Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ludlam for his question. As the Prime Minister made clear, both in his capacity as opposition leader and since we formed government, there is no Commonwealth government agency or department that should not look to be as efficient as it possibly can be. We on this side of the chamber are very aware of the value of every taxpayer dollar and we do not apologise for wanting to ensure that every Commonwealth government department and agency is as efficient in their expenditure of taxpayer dollars as they can possibly be. The ABC is no exception, and I would hope that the board and the management of the ABC, including the managing director, are also of the view that where efficiencies can be made that should be the case.

As colleagues would know, Minister Turnbull announced an efficiency review. We saw in the budget that there was a down payment on ABC efficiency. What is clear is that the ABC, taking efficiencies into account, should be able to continue to provide the programming and the content that they do in the wake of the decision in the budget. The decision in the budget, as is clear to colleagues on this side of the chamber, relates to back office matters. It does not relate to on-air content. I would hope that colleagues opposite could see their way to accepting what we take as a self-evidence principle of government—that it is important to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.