Federal budget cuts to the ABC will amount to around $254 million over five years from 2016, totalling a modest reduction of some 5% in funding. Plenty of savings could be found in such a large organisation without damaging the quality or range of programs.
However, Managing Director Mark Scott says he will be forced to slash jobs and dump programs. Conveniently, Mr Scott can blame the Abbott Government and, in particular, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, for making changes he was likely to have implemented in any case.
Mr Scott has long held to the view that persisting with speciality programming is no way to increase audience numbers. He has also been keen to free up resources to fund his push to digital services.
The 5% budget cuts allow ABC management to fell two birds with one strategically-aimed stone. The budget cuts are also being used as a convenient pretext by the prevailing forces of secularism inside the ABC to secure some key cultural victories within the organisation.
One of those victories is likely to be the defeat of specialised religious programs.
The religion unit at the ABC's HQ in Ultimo is small, under-staffed, and under-resourced, but still produces programs of high quality and wide interest.
Yet staff fear some 40% of them will lose their jobs and that 70% of the unit's funding will disappear. Sources have confirmed that these fears are well-founded.
Fortunately this move against religious content on the ABC has provoked the concern of leading religious figures from across Australia: 30 of them wrote recently to the ABC Board emphasising the importance of religion to the life of our nation. They were right to do so.
The government is understandably keen for Mark Scott to do his job and use public resources more efficiently.
But a national taxpayer funded broadcaster needs to ensure its output reflects the interests and values of the broadest cross-section of the community. The religious leaders are right in saying that faith and values "will always occupy a central part in the formation of our Australian national identity."
Placing religious programming in the cross-hairs of the ABC's fiscal razor gang is too cute by half. ABC managers have long been players in the culture war, and it is disingenuous to veil their secularist agenda in the garb of budgetary constraint.
Peter Kurti is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies.
Home > Commentary > Opinion > Cuts being used as convenient pretext at ABC
Cuts being used as convenient pretext at ABC
However, Managing Director Mark Scott says he will be forced to slash jobs and dump programs. Conveniently, Mr Scott can blame the Abbott Government and, in particular, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, for making changes he was likely to have implemented in any case.
Mr Scott has long held to the view that persisting with speciality programming is no way to increase audience numbers. He has also been keen to free up resources to fund his push to digital services.
The 5% budget cuts allow ABC management to fell two birds with one strategically-aimed stone. The budget cuts are also being used as a convenient pretext by the prevailing forces of secularism inside the ABC to secure some key cultural victories within the organisation.
One of those victories is likely to be the defeat of specialised religious programs.
The religion unit at the ABC's HQ in Ultimo is small, under-staffed, and under-resourced, but still produces programs of high quality and wide interest.
Yet staff fear some 40% of them will lose their jobs and that 70% of the unit's funding will disappear. Sources have confirmed that these fears are well-founded.
Fortunately this move against religious content on the ABC has provoked the concern of leading religious figures from across Australia: 30 of them wrote recently to the ABC Board emphasising the importance of religion to the life of our nation. They were right to do so.
The government is understandably keen for Mark Scott to do his job and use public resources more efficiently.
But a national taxpayer funded broadcaster needs to ensure its output reflects the interests and values of the broadest cross-section of the community. The religious leaders are right in saying that faith and values "will always occupy a central part in the formation of our Australian national identity."
Placing religious programming in the cross-hairs of the ABC's fiscal razor gang is too cute by half. ABC managers have long been players in the culture war, and it is disingenuous to veil their secularist agenda in the garb of budgetary constraint.
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