Community Radio and the 2015-16 Federal Budget

The 2015-16 Commonwealth budget night is set for 12 May.

The CBAA’s Policy and Advocacy Officer Joel Pringle will be attending the lock-up in Canberra and the CBAA will provide updates on items affecting community broadcasting.

To give some preliminary background, Joel has provided the following recap from last year’s budget:

The 2014-15 budget was quite eventful for community radio. The new Coalition Government had established a Commission of Audit to look for savings to government expenditure. In May 2014, the Commission of Audit released its recommendations; this included that the Community Broadcasting Program, through which community radio stations receive Commonwealth funding, be cut in total.

In response, the CBAA re-invigorated Commit To Community Radio to run a high profile campaign in the lead up to the 2014-15 Budget. This campaign had been previously been developed in 2012 to ensure funding for digital radio and proved a major asset allowing the sector to respond so quickly and so effectively.

The 2014-15 Budget did not implement the cuts to community radio recommended in by the Commission of Audit. However, it did implement a four-year freezing of the indexation for the Community Broadcasting Program. Effectively, this meant a cut of just over $3 million over that four years.

We’ll be keeping an eye on these issues and others that may affect the sector. Watch this space for further updates once the budget is released next week.