Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I can say Peppa Pig is quite safe. I know she has been criticised by some people but I am a great supporter of Peppa Pigand, as the very, very proud grandfather of an eight-month-old baby boy—my daughter's son—Lucy and I and all our family are looking forward to young Jack becoming a similar devotee of Peppa Pig.

In terms of the Lewis review, the answer to the honourable member's question is that I do not anticipate the review being published in full and I don't think the management or the boards of either company would want that to happen.

At the moment the review is being completed. It was a very constructive collaborative work with ABC and SBS management and, obviously, presided over by Peter Lewis. He had been the longstanding CFO of the Seven Network and had very current domain expertise in that area. It has been a very thorough work. It is the first of its kind that has been done for a very long time, and I think our department—and of course the Department of Finance—now understand more about the financial status and operations of ABC and SBS than they ever have. The review is now with the board and the management of the two public broadcasters, and we are looking forward to discussing how these recommendations can be implemented.

It is very important to note that there are substantial savings that can be achieved—that much is clear from the review—but entirely in what we would call back-of-house areas. This does not affect the resources available for programming. This is savings in terms of facilities, administration and so forth.

It is important to remember that running a public broadcaster is a very difficult business. Your top line, your revenue line, is not a function of your performance; it is simply a function of your ability to persuade the government of the day to give you some money. If you are running a commercial broadcaster and you cut your programming resources, you run the risk that that will drive your ratings down further and your revenues will go down further and it becomes a spiral. It is not unfamiliar or unprecedented.

The problem with a public broadcaster is that the easiest way to cut spending is to cut programming. It is by far the easiest way to do it. The consequence is that it is very important to ensure that we understand how savings can be made without impacting on programming or resources. I am not suggesting that the approach that we asked them to undertake is an easy one; it is a difficult one—

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