Calls to privatise ABC & SBS “not Coalition policy”
Tony Abbott says calls to privatise the ABC and SBS are ''not Coalition policy,'' but state Libs will apply pressure to sell them off.
- Published by David Knox
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Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says calls to privatise the ABC and SBS are ”not Coalition policy,” in the lead-up to the Federal Election.
Victorian State Liberals claims both organisations are struggling to comply with their charters and that privatising them would raise funds to pay off government debt.
This is a change from the usual catch-cries to merge both (a concept that TV Tonight readers have continually played down as an industry priority in annual surveys).
This weekend the Victorian Liberal Party’s state conference will vote on a motion urging the federal Coalition to make a full-scale ”operational review” of both broadcasters.
Fairfax reports the motion says the original arguments for public ownership and operation of the ABC and SBS are ”no longer valid in 2013”, arguing both ”aggressively compete” with private media outlets in a ”high-velocity public information environment”.
”Public ownership of like corporations is not compatible with Coalition policies,” the motion says. ”In a complex communication market where media outlets are required to set the agenda, ABC/SBS are finding it increasingly difficult to comply with their respective charters, thereby alienating constituents.”
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the motion was a ”clear warning” of the policies to expect if the Coalition wins the next election.
23 Responses
“Public Broadcasters” for sale?, that would certainly need an extended “ATM ” credit allowance even for a limited number of cashed up rich Australians.
But every cloud has a Red and Silver lining, possibly for any media celebrity called Andrew, and again especially if at least 3 planets named, The Report,The Insider and The Media, suddenly became within gravitational reach of the world he inhabits, but they would all need aligning into the “Right Orbit”, before he could land with his crew of Niki and possibly one other of his Piers.
Initially his time could be mostly consumed by rehearsing a coalition of political celebrities and “Drumming” up faithful old has-beens who would require little rehearsing, as they have repeated their lines over and over and ov….., with any available free time, possibly devoted to sorting out ethnicity of some other planetary inhabitants.
I understood your first sentence…
Why would Conroy say that this is a clear warning, unless he’s upset about the ABC finally become a fair broadcaster for once. This is the man who wants to control the media in Labor’s favour.
@ David Knox
Point taken and accepted David, but in defence of us, your loyal followers, it was not us who kicked the first ABC/SBS political football.
Let’s not turn this into a Liberal bashing political point scoring thanks. Yes the topic is on the table but it’s not license to run rampant with political agendas. The issue is whether broadcasters should remain public or private thanks.
I would be devasted if this happened .leave the ABC and SbS alone . They are both great public broadcasters. Most of my viewing is on ABC.. The only broadcaster that peovides a fair and balanced view and tells it like it is .no bull tv.These liberals are going to sell everything just to get their budget surplus . Wll have to rethink my vote now.
This is a stupid move , but appeals to the right wing of the Liberal Party who like the Republicans in the US don’t want tp pay for any public broadcasting.
Gina could buy it where she could employ Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones to be on air most nights of the week.Andrew Bolt says in his blog he doesn’t want the Liberal Party to not fund the ABC because they are all lefties.
We will have to demonstrate if there are more talks of doing this
We need to find out the names of the Victorian MP’s who are backing such a move and lobby them to change their minds.
1. The ABC will never be privatised
2. It is not Coalition policy and never will be
3. The ABC does consistently demonstrate a left wing bias. James Allan said it well in today’s Australian – ” Remember, this is not a private broadcaster that relies on advertisers and in a market economy decides for itself what views it wishes to appeal to. This is a publicly funded broadcaster with a statutory obligation to be even-handed. It spends billions of taxpayer dollars in a way that millions of Australians think is biased (when it comes to current affairs).
There’s an easy way to show how pathetically unpersuasive are the ABC’s arguments. Imagine every appointment to the top ABC news shows is given only to a right-of-centre person with Coalition links (as so many present ones have Labor links).”
