Communications minister says broadcaster using government as a ‘bogey man’ to give it ‘cover for changes it wanted to make anyway’

Malcolm Turnbull has denied funding cuts to the ABC are an “efficiency dividend” because the government first ensured the broadcaster had the capacity to make the savings without any cuts to programming.

In an interview with Guardian Australia, the communications minister said the ABC had announced programming changes as part of its budget cuts because it was using the government as a “bogey man” to give it “cover for changes it wanted to make anyway”.

Tony Abbott has repeatedly said the cuts to ABC funding do not contradict his pre-election promise that there would be “no cuts to the ABC” because they were really an efficiency dividend, similar to that imposed across government agencies.

The prime minister repeated the “efficiency dividend” argument during the closed-door party meeting of Liberal and National MPs on Wednesday.

But asked whether the cuts were in fact an efficiency dividend, Turnbull said: “It is not an efficiency dividend, no. An efficiency dividend is an annual compounding reduction in an appropriation to a department or agency which has to come out of running costs … it is a compounding haircut. We did not do that at the ABC. What we did was develop an informed view [through the Lewis review of ABC and SBS funding] about what they could save from efficiencies without reducing the envelope of funding available to programming, what they could save from back office functions and transmission contracts.”

Asked what he would say to those protesting against the cuts, Turnbull replied: “I say to them, the evidence is very clear, you can blame the government’s savings measure if you like for the closure of the production facility in Adelaide or losing jobs in back office changes, but in terms of program changes that has nothing to do with the government.”

Many Coalition MPs have expressed outrage at the closure of five regional radio offices and the education minister, Christopher Pyne, has started an online petition against the decision to close the TV production studio in his home town of Adelaide.

But Turnbull said it was not yet possible to decide whether the programming changes represented an overall reduction in services to rural and regional Australia, because it was not yet clear what programs would replace the ones that had been discontinued. And he said he could understand the decision to close the Adelaide production facilities.

“As for the program changes at Radio National … for example Bush Telegraph … we need to see what replaces them,” Turnbull said.

He said closing regional radio offices did not affect content according to the ABC itself.

“A number were literally just offices, one of them didn’t even have a person sitting in it,” he said.

“And the decision in respect of the production facilities in Adelaide I can understand, any production facility to be viable needs to have a lot of throughput … the future of this facility has been argued about for a long time.”

Asked whether Coalition MPs sounded hypocritical when they argued against the consequences of cuts imposed by their own government, Turnbull said: “I couldn’t possibly comment … I respect the right of every MP to argue for their own electorate.”

Turnbull also took issue with comments on Radio National on Tuesday morning by ABC board member Fiona Stanley that the board was “not really supposed to influence programming”.

“With great respect to Dr Stanley, that is not consistent with what the ABC Act says,” Turnbull said. “The idea the board does not have a role in this area is just wrong … they do have a role in the choices that are made, the board is responsible for running the company.”

During question time on Tuesday, Abbott railed against suggestions from opposition leader Bill Shorten that he had lied before the election.

“This is someone Julia Gillard could not trust, someone Kevin Rudd could not trust, and now he wants to make trust an issue ... When the budget situation deteriorates we have to search for savings,” Abbott said.

Abbott conceded he had made the “no cuts to the ABC or SBS” promise on the eve of the election, but said the government had been forced to address the budget deficit it had inherited.

Turnbull conceded the promise had “not been fulfilled” if taken in isolation from other government statements about the ABC “not being immune” from across-the-board spending cuts.

“Well if you take the view that Tony Abbott’s remarks the night before the election on SBS trumped and obliterated everything his colleagues had said on this matter, then, yes, that promise, if that, if that is a promise, has not been fulfilled,” he said.

During the closed door meeting of Liberal and National MPs, many criticised the cuts announced by the ABC, with one MP calling them “political payback”, another suggesting that Triple J should have been cut because it wasn’t very popular anyway, and one even suggesting that the whole ABC should be “put out to tender”.

Asked about the job cuts at Radio National, Turnbull said it had been “a workers’ collective for quite some time”.

The government has challenged Labor to pledge it would reverse the cuts it is criticising.

Shorten has said only that Labor does not believe “the cuts need to be as deep as they are” and has committed to “increase the funding of the ABC”.

“Of course we’re going to need to see quite how much damage gets done,” he said.

