Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. Just to pick up on Senator Scarr's last comments there in terms of SBS and ABC: I've had the opportunity to work at both and I can give a comparison of what it's like. This has to be about whether the Australian parliament supports public broadcasting in this country and in what form it supports public broadcasting. If we look at the history, certainly over the eight years that the coalition government has been in power, there is no doubt that there have been enormous cuts to public broadcasting in this country. The cuts have been exponential, not only with SBS but incredibly so with the ABC. We only have to look at the regional areas of this country. I'm sure all of those members in the other chamber who have electorates in the regional areas of Australia will know how valuable and absolutely vital the public broadcaster is to this country.

We've seen here in the Senate those from regional areas who have joined with us in our battles to stop the cuts to the ABC. Let's look at short-wave, for example, in the Northern Territory. For many, many years we fought—we even had Senator McKenzie join us on this side with Senate inquiries, acknowledging the fact that the public broadcaster is an absolutely vital service. Cutting it, and cutting it completely, in those areas where it reaches remote and regional Australians is having a detrimental impact. Let's acknowledge in the Senate that those cuts have been unfair. When you throw on top of that the pressure of now having to go down the path of advertising on the ABC and you compare the advertising on SBS, there hasn't been an adequate body of work done on that. Ask some of the employees at SBS how they think that organisation is running. I can tell you a few things they tell me. No, having advertising on SBS isn't the panacea that senators opposite would like to think it is. Nor is it an example that you should hold up to say this is why the ABC should be going down that path. That's not good policy, and, yes, it's all about politics.

The Australian parliament has to be better than that. The Australian government has to be better than that. Ask the Australian people what they think. Come to the Northern Territory and find out what people feel in relation to the fact that short-wave has disappeared. It has been gone for nearly five years. Where once we were able to hear when cyclones were coming, we were able to be made aware of road floodings and closures, remote communities, rangers out on their boats and fishos out on the seas were able to tune into the ABC through short-wave, they can no longer do that. Time and time again, I've stood in the Senate to express the importance of the ABC in remote and regional Australia. If you think putting ads on triple J and on ABC programs is the answer, then you're missing the point, as usual.

The public broadcaster is vital in its role as an independent media service not influenced by political or commercial interests. Yet this government wants to see Aussie kids watching advertisements during children's programming and it wants to see commercial influence in ABC news and current affairs. Haven't we seen, just in recent weeks, the complete attack on the ABC over the importance of integrity and reporting? You do not agree with it even now, and then you want to throw in something else to add to the pressures that the organisation is facing. It's hardly surprising, isn't it? We know that this government is on a mission to destroy the public broadcaster. You absolutely are. There is no doubt about what your intentions are. We know that you have form. I've given one example of short-wave in the Northern Territory. There are the cattle stations up there, the truckies who drive the highways and the grey nomads who go along the Stuart Highway and beyond. There's no way they know what's going on, because you removed that. Yes, you can say that the ABC made that decision, but there is a reason why it was forced to make that kind of decision. It's because you lot keep taking, keep taking and keep taking the amount of money that's required to keep a very good public service in this country.

In 2018 the Liberal federal council voted to privatise the ABC. We all know that the Howard government's attempt to privatise ABC international was an abject failure. You remember that one? ABC overseas—yes, you'll probably forget that one, conveniently. Since the coalition came to power in 2014 the ABC has lost $783 million in funding. That's according to a 2020 report into the cumulated impacts of government cuts to the public broadcaster. The report's author said:

The ABC is now operating with the smallest budget since the Howard Government's extraordinary 2% funding cut in its first budget, in 1996, which removed $55 million from the ABC's triennial funding.

Today the ABC has more services, including iView, ABC online and podcasts, yet so much less money. While facing these cuts, the bushfire crisis of summer 2020 added an extra $3 million in emergency broadcasting costs, which had to be absorbed into the budget. We are certainly grateful that they did. The ABC saves lives during emergency times, with journalists in news rooms across the country working tirelessly to get accurate and up-to-date information out. How many senators in this chamber sit on their iPads and sit on their phones and go through the news and check what the ABC is reporting? It's all those journalists and producers out there who are bringing it in here for you.

Objectivity: they are bringing stories from right around the country. All the way up there in Arnhem Land, north-east Arnhem Land, across to the Kimberley, down to Perth, over to Adelaide and across to Victoria, Mildura and Wagga—you name it. ABC journos are bringing this Senate and this country the stories that matter, yet you continuously disrespect that organisation, which is our national organisation as the public broadcaster.

Senators opposite have asked about SBS. Well, SBS certainly does punch above its weight, but, let me tell you, if you're absolutely serious in wanting to know what the workers of SBS and the workers of the ABC think about advertising, then put it to the test. Do your homework. Don't just go in there demanding that advertising take place on the ABC simply because (a) you don't want to give it any more money and (b) you don't like it anyway. That's what this is about, isn't it? It is about politics. It's not about good policy. The journalists, the producers, the staff, the camera crews, the editors—all of the people who work in our ABC newsrooms and ABC offices, from dramas to children's programs—do an exceptional job. This parliament needs to show more respect for all of those people who work for our public broadcasters, the ABC and SBS.