Susan Lamb (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I love our ABC, and I know that the people in the community where I live in Longman do too. They love their ABC; I've had countless people from Caboolture, Burpengary, Bribie Island, Beachmere and Morayfield—choose any spot across Longman—approach me worried about the coalition governments and what they've been doing, and are seeking to do, to our beloved ABC.

We all remember how the member for Warringah, Tony Abbott, promised during the 2013 election campaign that there would be no funding cuts to the ABC under his government. We all know how that turned out, don't we! Since 2014, the out-of-touch Liberals have overseen $282 million in cuts to the ABC. That has seen 800 jobs lost and a drop in Australian content and services, including the axing of both the Australia Network and short-wave radio offerings. And, as announced in the then Treasurer Scott Morrison's 2018 budget, they are going to do it all again, this time cutting $83.7 million worth of funding over the next three years.

I commend the member for Mayo for calling these disgraceful cuts out for what they are. This is privatisation by stealth. In an era of fake news and outrageous editorials, we need the ABC more than ever. Australians trust the ABC because the ABC has earned that trust. It has earned our trust by reporting the facts, by remaining impartial and by avoiding bias, as has been proven by study after study. It has earned our trust by acting as a towering figure in the fourth estate. The ABC holds people and governments to account.

Programs like 7.30 and Four Corners not only keep regular Australians abreast of what is happening in their capital, in their country or anywhere in the world, they help to shape their present. The in-depth reporting that is ever present in the programming guides political discourse, helping us, as politicians, to do much better. For example, it was Four Corners that highlighted the rorting and abuse of seniors in aged-care facilities. It has been their damning reports that have pushed this government into finally acting by calling for a royal commission into the sector. The Liberals have shown their contempt for the aged-care sector. Prime Minister Morrison cut $1.2 billion from aged care in his very first budget, but the ABC stoked the flames of political pressure that ultimately incited this royal commission. Congratulations, ABC!

The cuts to the ABC were not about budget repair and they were not about reducing any non-existent waste. The cuts to the ABC were a matter of ideology, pure and simple. We all know there are countless members of the Institute of Public Affairs, or the IPA, within the ranks of the LNP government. The IPA have long advocated for the ABC to be broken up and privatised. It just so happens that the Minister for Communications and the Arts, Mitch Fifield, the minister presiding over the cuts to the ABC, is not only a card-carrying member of this partisan organisation but he is also one of their donors. Minister Fifield has been anything but subtle in his attempts to undermine our 'Aunty' ABC. He has publicly admitted that he sees merit in its privatisation and he currently has three bills before parliament that have been designed to inflict damage on our ABC.

The Liberals have engaged in this battle against our ABC for many, many years, slowly chipping away at the very network which reaches 71 per cent of Australians each and every week, and it's pretty clear these attacks will continue into the future. In June this year, the Liberal Party's peak council, which represents party branches across the country, voted overwhelmingly in favour of selling off the ABC.

It's not just the party council engaged in these attacks, it's their next generation, the Young Liberals. In their submission to the Treasury, ahead of the 2018-19 budget release, the Young Liberals called for a wide-scale reduction of the funding provided to the ABC. Having only just expressed their alarm at the level this government's mismanagement has inflicted upon our nation, it isn't easy to understand their rationale by cutting a service that they recognise as continually returning money to the budget.

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