Pauline Hanson’s plan to ‘defund’ ABC, introduce subscriptions
Pauline Hanson said the ABC would “cut its funding” and do everything but subscribe to its radio service as staff went on strike in the national broadcaster’s most serious industrial action for 20 years.
ABC staff walked off the job for 24 hours on Wednesday after negotiations over pay, conditions and artificial intelligence collapsed.
“There is an easy answer to all this,” the One Nation leader told Sky News on Wednesday night.
“Cancel $1.2 billion annually.
“Then they might have to reapply for jobs and it would just be subscription.”
Senator Hanson said regional broadcasters were “doing a great job” and said he would “keep ABC Radio going”.
“Sure, pay for it, but for the rest, turn them off and make it subscription-only.
“So if people want to pay to watch ABC, so be it. I wouldn’t fund it anymore, I would shut it down.”
Asked whether it was One Nation policy to make the ABC a subscription service for everything other than rural and regional radio, Senator Hanson said: “Correct.”
“It lost the ratings. It doesn’t get a lot of people watching, but it costs taxpayers $1.2 billion a year,” he said.
“I think that’s unrealistic and let people see if they want to watch their show.”
Presenter Chris Kenny said the ABC had been “attacking” the One Nation leader for “30 years”.
In response, Senator Hanson said: “I know.”
Senator Hanson doubled down in a later social media post, stating: “I will not miss the ABC who are currently on strike; in fact, I would fund them.
“Keep services like radio in areas that do well and make offices in the capital a subscription-only service.”
The comments are not the first time the Queensland senator has criticized the national broadcaster.
In 2017, Senator Hanson said she would boycott ABC following Four Corners’ report on One Nation and the Insider program about a senator’s planned trip to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I’ve been a little down lately, you know, and that’s why you haven’t seen me doing a lot of media work,” he said in a Facebook video at the time.
“To be honest, I was very impressed by the media.”
The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance refused to rule out the possibility of further industrial action.