4. I love the ABC
5. Selling off SBS may be worthwhile but it isn’t worth anything.
The Liberals have always (wrongly) believed that the ABC and SBS are biased to the left. Selling them off to commercial interests (i.e wealthy interests) would be a perfect way for an Abbott government to ensure that there is absolutely no rigorous political debate in this country at all. Given the amount of noise the Liberals and News Ltd made about “freedom of speech” when a fairer form regulation was proposed recently for the media, this proposal is amazing – but watch out, Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey & Co are about to hit this country with all manner of regressive change in the name of the “emergency” which they have so neatly contrived for themselves.
All this because the ABC drama department commissioned Cliffy. Does seem a bit harsh.
It’s a small number of extreme free-market Liberals trying to get it approved as a non-binding policy of the Victorian state branch of the Liberal party. Just because they think they can. It is no relevant than left wing branches of the ALP supporting the PLO.
The ABC and SBS already contract out their distribution and transmission (to the same companies) so there are no saving to be made there.
There may be some saving in combining back office functions but as ABC staff are on higher wages and better condition there would be no real saving to be made and the Government would never bother.
The only real waste is the duplication of ABC2 and SBS2 going after the same market and bidding up programming costs. But not a big deal.
As far as charters go the ABC is is meeting theirs as well as any public broadcaster is going to do.
SBS TV is not meeting most of its charter but its charter doesn’t make sense in an internet age.
Why don’t they flog off the National Gallery, the War Memorial and the National Library as well. Should bring in a few quid. And selling ASIO might also get a few bucks (I’m sure the Chinese would be interested in buying it). And why don’t we put Parliament House into private hands – surely the government should not be in the property business when the private sector could do a much better job. So much sarcasm, so little time!
Is this “not Coalition policy” or “not Coalition core-policy”?
It’s an absolutely terrible idea. The market is only just able to support three commercial networks.
Can you imagine the nightmare scenario of 5 channels of ‘reality’ garbage, bimbo reporters, crap sports coverage and endless ad breaks. Not for me.
It is not the govts money, it is taxpayers money, as a tax payer, whose views are very much to the right, I am happy for my tax to be used to support both ABC & SBS. I like their standards and quality. On the poltical shows, some of the views expressed are polar to mine, I like that, it is a good challenge.
It is only a motion to discuss/debate and I am happy to join that debate
I read this article this morning and can’t decide how I feel about it. On the one hand it’ll save the government hundreds of millions a year by not having to fund these networks. On the other hand, however, without government funding it is likely we would see the newly FTA NITV channel closed and never to be seen again as it is a poor investment from a business stand point even though it is vital to keeping Indigenous programming alive, as well as all the locally produced content both the ABC and SBS likely cancelled. I think what the government has currently done in ‘loaning’ the ABC money to move premises is a brilliant idea as it means the money will return to the government once the ABC has it, and perhaps this is more so what the government should be looking at – giving money to fund operations but only loaning money for other costs (new premises, expansion of premises, etc.). In my opinion that would be the most suitable option for both government costs and local television.
So typical. Who sold the CBA, Qantas, Telstra etc.?
Who would buy it? Gina? Rupert?
“Talk to Coalition MPs as the election comes closer and there is an even stronger view … that the ABC is barracking for one side.” OMG, gimme a break. Not ABC’s fault that Tony Abbott won’t front up on Q&A.
@AlexD – How would it “improve competition” unless ABC and SBS were fully commercial? ABC1 already beats TEN and often Nine. ABC radio is #2 in yesterday’s Sydney radio survey. There are plenty of other ways to “save government costs”.
Bad idea.
Putting it into context, a politcal party’s state level conference is putting forward a motion to debate. Hardly a massive shift in policy
Will never happen. Nine, Seven and Ten will never allow it.
This would be a stupid move. We need at least one broadcaster who is largely free of commercial bias.
No it would be a horrible move. It would destroy all media independence left in this country handing all sources of mainstream information to the Oligarchs.
Not to mention commercial tv is the pits and has no class or grain of intelligence.
This would be a good move, it would improve competition and save government costs.