Pauline Hanson attempt a Trump

As West Australians vote on Saturday, keen attention will be on a woman who isn’t a candidate, knows little about local issues, and lives a continent away. She is Pauline Hanson and her week-long campaign on the ground in Western Australia has demonstrated why she has stood for election 10 times since 1998 — six federal polls, two in NSW, two in Queensland — with just one victory. It has been a chronicle of chaos. [News.com.au, 10 March 2017]

A minor political party riddled with conspiracy theorists, climate change deniers and other right-wing ratbags, cursed by bad candidate selection, suspect staffing decisions and erratic leadership, now makes yet another mistake – its leader alienates an entire national media platform by banning ABC journalists from its post-election event in Western Australia.

Apparently failing miserably as a de facto Liberal Party partner at the 11 March 2017 state general election was just not enough for Pauline Hanson and sidekick James Ashby. They decided to take a leaf out of Donald Trump’s crazy political playbook.

Response from the ABC has been restrained but firm.

Australian Broadcasting Commission, ABC media release, 14 March 2017:

Statement from ABC Editorial Director: exclusion of ABC journalists by One Nation officials

The ABC is deeply concerned at the decision by One Nation to single out and exclude ABC reporters from its official election night function in Perth on Saturday night.

I have been in communication with One Nation officials since early Sunday seeking an explanation.

Despite the fact that One Nation has claimed that all media were treated appropriately and obtained material from a pool camera on the night, the facts remain that:

*Other media representatives from a range of organisations attended on the night without any prior arrangements or permission being required.

*Those other media representatives, who included broadcasters, agencies and newspaper reporters from inside and outside Western Australia, were granted immediate access to the event.

*The ABC was denied access, and was treated differently to all other media.

Throughout the Western Australian election campaign, the ABC has provided accurate, impartial and independent political coverage and all political parties have been the subject of appropriate scrutiny and questioning.

If the ABC has been denied normal access to political events for simply doing its job, then that is an attack not just on the public broadcaster but on the fundamental role of the media in a democracy.

We will continue, as we always have, to report without fear or favour.

Alan Sunderland

ABC Editorial Director

ENDS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BACKGROUND - WA GENERAL ELECTION

On 14 March 2017 with 75.92% of Lower House ballot papers counted PHON only had 4.83% of the primary vote with no seat gained and with 67.66% of Upper House ballot papers counted PHON had only 7.95% of the primary vote with one seat gained to date.

Updates can be found at https://www.elections.wa.gov.au/elections/state/sgelection#/sg2017.

Right-wing attacks on the ABC continue. This time Gerard Henderson's tilt at Media Watch & Professor Chapman backfires spectacularly

Weighed under by budget cuts and loss of an international platform the Australian Broadcasting Commission, everybody's Aunty, must wonder when Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's flying monkeys will cease their attacks on its integrity.

Fortunately some of those who become collateral damage in the war on public broadcasting bite back publicly, as did Simon Fenton Chapman AO BA(Hons) (UNSW), PhD (USyd), FASSA, HonFFPH (UK).

Professor Chapman in Crikey on 23 February 2015:

Over the weekend and this morning, The Australian's Gerard Henderson and Simon King spent a lot of ink explaining to readers that I have "as much authority to discuss health affairs as I [Henderson] do. Namely, Zip."

Their readers needed to be told this because last week Media Watch tipped a very rancorous bucket over The Australian's reportage of a "study" from Victoria by acoustic engineer Steven Cooper that involved just three households of altogether six long-time complainants about the local wind farm. There was no control group. Here and here are critiques of the many manifest inadequacies of his report.

I was one of four people quoted by Media Watch in the program, and this got our Gerard very excited. He wrote to the program:

"Media Watch's decision to associate Professor Chapman with the words 'expert' and 'scientific' gave a clear impression that he is qualified to assess scientific research. However, Paul Barry neglected to advise Media Watch viewers that Simon Chapman had no scientific or engineering or medical qualifications. He has a BA (Hons) from the University of New South Wales and a Ph.D. from Sydney University. Dr Chapman's Ph.D. is in Sociology. In other words, Simon Chapman has no qualifications to assess the research of the acoustic engineer Steven Cooper … Media Watch misled its viewers last Monday by implying that Professor Simon Chapman is an 'expert' who is 'scientifically' qualified to assess the heath effect on humans of wind farms. The fact is that Simon Chapman has no formal qualifications in science or medicine or engineering."

This morning Simon King went one better with his discovery that ""He does not have a PhD in Medicine". In fact, I do have a PhD in medicine. Here's a list of 14 of us who graduated in 1986 with … wait for it … a "PhD in medicine", as King could have read if he'd checked my CV (line 1, page 3) or asked me.

