It’s official: The Liberals do not support public broadcasting and want to sell-off the ABC. 

If Australians needed any more proof that the Liberals are on a mission to destroy the public broadcaster, they got it when the Liberal Federal Council voted to privatise the ABC.

The out of touch Liberals want to dismantle a vital institution in our democracy and silence the independent voice that has spoken to and of our nation for over 85 years.

Privatising the ABC could mean:

• Aussie kids watching advertisements during children’s programming
• Commercial influence in ABC news and current affairs
• Metropolitan and regional Australians missing out on popular ABC programming like Four Corners, Australian Story and Gruen
• An end to cutting-edge innovation enabled by public funding, which has delivered everything from ABC iview to Kath & Kim
• Putting high quality Australian drama, documentary and investigative reporting behind a paywall
• Further reductions in the diversity of Australia’s media sector – already one of the most concentrated media markets in the world.

The ABC is for all Australians, across metropolitan, regional and rural areas and some 17 million Australians consume some form of ABC content every week. 

The ABC is not and never has been a market failure broadcaster.

In an era of global competition, media consolidation and fake news, the need for an innovative, comprehensive and independent public broadcaster only gets stronger. 

Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberals simply do not support a properly-funded ABC that serves the Australian public and holds the government to account.

In contrast, Labor believes the ABC is one of Australia’s most important public institutions, which is why we have committed to reversing Malcolm Turnbull’s unfair $83.7 million cut and have guaranteed stable funding. 

The difference could not be clearer. 

The only way to save the ABC is to change the government.