ABC funding to be cut by $254 million over five years, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull says

Updated

The ABC will have its budget cut by $254 million over the next five years, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced.

Mr Turnbull said the ABC would receive $5.2 billion in funding over that time - a cut of 4.6 per cent.

He said SBS's operating budget would be reduced by $25.2 million or 1.7 per cent over the same period.

Mr Turnbull released details of the cuts, and an executive summary of the previously secret Lewis efficiency review into the public broadcasters, during a speech in Adelaide on Wednesday.

He said the cuts were not of a scale that required any particular change to programming.

"All of the savings can be found within operational efficiencies of the kind canvassed in the Lewis efficiency study," he said.

"There is a temptation for management to blame the Government for some of these program changes. That would be cowardly.

"The ABC management know that they can meet these savings without reducing the resources available to programming - furthermore they know that the Government and their board know too."

ABC managing director Mark Scott said the corporation's executive would finalise the steps needed to make the savings required in the coming days.

"Ultimately, decisions regarding how the funding is allocated, the shape of the services the ABC delivers, and how the ABC is managed and organised, rest with the independent ABC board," he said in a statement.

"On Monday morning, I will brief staff via a national hook-up on our proposed response and then we can commence consultations."

Mr Scott said the Government had allocated no funding for the cost of inevitable redundancies which would need to be covered by the ABC from its current allocation and asset base.

"The Government has indicated to the ABC that the additional budget cuts determined by the Expenditure Review Committee amount to a four-year cut of over $200m, with a $20m cut in 2015-16, rising to $61m in 2016-17, $55m in 2017-18 and $68m in 2018-19," Mr Scott said.

Mr Turnbull said the public broadcasters should not be exempt from spending cuts that applied to almost all other government departments and services.

"In my view the ABC and SBS should so far as possible seek to be as transparent as a public-listed company. The best cure for suspicion is sunlight," he said.

"It is the Australian people who will judge whether or not they are getting value for money.

"It is the millions of citizens who tune in to the ABC or SBS each week who will decide whether the Government should continue to invest billions of dollars in these two great national institutions on their behalf."

Speaking on the ABC's 7.30 program, Mr Turnbull said all government programs were being looked at for potential savings.

"What is the alternative? Just running up more and more and more debt?" he said.

Earlier this week the ABC's Media Watch program reported that as a result of the cuts:

Friday's state-based 7.30 programs will be axed

Lateline will be cut back but it stays on the main channel

ABC bureaux in Tokyo, Bangkok, New Delhi and New Zealand will also be crunched, with a claimed loss of 20 jobs

TV production in South Australia outside news and current affairs will be shut down

$6 million will be sliced off ABC Radio, with big cuts at Classic FM.

In all around 400 to 500 jobs will go, with people being shown the door by Christmas

Mr Turnbull admitted the cuts would result in job losses across the ABC.

"The savings that the Government is requiring of the ABC will result in a number of job losses and you will have to wait for Mr Scott to describe where they will be," he said.

Lewis efficiency review recommends: The ABC and SBS share premises in Sydney and Melbourne

Removing ABC state and territory directors in every capital city

The two broadcasters stop paying for their services to be rebroadcast on Foxtel

Sell off outside broadcast vans and its Melbourne news helicopter

The ABC sell off property at Lanceley Place in Sydney

"But clearly in a business whose overhead is almost entirely, well it is largely people, wages, any reduction, any efficiency efforts, any savings are going to result, sadly for the individuals involved, in loss of employment."

The minister also told reporters that he did not agree with suggestions that the ABC should not engage in digital and online services already provided by commercial operators.

"I just refer you to the ABC Act in its charter. It says that the ABC's job is, among other things, to deliver digital and digital media services," he said.

"I think in the 21st century that is part of where any modern media organisation has to be."

More trust in ABC than Abbott, Shorten says

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the cuts were part of an agenda to undermine the public broadcaster.

"This is a clear case that Tony Abbott is going after his political critics because he just doesn't like people who disagree with Tony Abbott's narrow view of the world," Mr Shorten said.

"This is politics. This is not about the best interests of public broadcasting in this country.

Is Peppa Pig going to get cut? Tony Jones for the chop? Bill Shorten's zingers on Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell? I'm mad as hell and I'll fight for the show. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten

"The ABC does a great job and they have a higher trust regard in the Australian community than Tony Abbott. Tony Abbott should take his hands off the ABC.

"Is Peppa Pig going to get cut? Tony Jones for the chop? Bill Shorten's zingers on Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell? I'm mad as hell and I'll fight for the show."

During his speech, Mr Turnbull defended Prime Minister Tony Abbott over a promise he made on the eve of the federal election that there would be "no cuts to the ABC or SBS".

"These remarks need to be understood in context. Prior to the election many people, including competing media groups, urged the Coalition to take an axe to the ABC in order to curtail their on-air and online activities," Mr Turnbull said.

"Both Joe Hockey and I made it quite clear we had no plans to make cuts of that nature at the public broadcasters, but if there were to be savings made across the board, the ABC and SBS could not expect to be exempt from the obligation to contribute by eliminating waste and inefficiencies.

"Unless you believe that Mr Abbott was, in that one line, intending to contradict and overrule the very careful statements of intention made by Mr Hockey and myself, his remarks can only be understood in the same context, which left open savings of a kind which would not diminish the effective resources the ABC and SBS had available to produce content."

Pyne launches petition to save ABC jobs

Details of the cuts come on the same day Education Minister and federal Member for Sturt, Christopher Pyne, launched an online petition to save ABC jobs in Adelaide.

Mr Pyne said the ABC had been provided with an efficiency review that outlined ways to reduce spending at the broadcaster without impacting on production and programming.

"They have the report in front of them in black and white showing how to reduce costs without affecting production and programming," he said.

"They [job cuts] could all be in the back office area, for example, in administration, in costs incurred particularly at Ultimo."

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) said the funding cuts made it a sad day for Australians who supported the ABC and SBS.

"There is just no way that cuts of this size can be confined to back-office savings and the result will be cuts to programs, to services, and to jobs as well," said CPSU national president Michael Tull.

"We have already seen the damage the efficiency dividends have imposed on other government departments like the Tax Office and the Bureau of Statistics, where the efficiency dividend has had a terrible impact on the ability of those departments to do their core work.

"What we now know is that the ABC is facing a cut that is twice the size of those departments."

Topics: government-and-politics, budget, abc, broadcasting, information-and-communication, adelaide-5000, australia

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