I did my PhD in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine (that M word again). The duffers on the Order of Australia committee also seem to know that I contribute to health and medical research. My citation reads "for distinguished service to medical research as an academic and author".

King and Henderson appear to know nothing about the nature of contemporary expertise and how nearly all complex problems in health and medicine today involve researchers from different disciplines working together. In my school in the faculty of medicine there are staff who are biostatisticians, historians, psychologists, ethicists, economists, epidemiologists, and social scientists. Only some — probably a minority — have undergraduate degrees in medicine. Henderson's primitive understanding of expertise begins and ends with the possession of an undergraduate degree…..

Steven Cooper, whose CV has no mention of any PhD or undergraduate degree in medicine, until recently referred to himself as "Dr Cooper" on his home page. I look forward to The Australian covering this…..

Read the rest of the article here.

Just how big is the ABC's slice of the federal budget pie?

Business Spectator 20 November 2014:

When members of the Abbott Government talk about a need to rein in Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) spending, they rely on graphs like the one above (which displays funding in terms of millions of dollars) in order to scare voters about current and future public broadcasting sustainability.

Here is just a small visual reminder to the Abbott Government of how little, in the grand scheme of things, ABC television, radio and digital platforms actually cost.

A relatively small 0.271% of the total federal budget according to BudgetAus:

How many Walkley Awards did the Our ABC win this year? That many!

Despite a sustained political and economic assault by the Abbott Government and a anti-public broadcasting campaign by Rupert Murdoch's media, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) had thirty finalists in the 2014 Walkley Awards.

Twelve ABC journalists won on the night in the thirty-four award categories – some coming first in more than one category.

ABC News 5 December 2014:

The ABC's Deb Masters and Mario Christodoulou and Fairfax Media's Adele Ferguson have jointly won Australian journalism's highest award, the Gold Walkley, for a Four Corners investigation of the Commonwealth Bank….

A joint ABC News and Guardian investigation which angered Prime Minister Tony Abbott and upset relations with Indonesia was named the Scoop of the Year.

Reporters Michael Brissenden, Ewan MacAskill and Lenore Taylor were presented the award for their story revealing that Australia's spy networks were targeting Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's personal mobile phone…..

Australian Story's Belinda Hawkins took out the category for Social Equity Journalism with her story on the search by donor-conceived children for their biological fathers.

Middle East correspondent Hayden Cooper was honoured for his coverage of the Peter Greste trial, winning the Walkley for Radio News and Current Affairs reporting.

Matt Brown, Hayden Cooper, Aaron Hollett, Stuart Watt, Michael Carey and the ABC news teams won Best Coverage of a Major News Event or Issue, with their reporting on the Gaza conflict.

Matt Brown and Mark Solomons won the Walkley for TV/AV Reporting for three exclusives about Australian jihadists in Syria.

Radio National's Sarah Dingle won the Radio/Audio Documentary award for her investigation into the Salvation Army's sex abuse cover-up.

ABC News and Foreign Correspondent cameraman Wayne McAllister was honoured for his work in Thailand, the South China Sea and Ukraine.

Four Corners, ABC TV and The Australian shared the Investigative Journalism award for their reports into the treatment of children caught up in conflict in the West Bank.

7.30's Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker and Sam Clark won the TV/AV Daily Current Affairs award for their investigation of corruption, kickbacks, rackets and organised crime within the building industry and the CFMEU.

A joint ABC TV/Mint Pictures and Identity Films won the Documentary award for investigations into child abuse at a Orthodox Jewish boys' school in Melbourne.

Well done, Our ABC!

Our ABC speaks out

Present Challenges, Future Audiences

13TH OCTOBER 2014

Address by Mark Scott
University of Melbourne
Monday 13 October 2014

Last Friday night, I had the honour of hosting a ceremony as part of the ABC’s Mental As week. I am sure you’re aware of Mental As and our involvement with it, as it illustrates perfectly the role of the ABC—engaging the community in an issue of national importance, using its storytelling expertise and cross-platform prowess to explain a complex, contemporary issue. No other broadcaster in this country could even attempt such an ambitious exercise.

Public broadcasting has always aspired to inform, to educate and to entertain. I couldn’t be prouder of how we fulfilled that role last week, giving Australians a chance to talk, to seek and to give, creating a platform for a national conversation around mental health. It was the work of a digital age ABC, the most comprehensive cross-platform content and marketing initiative we have ever undertaken.

Mental As will have had an impact on millions of Australians who watched, listened and engaged online—and on the nation itself.

That has always been the ABC’s way. Part of Australian life, part of the lives of millions of Australians each week. Something that belongs to all Australians, everywhere.

Our work on Mental As coincided with campaigns around the country over the future of Lateline and other programs. The public response to Mental As and the Save Lateline petitions show yet again the degree of passion the public, the owners of the ABC have for the public broadcaster.

