ABC staff have been warned a $14.6m budget cut will be implemented in the next financial year after the re-election of the Coalition.
The new managing director, David Anderson, told staff on Monday morning that a “budget challenge” was looming after his lobbying efforts in Canberra to reverse the cut fell on deaf ears.
The Labor party had promised to reverse the Coalition’s $83.7m “indexation pause” if elected and one of the ALP’s election promises was to give the ABC and the SBS an extra $60m between them.
Anderson has long indicated that more jobs were likely to go to “free up” as much money as possible for content.
“Despite extensive requests from the ABC, the budget papers locked in the $83.7m pause in indexation funding flagged in last year’s budget,” Anderson told staff in an email.
“The cut comes into effect at the start of the next financial year, with a first-year impact of $14.6m. This is on top of the $254m the ABC has had to absorb in efficiency cuts over the past five years.
“I have said many times over the past seven months that our focus must always be on freeing up as much money as possible for content, adapting what we do to ensure we spend public funds effectively while searching for efficiencies.”
Before the election Anderson said if the indexation was reversed as promised by the ALP “that is obviously a much better scenario for us”.
After his appointment by the new ABC chair, Ita Buttrose, this month Anderson said he would press for an extension of the ABC’s three-year funding cycle.
An efficiency review by the communications bureaucrat Richard Bean and the former chief executive of News Corp and Foxtel Peter Tonagh concluded that the ABC needed long-term funding certainty. Although it was ordered by the communications minister, Mitch Fifield, after his $83.7m cut in the May 2018 budget, the efficiency review has never been released.
“With confirmation that the Coalition has been returned to government, we will resume discussions with the minister about securing longer-term funding arrangements,” Anderson said. “Stable funding is essential to deliver a greater level of financial certainty and enable us to plan for the future.”
Anderson also praised the ABC’s election coverage, which was more popular than the offerings on the commercial networks or Sky News. Its television coverage reached 30% of viewers on Saturday night – or 5.3 million Australians. The Vote Compass tool has been completed more than 1.6m times.
“Only the ABC can provide this mix of grassroots local coverage and the national perspective, which makes us invaluable to our audiences,” he said.