After the board meeting attended by the Minister – following his opening of the new radio station at Ballarat - the ABC issued a press release in which chairman Donald McDonald outlined a number of issues ‘of key significance to the ongoing effective operation of the Corporation’ on which it ‘sought clarification from the Government’. They included:.

‘$32.6 million owed to the ABC. In the 2002/03 Federal Budget, the Parliament appropriated $32.6m to be paid to the ABC prior to 30th June 2003 as part payment of the Government's contribution towards the ABC's digital conversion project. This money has yet to be received.’

$32.6m owed to the ABC? Does this mean that if the money had been paid to the ABC there would have been no need for the $26.1m of cuts made in August?

Renewal of National Interest Initiatives funding. The ABC received an additional $17.8m per annum in the 2001/02 Federal Budget for a number of initiatives, including the establishment of the station in Ballarat, a national expansion of regional radio involving 50 new positions and for business programming. That funding is scheduled to cease in 2005, and the ABC is anxious that the Government commits to renewing this invaluable funding initiative.

If it is not renewed perhaps the Minister could be invited to the eventual closing of the Ballarat radio station.

The press release also revealed that the ABC has spent $131.8m from its own resources on the conversion to digital television, while the Government has contributed only $57.6M of public money to this project (plus the $32.6M outstanding). So, the ABC was obliged by legislation to convert to digital television, for which it paid the bulk of itself, and then was denied any funding to pay for content on the channels it set up! Channels which are now discontinued, of course, so that the ABC could live within its budget.