Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I think colleagues know well that decisions regarding which efficiencies will be implemented and when are matters for the SBS and ABC boards, but the statistic that I knew you were waiting to hear from me and which I will share with colleagues is that, over the next five years, the public broadcasters ABC and SBS will receive $6.6 billion of taxpayer funding. I think it is important that I share with you something from Minister Turnbull's speech today in relation to the issue of programming, which I know frequently comes up. 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…

We know that and the ABC know that. (Time expired)