Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

that in a drive for efficiency, they have been centralising. And where have they been centralising? To Adelaide? To Tasmania? To Perth? To regional Australia? No. they have been centralising to Sydney. Today was a classic case of where the options were available—in fact, the options were even laid out for them where they could find efficiency measures—but it went to Sydney. They do not want to do that.

Mr Scott also talked about local radio stations in regional areas. I asked him about staffing costs, because as the footprint gets bigger we collapse local radio into each other, and why we needed to do that. He could not tell me why because the ABC does not keep central records of staffing areas. It is a little hard to look at your business and make serious decisions about efficiencies in the business if you do not actually record the details of how you are doing business, so I think there is a way to go on that. The vagueness is deeply worrying and gives the impression of a lack of transparency in how the resource allocation, via the taxpayer, marries with the charter obligations of the ABC in its role as the national broadcaster. As Minister Turnbull said in his headland speech, we need:

… more granular detail on where the ABC … spend their money and how it relates to their charter obligations.

The minister said:

The best cure for suspicion in sunlight.

I could not agree more. Without that sunlight, we are left believing ABC management see regional broadcasting as an annoying distraction from the more exciting areas of prime TV and current affairs and competing in city markets with yet another fabulous brekkie program. But it is not good enough: the ABC charter is to be a national broadcaster and not just another Sydney or Melbourne network.

Government, as I said, identified a variety of options through the efficiency review. The back office or support services function could generate $40 million and make 150 less staff potentially redundant. That was not an option taken. Savings by changing the way broadcasters negotiate the transmission contracts could save $30 million over 10 years. Savings could be made from selling properties: the building that is a car park and for costume storage—that is, not core production facilities—in, oh, hang on, North Sydney is worth around $20 million. There may be another $40 million available in implementation costs, which is why there is a savings program spread over five years with zero money actually required in year 1. It is also worth noting the ABC has 45 senior presenters and managers earning more than $200,000 a year, which is more than 10 per cent of their total staff. The government is confident there is money available without impacting on programming to meet implementation costs and that the long-term gains from modernising the business far outweigh any one-off implementation costs.

I note that today the managing director of the ABC did announce that five regional radio stations would be closing—one in Morwell in my home state. I want to go to some press about that, where a regional ABC source said:

… management's decision to shut down the Morwell studio was a "big mistake" that showed little understanding of how many major news stories were generated in the Latrobe Valley during the past year alone.

"Clearly this decision was made in Sydney," the source told Fairfax Media.

"It doesn't make any sense. For Gippsland, It's where most of the news comes from, like the courts. The power stations are there, and what happens if there is another … mine fire?"

Too Sydney-centric seems to be the recurring theme, I could not agree more.

Considering Mr Scott says savings are coming from back office, there should be no redundancies in regional Australia since ABC workers in regional Australia are all on the front line. It is worth noting the comments of ABC Chairman, James Spigelman, as he endorsed his managing director's plans. He said:

The initiatives outlined by Mr Scott comprise a carefully considered response to the twin challenges of technological change and reduced funding. We will keep a sharp eye on Mr Scott's plan for the ABC. It would not have been easy for him to look at the business and work out which areas he was going to prioritise to find efficiencies in and I hope he has chosen to balance competing issues accordingly.

Whether it is a local weather report, local issues, emergency broadcasting announcements or community events ABC radio has played a core role in country communities for over 82 years and should not be cut by the board or the managing director. While I would urge them to appreciate the important role that the ABC plays in our environmental, economic and social wellbeing, I also absolutely support the government's role in getting the budget under control.