PIJI was pleased to have the opportunity to provide a response to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts’ Review of options to support the national broadcasters’ independence.

In our response, we highlighted the trust placed in the public broadcasters, and their roles as cornerstones of Australia’s public interest journalism landscape. We emphasised the importance of funding certainty for the public broadcasters, and suggested that in order to avoid real term funding erosion, benchmarks could be considered against economic indices such as the Consumer Price Index as well as public interest journalism indices such as localism and diversity measures currently being contemplated by the ACMA under a news measurement framework. We also re-emphasised the call to de-politicise the selection criteria for Board appointments for the broadcasters.

Read our full submission to the Review of options to support the national broadcasters’ independence here.

Find updates on the Review, and read other public submissions, on the Department’s website.