Back to square one

Whilst the prospect of sharply rising energy prices sucked the oxygen out of the post-budget commentary, there was some good news in the Treasury papers for the ABC. It will receive $83.7m over four years to restore the funding stripped from it by the former Coalition government’s freeze on annual funding increases. This freeze on indexation led to some brutal cuts to ABC output, just as the former government was insisting on new layers of reporting which critics said would lead to a loss of independence.

The ABC is delighted. In a statement released after the budget was delivered it noted the increase in operational funding would allow significant investment in services across all platforms and help the ABC to deal with rising costs and support the sustainability of ABC services.

And in a decision which will please the bean counters at both the ABC and SBS, Labor has kept its promise to move from triennial to five-year funding arrangements for both organisations from July 2023. Sadly, that’s where the good news for SBS ends: there’s no extra funding for the broadcaster.

The ABC also gets an extra $500,000 in 2022–2023 to test whether its digital-band retro music channel, Double J, can move to an FM frequency – which seems a marginally positive development considering the other demands on the national broadcaster. However, critically the budget also gives the ABC $32m over four years ($8m each year) , out of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s bottom line, to expand regional transmissions in the Pacific. This, of course, will help the new government as it attempts to re-engage with the region. As Jemima Garrett, co-convenor of the Australia Asia-Pacific Media Initiative told CMT in April, Pacific journalists and media organisations have long been calling for funding for more public-interest journalism and co-productions with Australian media. She said all bespoke ABC Australia programming had been lost under the Coalition.

There’s also some relief for print publishers in the form of a $15m newsprint rebate. This will please Australian Community Media, which has been campaigning for tax incentives and rebates to help compensate for what it claimed was an 80 percent increase in the cost of printing newspapers.

Monica Attard, CMT Co-Director