The eight candidates running for the Federal seat of New England were each approached and asked to rate their agreement with the following statements:

1. Guarantee that ABC services will remain independent of government, will be free-to-air and free-to-access, and publicly funded from consolidated revenue.
2. Improve funding certainty and the ABC’s ability to plan ahead, by introducing five- year funding agreements, indexed annually to compensate for inflation.
3. Enable the ABC to fulfil its charter obligations, including the provision of comprehensive rural and regional services, by progressively restoring the ABC’s operational budget to the level of funding it received before the budget cuts imposed in 2014.
4. Ensure that all ABC Board appointments are made from a short-list selected on merit by an independent non-partisan nominations panel, as laid down in the ABC Act.
5. Restore and enhance funding for ABC International, so it can resume its vital role as Australia’s trusted voice in the Asia- Pacific.
6. Ensure that good quality ABC radio and television broadcasts can be received throughout rural and regional Australia.

Only four of the eight candidates provided responses to these statements, or a short statement in lieu of questionnaire return.  All consistently showed positive support for each of the six statements.

Note that none of the other four candidates responded to our request, and so we assume that they either don't support the ABC or do not consider the role of a public broadcaster to be sufficiently important.

For a guide on who supports the ABC, please click on New England Candidates.