A few days ago the Australian Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, announced the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s (ABC) budget would be cut by $254 million over the coming five years.
Since then there has been heated debate over two things:
- Is this a broken election promise by the Abbott government?
- What programs and how many staff will the ABC have to cut?
Let’s leave that aside and concentrate instead on what this cut means to you in dollar terms. How much extra will you have in your pocket as a result of this budget cut?
I’ve done some back-of-the-envelope calculations and using the international hamburger scale it means you will be able to afford (drum roll)
almost one extra Big Mac per year.
Here are my calculations:
| Your savings | |
| Australia’s population | 23,130,000 |
| Percent paying tax | 55% |
| Number of Australians paying tax | 12,721,500 |
| ABC tax cuts over 5 years | $254,000,000.00 |
| ABC tax cuts per year | $50,800,000.00 |
| Reduction per tax payer per year | $3.99 |
| How much does the ABC cost you | |
| ABC cost over 5 years | 5,200,000,000 |
| ABC cost per year | 1,040,000,000 |
| Cost per Australian per year | $44.96 |
| Cost per Australian per day | $0.12 |
| Cost per tax payer per year | $81.75 |
| Cost per tax payer per day | $0.22 |
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