The 2025 Budget announced on 25 March contains no new funding for the ABC.[1]

The Budget did confirm commitments made by the Government and announced by Minister Rowland in December 2024 of extra funding of $85 million over two years, beginning in 2026-27.

ABC PBS, p. 99

Detail of annual allocations in the ABC’s Portfolio Budget Statement (PBS) shows:

• actual funding for 2024-25 ($989 million)
• allocation for 2025-26 and
• “forward estimates” for future years to 2028-29.

In 2025-26 the ABC will receive $1.016 billion (see arrow) in operational funding – an increase of $27 million or 2.7 % on 2024/25.

The forward estimates in the ABC PBS include the two year commitment for 2026/27 and 2027-28 of approx. $40 million made in December 2024 (see circled). This is consistent with Minister Rowland’s December statement that “The Government will deliver additional funding to the ABC of $83.1 million over 2 years from 2026-27”.

Labor’s three budgets and two MYEFO mid-year ‘budgets’ have increased the ABC’s annual operational funding by an extra $136 million from $881 million in 2022 to $1.016 billion in 2025-26.

ABC operational funding is budgeted to continue to increase in 2026-27 to $1.05 billion and in 2027-28 to $1.076 billion; an overall increase of almost $200 million since 2022. When indexation funding (to partially offset inflation costs) is added the ABC increase over 5 years to 2027-28 is over $350 million.

How do the increases compare to the previous cuts?

The graph shows the detail of the impact of the budget cuts from 2014 to 2029.

The 15 year funding cuts total $1.7 billion, offset by the extra funding from the Albanese government- so minus $1.3 billion.

If you factor in the continued lack of international broadcasting funding at the Australia Network amount, the annual loss to the ABC is about $150 million.

ABC funding as a percentage of total government spending

The ABC receives substantially less than 1 per cent of total government spending in a year. ABC funding as a percentage of annual government outlays has decreased significantly over the years.

As the graph shows, it has declined from about two/thirds or 0.65 of 1 per cent from the 1970s to 0.13 per cent. The only consolation may be that it has not declined further in the past four years.

Updated operational funding history 1984-2028

The previously shared graph of the historical shift downwards in the ABC’s ‘real’ funding has been updated with 2025 Budget papers.

References

ABC PBS (2025). ABC Portfolio Budget Statement. 25 March 2025. https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2025-26_infra_pbs_03_abc.pdf

Australian Government. (2025). Budget Measures 2025-26. https://budget.gov.au/content/bp2/download/bp2_2025-26.pdf

Australian Government. (2024). Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2024-25. December 2024. https://archive.budget.gov.au/2024-25/myefo/download/myefo2024-25.pdf

Rowland, M. (2024). Supporting the independence of our national broadcasters Media release. 17 December 2024. https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/rowland/media-release/supporting-independence-our-national-broadcasters

ABC Operating Revenue 2006-07 to 2025-26: Portfolio Budget Statement relevant year. 1983-4 to 2005-06: Jolly, 2014, pp. 58-59. 2023-24 to 2028-29  as per PBS March 2025

Footnote

[1] Data in this presentation is drawn from the ABC Portfolio Budget Statement (PBS), March 2025. The PBS can found at https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2025-26_infra_pbs_03_abc.pdf