The ABC Board acts as trustee for the Australian people who own the ABC. The Board is independent and accountable to Parliament for the decisions it makes on how to spend the funds allocated to the public broadcaster, for decisions about how best to fulfill the Charter as set out in the ABC Act.

Why is the ABC so widely appreciated by the public in whose interests the Board acts? It’s a national asset, long loved and nurtured down through the generations. For the vast majority of Australians, it’s our most trusted source of news. It’s integral to the lives of millions, with over 70% of Australians over 18 using the ABC each week—not to mention the nation’s pre-schoolers for whom bedtime is signalled by Giggle and Hoot.

For all these reasons, when you talk about the prospects of the ABC being changed, and changed significantly, it would be negligent not to talk about the challenges the ABC is facing right now.

If you love and care for the ABC, if you support and want it to remain strong, robust and relevant within Australian life—and if you read the headlines—then you know these are uncertain times for the ABC.

In the face of this uncertainty, the ABC Board and its management team remain resolved to secure the ABC’s future in the digital age. For the ABC to be an indispensible element in the lives of millions of Australians and the life of the nation. For it, as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, to be a place where despite all the international content freely flowing within our media streams, Australians know they will find Australian stories and a national conversation.

Convergence, technological change and new competition continue to create uncertainty everywhere in the media sector.

The ABC also contends with an additional uncertainty, dependent upon funding decisions that are still to be made—or at least revealed—by the Government.

Everyone except the cynics would be a little surprised to find the ABC facing this uncertainty.

For decades now, the ABC has been funded through a bipartisan triennial funding arrangement, where three years funding has been committed by the Government of the day. This enabled the ABC to undertake multi-year contracts and plan with some certainty, most importantly in program production areas, with a secure income stream.

That security is particularly important to the ABC in that, unlike other media organisations, we effectively have no other way of raising revenue.

We’re now in the middle of the most recent triennial funding agreement, made in May 2013. This agreement still has a year and a half to run, and it’s very rare indeed for the ABC’s budget to be cut in the middle of a triennial funding agreement.

I don’t need to remind you of the very clear, public and oft-repeated commitment made by Mr Abbott before the election, and after the election, inside Parliament and outside Parliament. He guaranteed that, in its first term of office, the Government would maintain the ABC’s budget.

These are facts that I can report—I’m not going to provide further commentary.

The reality is the ABC’s budget has already been cut this year. And more cuts are on the way.

Earlier in the year, I’d imagined that by the time I’d be speaking to you here at the University of Melbourne, we’d know the future funding position for the ABC.

Not so.

We are still not sure precisely how much will be cut. We are still not sure precisely when the cuts will become payable. And decisions around size and timing could, naturally, have a material impact on ABC audiences.

I want to pay tribute to our staff. As I have said to them, the very best thing they can do during this period of uncertainty is to do their very best work. And they’ve done it, continuing to be completely professional, dedicating themselves to bringing Australian stories and conversations to Australians everywhere regardless of the climate of uncertainty in which they’ve had to work.

Some commentators have suggested the ABC should stop grandstanding and get on with belt-tightening. The reality is the ABC has already been belt-tightening, and taken steps to deal with what amounts to a $120 million funding cut over four years.

In the May budget, the Government introduced the somewhat novel concept of a “down payment”. This “down payment” came in the form of an extraction of funds from our triennial funding settlement—a 1% cut to base funding and the termination of the Australia Network contract, which still had over 9 years to run.

ABC International has been forced to downsize and more than 80 people have left the ABC as a result—many great talents are now lost to us, over a thousand years of experience has gone out the door.

The challenge was not helped at all by the fact that compensation provided by DFAT for terminating the contract fell short—by more than $5 million—of the actual costs of termination.

We have also taken steps to deal with the first tranche of the $40 million base funding cut. No one’s procrastinating.

Now, “down payments” normally provide some notion of rights for the payee about when and how the final payment will be made.

But not so in this case.

The final strategy for dealing with the funding cuts will have to be determined by the Board and Executive once the size of the cut and the repayment timing is known. Obviously both will have a significant effect on the decisions that must be made.

And since rumour loves a vacuum, while we’ve been waiting for the Government to reveal just how much more they want back from the ABC, some of the ABC’s critics have taken this opportunity to step up and offer us helpful guidance on where cuts must be made, while ABC supporters have been telling us where they must not be made.

We’re hopeful that this will, finally, be resolved soon.

In the meantime, we continue to develop a range of options to deal with what we do know, and contingency plans to deal with what we don’t.

And while I’m not able to deal with specifics tonight, I do want show you how we’re thinking through the considerable challenge.

Let’s begin with efficiency.

Read the rest here.