DEMOCRACY
MEMBER EXPERTS
Democracy in a time of plague The ABC and universities The COVID-19 crisis seems to be wreaking havoc on public institutions like our universities and the ABC.
The savage cuts to both the ABC and universities are no coincidence. The ABC and universities produce valuable public goods which governments tend to dislike.
Professor Judith Bessant Global, Urban & Social Studies RMIT University Professor Rob Watts Global, Urban & Social Studies RMIT University
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Our 37 public universities have taken a huge hit to their revenues leading to talk about the need for severe job losses. As for the ABC, it announced recently that 250 jobs will go along with the 7.45AM radio news bulletin. This, however, is not the full story. What we face now is not just an effect of pandemic. For decades Australian governments have systematically cut funding to public universities, forcing them to chase additional revenue by selling degrees to international students. COVID-19 dried up much of that supply in February with a hit to the Budget of between $3 billion to $4 billion for 2020 alone. Curiously, when most other industries were getting billions of dollars of government support, public universities were denied access to the JobKeeper allowance just when vice-chancellors began talking of redundancies. While Prime Minister Morrison claims there have been no funding cuts to the ABC, a few inconvenient
Sentry
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AUGUST 2020
facts suggest otherwise. Morrison’s predecessor Tony Abbott cut $254 million from the ABC in 2014, while Malcolm Turnbull imposed a funding freeze worth $84 million taking effect in 2018–20. All told, $783 million has been cut since 2014. As with all crime stories, there is no such thing as a coincidence. The savage cuts to both the ABC and universities are no coincidence. The ABC and universities produce valuable public goods which governments tend to dislike. The Morrison Government prefers the market idea that everything should have a price rather than the idea that public goods such as knowledge, clean air, news and information should be freely available to all. In an age when governments rely on spin, universities and the ABC produce public goods like information, critical commentary, and ‘inconvenient’ facts. Apart from providing feebased professional education, our universities create public goods such as knowledge, critical thought, and scientific research. The ABC produces free-to-air reliable, trustworthy news, critical public affairs commentary and cultural resources like drama, entertainment, and music.
