ABC will always be in public hands: PM
Malcolm Turnbull and Steve Ciobo with European Union Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom. They left the media conference shortly after to vote down an ALP motion for debate on the future of the ABC. Photo: AAP
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has declared the ABC will always be in public hands, after members of his Liberal Party voted to sell it off.
“The ABC will always be in public hands. It will never be sold. That is my commitment. It is a public broadcaster. It always has been and it always will be,” Mr Turnbull told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
The Prime Minister’s comments came minutes after he was forced to abandon a media conference to block attempts by the federal opposition to bind parliament to keeping the ABC public.
Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus sought to move a motion in parliament resolving the lower house would “never support the privatisation of the ABC”, and for an $83 million funding cut to be reversed.
Mr Turnbull and Trade Minister Steve Ciobo were forced to desert European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom in the middle of a media conference to block debate on the motion.
Members of the Liberal Party’s federal council voted unanimously in Sydney on Saturday to privatise the ABC.
-AAP
