The Taxpayers’
Union is urging the Government to
urgently reassess its seemingly bottomless support for
struggling media companies who take taxpayer money one day,
and sack hundreds of staff the
next.
MediaWorks has
this week announced 130 jobs will go despite being one
of the main recipients of the Government’s $50 million
media bailout package, having $11 million of Government
advertising fast-tracked to them, and receiving the wage
subsidy of almost $8 million at last
count.
Union spokesperson Louis
Houlbrooke said “MediaWorks went cap in hand to the
Epidemic Response Committee and begged Parliament for more
funding and more Government advertising. It got both of
those things but is still commercially
unviable.”
“Questions must be asked. Would
Cabinet have agreed to throwing so much money at MediaWorks
if they’d known jobs would be lost anyway? The whole
premise of the wage subsidy is to protect jobs. That applies
to media companies
too.”
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