Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

You're right, Senator Hanson-Young: the ABC does play a very important role in the cultural life and promotion of the arts within this country. I would certainly hope that, following the changes that have been made by ABC management, that continues to be a strong focus of the ABC. Obviously, they have made some decisions about how resources will be allocated, what units will be established and what units will be changed, and those decisions were made by ABC management. But I would expect, and I'm sure Minister Rowland would expect, that ABC management would continue to uphold its obligations under the ABC Charter. But the fact is that the Albanese government has delivered on our commitment to restore many of the cuts that were made by the coalition government. Those cuts did damage the ABC. We were very proud to commit to the restoration of that funding. That's exactly what has been delivered, and we continue to support a very strong ABC going forward.