The Federal Government has been accused of again ignoring calls from community broadcasters to help fund the vital services they provide.

Community Broadcasting Association President, Paul Terdich, says the Budget is a great disappointment for the 20 000 plus volunteers, who give their time to stations, to try to enhance their communities, and an affront to the 3.3m listeners, who regularly use and value the services they produce:

“From Fitzroy Crossing to Sydney, Taree to Albany, and Launceston to Darwin, community broadcasters are producing local news and information, entertaining and informing the community, broadcasting emergency service news, presenting programs for ethnic, indigenous and other special interest groups and much more.

“While the ABC has been granted an additional $54.4m over three years to provide greater regional and local programming, the community broadcasting sector has been overlooked.

“More than 70% of licensed community stations are in rural, regional and remote areas, and 23% are the only radio service in their area or the only one producing local content.

“While we applaud greater funding for the ABC, we remind the Government that if it was serious about promoting regional and local broadcasting, it would have granted more funding to the community sector, which has more outlets across the country than the commercial or national broadcasting sectors.

“The community sector has grown immensely since 1996, yet Government funding has remained the same. If funding had remained on par with sector growth, it would be receiving $9.3m a year – $4m more than now.”

There is also no relief for the RPH (Radio for the Print Handicapped) sector.

Peter Luckett, RPH Australia Chairman, says: “The Budget outcome is not good news. Funding to this unique community broadcasting sub-sector has not increased, in real terms, since 1993.

“In the 10 years since, the RPH sector has doubled from seven to 15 full time services, providing vital access to high turnover printed information on a daily basis for more than 2m Australians with a print disability.

“With the limited funding available, cuts to services are inevitable.”

George Zangalis, President of the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters Council, is similarly unhappy:

“Once again, the Budget leaves ethnic community broadcasters out in the cold. It shows us the Government does not seriously value the efforts of ethnic community broadcasters in informing, educating and entertaining a large section of the community.

“These are the tireless efforts of volunteers, to which the Government contributes only 10-15% of what is required to sustain the growing sector.”

In light of the projected Budget surplus, the community broadcasting sector has called on all political parties to commit to an additional $10.8m in funding, as part of their policy platforms in the upcoming Federal election.