Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Australia's national and community broadcasters play a vital role in the health of our democracy and in the diversity of our media landscape. The government recognises both the ABC and SBS as being amongst Australia's most important and trusted cultural institutions. In the last triennial funding round, in 2009, the Labor government provided the ABC with the largest increase in its operational base funding since 1983, consisting of an additional $165 million between 2009 and 2012. In this year's budget, ahead of next year's triennial funding for the national broadcasters, the government provided an additional $158 million over five years to the SBS to ensure that it remains a vibrant and dynamic broadcaster. Again, this was the largest increase in SBS's history.