Back in July it came to light that Foxtel – jointly owned by NewsCorp (65%) and Telstra (35%) – would receive $10 million from Australian taxpayers to broadcast “women’s, niche and other under-represented sports”.
This came on top of a $30 million grant provided to Foxtel by taxpayers in 2017.
This latest taxpayer handout was slammed by all and sundry for lining the pockets of the Coalition’s mate, Rupert Murdoch. It also came while the Morrison Government had slashed the ABC’s budget by $84 million.
Today, the ABC reveals that the decision to give Foxtel funding was fast-tracked through Cabinet and broke the normal “10 Day Rule” intended to give ministers time to assess proposals:
Communications Department staff helped fast-track $17.5 million in taxpayer funds for the company, expediting normal Federal Cabinet processes for approval…
The FOI documents flesh out extensive communications between the offices of the Prime Minister and Communications Minister.
A previous application for documents was partly refused by Mr Fletcher’s chief of staff Ryan Bloxsom because, he wrote, if emails between the offices became public it could harm their working relationship “now and into the future”…
Within weeks the discussion would be occurring in the office of the Prime Minister, $7.5 million of Government funds already granted to Foxtel would be brought forward and a new “no-tender” $10 million contract sped through Federal Cabinet — breaking the “10 Day Rule”, intended to improve governance by giving Cabinet time to assess submissions.
Subsidising coverage of “underrepresented” sports is fine. But why are taxpayers providing these subsidies to a private company that locks its coverage behind a subscription paywall? How does this improve public access to these sports?
Blind Freddy can see that such subsidies would be better spent on free-to-air networks that have no barriers to watch.
Always follow the money. This is another clear-cut case of ‘money for mates’.
