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The Albanese government’s federal budget will include quadrupling the base funding for the eSafety Commissioner from 2023-2024 onwards and delivering five-year funding terms for national broadcasters ABC and SBS.
“Labor’s commitments provide certainty and support many important areas that were either left unfunded by the former Liberal-National Government, or were simply ignored,” said a statement released by Communications minister Michelle Rowland.
“These measures will collectively improve online safety, safeguard our democracy, enhance emergency communications, and support regional and First Nations communities – key priorities for the Government,” the statement said.
The Albanese Government’s federal budget will quadruple ongoing base funding to the eSafety Commissioner from 2023-24 onwards, addressing the funding cliff left behind by the Liberals and Nationals. This will provide certainty and stability to the online safety regulator and build a safer experience online for Australians.
eSafety’s responsibilities have grown significantly since it was first established in 2015, but base funding has never been increased. Funding decisions taken by the former Liberal-National Government meant this key agency was facing a funding cliff.
Without intervention, eSafety’s funding would have dropped from $51.8 million to just $21.3 million next year, before declining further to just $10.3 million from 2027-28, severely impacting the regulator’s ability to do its important job.
The Albanese Government’s investment will allow eSafety to keep up with demand for its takedown schemes, deliver more education programs and hold industry to account for keeping their users safe.
This funding will also ensure eSafety can better coordinate with law enforcement to remove child sexual exploitation materials, commission additional research and evaluations to guide its work, and elevate the voices of young people in the development and delivery of online safety policies.
Stable funding to support media sustainability and safeguard democracy
The Government is delivering on its election commitment to five-year funding terms for the national broadcasters – with annual funding of $1.1 billion for the ABC and $334.9 million for SBS.
This funding stability underpins the delivery of quality content and services that inform, entertain and educate millions of Australians, including children, regional audiences and diverse multicultural communities.
The ABC and SBS will receive an additional $72 million over four years to extend and roll three previously terminating programs. This includes ABC Enhanced News Gathering, SBS Media Sector Support, and ABC and SBS Audio Description.
The ABC will receive $8.5 million over four years to expand transmission infrastructure in the Pacific under the Indo-Pacific Broadcasting Strategy. The funding will provide further access to Australian content, boosting media connections in the region.
The Albanese Government will also provide $5 million to help sustain the Australian Associated Press (AAP) while the News MAP is developed to guide news media policy intervention, and support public interest journalism and media diversity.
The Government will also provide $2.5 million for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts to partner with the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Council of Australia (FECCA) to support media literacy in culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.
The federal budget for communications also includes a $10.5 million funding for the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for the development an SMS Sender ID Registry for brands to record their primary and associated names used in text message headers.
The initiative will help telecommunications companies prevent scammers from spoofing industry or government brand names – such as Linkt or myGov – in text message headers to deceive Australian consumers.
The Albanese Government will also roll-out a cell broadcast National Messaging System (NMS) to help keep Australians safe. This will significantly improve the way the States, Territories and the Australian Government are able to send emergency messages, alerts and warnings at-scale to mobile handsets during a crisis or emergency event, in near real time.
In addition, $10.1 million will establish a central Taskforce to drive the delivery of a Public Safety Mobile Broadband (PSMB) capability. The Taskforce will establish the framework for delivering a mobile broadband service that provides Public Safety Agencies with fast and secure voice, video and data communications and instant access to data, images and information in critical situations. This is a critical step in advancing the national PSMB program following a 2022 PSMB Review.
