Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Relations between the ABC and the Australian government

Relations between public broadcasters and the governments that provide all or much of their funding, and establish and maintain their legal status, have typically been through periods of turbulence since the rise of current affairs and documentaries in broadcasting.

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The ABC's treatment of current affairs?including This Day Tonight and its successors The 7.30 Report and Lateline on television, and AM on radio, have been criticised by the political right for alleged left-wing bias in its reporting. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the conservative Liberal Party government made several attempts to curtail the ABC's political coverage by threatening to reduce funding to the news and current affairs division. In the late 1980s, the Hawke Labor government proposed commercialising the ABC, a move that was successfully resisted by the organisation itself and a significant groundswell of devotees among the public. The Hawke government also proposed to merge the ABC and its sister organisation, the Special Broadcasting Service; again, this move was unsuccessful, this time because the enabling legislation failed to pass the Senate. The Howard government cut the ABC's operating grants by 10% soon after coming to office in 1996.

Related Topics:
The 7.30 Report - Liberal Party

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