CANBERRA (Pacific Media Watch / MacroBusiness.com / The Guardian / Media Entertainment Arts Alliance): The Australian Broadcasting Corporation may close many of its foreign bureaux following yesterday's announcement that the Australia Network will shut its doors in three months time, with up to 80 staff being made redundant.
When conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the budget this week, he introduced cuts of A$120 million over four years, as well as an $8 million cut to SBS, The Guardian newspaper reported.
These massive budget cuts mean that many ABC foreign bureaux, which are funded by the Australia Network, will have to be closed.
"I haven’t felt that there has been really an open-minded genuine dialogue and discussion around the future of the network,” said the ABC’s managing director, Mark Scott.
Scott told The Guardian that although ABC's partnership with Guardian Australia where Edward Snowden's leaks were reported had "antagonised the government", the ABC would "never be a puppet or a propaganda arm of the government".
Closing the foreign bureaux will be a blow to coverage of Pacific issues, as well as coverage of regional and rural Australian stories.
The Australian journalists' union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance condemned the Australian government.
'Broken promise'
"The funding cuts are a broken promise and are being inflicted on organisations that are already starved of funds. MEAA is also concerned that the decision to abandon the ABC-operated Australia Network may have flow-on effects that harm the ABC's international coverage," MEAA media director Paul Murphy said.
"Abbott made a promise that there would be no cuts to the ABC or SBS on the eve of his election. That promise has been broken and comes after unprecedented political interference in the editorial independence of public broadcasting in Australia. What is more sinister is that the Budget papers say tonight's cuts are just a 'down payment' on even harsher cuts to come out of the efficiency audit currently underway, cuts that will further cripple the broadcasters," Murphy added.
"You can't hold a public broadcaster together on string and band-aids. There is a real cloud now over the ability of the ABC to meet the requirements of its charter in serving regional and rural Australia. SBS, which was starved of funds in recent years, is once again in a desperate position," Murphy said.
The budget cuts at the public broadcaster come just a week after 600 Australian Fairfax journalists went on strike at six newspapers over threatened downsizing, cost-cutting and redundancy plans.
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