Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Our ABC is a critical national institution that has provided free, unbiased and quality news and entertainment broadcasting for nearly 100 years. Unfortunately, our Morrison Liberal-National government seems hellbent on ripping it apart.

Currently, the ABC receives its funding in three-yearly cycles and, as we have seen over and over again, this leaves the ABC vulnerable to the political whims of the government of the day. The current funding arrangement erodes the ABC's capacity for impartiality and leaves it open to financial attack by the government of the day. And, as we know, destroying the ABC is deep in the Morrison government's DNA. I remember the attacks from earlier this year by members of this place, in the Senate, labelling the ABC a 'taxpayer-funded activist group' at war with the mainstream of Australian values.

Are these people serious? Just for a second imagine being the person who wants to destroy the service that provides fire emergency broadcasting. Perhaps, though, this should not come as a surprise. We all remember the experience of 2020, when our Prime Minister and his government couldn't give a flying fire truck about fire affected communities. Labor, in government, would grant the ABC the certainty that it requires to make investments and to go forward in a way that maximises the output it has and the services it provides that we all rely on.

For Christmas, I and many other Australians want a plan to end the attacks on the ABC and support for our national public broadcaster.