Abott to break his election promise of "No cuts" to the ABC - Polidicks

[IMG]http://www.worldtvpc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/abc_australia.jpg[/IMG] [QUOTE]Prime Minister Tony Abbott is poised to break a key election promise by cutting funding to the ABC, with the question now being how much money should be cut. In a pledge his colleagues are now wishing he never made, Mr Abbott said on the night before the 2013 election: “No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.” But the Prime Minister and his colleagues on the expenditure review committee – the powerful cabinet group responsible for finding billions of dollars worth of budget savings – are considering a number of proposals for trimming the ABC’s budget. All proposals involve cuts to the ABC and conversations are now being had about how deep to cut and what cuts are politically feasible. Fairfax Media believes one of the options involves introducing an efficiency dividend to the ABC budget – an annual funding reduction used to achieve deep and continuous cuts to government agencies. The ABC was allocated $1.03 billion in the 2013 federal budget. A 2.25 per cent efficiency dividend would see the broadcaster forced to strip around $22.5 million from its budget in the first year – a figure equivalent to almost half the ABC’s annual budget for TV drama. Further cuts would then be applied in each subsequent year. The ABC is one of only three government agencies, along with SBS and Safe Work Australia, currently exempt from the efficiency dividend. A spokesman for the Prime Minister referred questions about the ABC funding promise to the office of Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull. A spokesman for Mr Turnbull said: “We don’t speculate on the budget”. It is believed the Abbott government does not consider an efficiency dividend on the ABC to be a broken promise, as nearly every other government department has one and savings need to be found across the board. Despite Mr Abbott’s categorical pre-election promise, there are political precedents for such a reversal. John Howard promised to maintain existing ABC funding levels before the 1996 election but then proceeded to cut the broadcaster’s budget by $11 million and $55 million over the next two years. The Prime Minister’s colleagues, including Treasurer Joe Hockey and the Communications Minister, Mr Turnbull, have refused to repeat Mr Abbott’s promise not to cut ABC funding. Mr Turnbull also refused to commit to maintaining ABC funding when asked directly by the ABC Friends lobby group in a meeting earlier this month. Read more: [url]http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-to-break-abc-no-cuts-promise-20140412-zqty9.html#ixzz2ypr5t9Jv[/url][/QUOTE] This is fucking unacceptable, hands off the ABC

See ABC, if you'd stop being so damn unbiased and start saying nice things about Abott, he wouldn't have to cut anything!

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Never saw this coming no siree.

It was going to happen eventually. Now, it's only a question of what promises aren't going to be broken.

That's a shame. At least he isn't cutting health and education. Not as despicable as labor cutting university funding a couple of years back, like it wasn't hard enough to get into decent courses. Hope the liberals don't go ahead with this, though. But lol, 22m out of 1.03bn. Not much in the scheme of things, but boy is he going to make the people at ABC unhappy, maybe they'll show him what real bias is after this. *EDIT* Lmao, ABC is already airing shorts smearing Abbott for considering cuts, even as minuscule as they are.

[QUOTE=Azza;44541014]That's a shame. At least he isn't cutting health and education. Not as despicable as labor cutting university funding a couple of years back, like it wasn't hard enough to get into decent courses. Hope the liberals don't go ahead with this, though. But lol, 22m out of 1.03bn. Not much in the scheme of things, but boy is he going to make the people at ABC unhappy, maybe they'll show him what real bias is after this.[/QUOTE] He probably will cut those areas as well, election promises means shit all it just puts a bad rep on you but like they care

This is why you don't get too carried away with promises on the night before the election. Of course, another promise that's bound to be broken is the no cuts to pensions - there's been lots of talk in the media today about raising the retirement age and introducing means testing, but without a doubt Abbott would try to defend that by saying the pension rate itself won't be cut, just the eligibility. [editline]14th April 2014[/editline] I think it's just disgusting though that they're proposing all these cuts and saying that everyone needs to do the heavy lifting, but Abbott won't relent with pushing ahead for paying millionaires to have babies. It's just so hypocritical.

What is an Abott?

[QUOTE=DogGunn;44541477]What is an Abott?[/QUOTE] Synonym for cunt.

I take it ABC is Australia's equivalent to the BBC and such? This is exactly why public service ought to be independent and funded by the public.

[QUOTE=megafat;44541489]Synonym for cunt.[/QUOTE] Antonym of Jesus.

[QUOTE=demoguy08;44541584]I take it ABC is Australia's equivalent to the BBC and such? This is exactly why public service ought to be independent and funded by the public.[/QUOTE] They are independent and publicly funded, that's half the problem.

[QUOTE=demoguy08;44541584]I take it ABC is Australia's equivalent to the BBC and such? This is exactly why public service ought to be independent and funded by the public.[/QUOTE] ABC is independent it just relies on government funding and through that funding is tax payers money There is a in-house joke at the ABC which started with the chasers where if something the ABC did was "controversial" it was considered a waste of tax payers money, in fact one episode of the chasers had the intro title reading that. There used to be a tv fee but it was thrown out in the 60's or 70's I believe because they found it was more effective if the government put money into it

Of fucking course they call it an 'efficiency dividend'. They can't even bear to call them cuts themselves. They've got an formula for governing so rusted on you'd think it was part of the the foliage, so much so it seems even they're starting to believe its part of the background. [editline]14th April 2014[/editline] Still, ABC funding cut aside, the worst is still to come. They haven't announced how they will tinker with the GST yet. Look forward for the creeping reliance on flat-tax

fucking pathetic