The Government’s decision to rebate free-to-air television networks’ licence fees, ostensibly to assist them in meeting the cost of local production, is appalling. The amount involved — a cool $250m over eighteen months — is even worse.

But worst of all is that there are no requirements of any kind imposed on the networks in exchange for this direct contribution to their bottom-line from taxpayers.

Not a cent will go into local production. Not for local producers, not for Australian actors, not for people eking out a living in the production industry, whether they’re directors, camera operators or coffee monkeys. It’s a quarter-billion-dollar handout just to do what they do now.

What they do now is mostly make rubbish. Quality drama or comedy is the exception, not the rule. Instead, we’re treated to the likes of 20 t0 1: Sex on Screen. You’ve seen the ads: Bert Newton “counts down the sexiest moments in movies and television that pushed the boundaries and made viewers blush.” That the networks are being gifted taxpayer funding just to keep this up is laughable.

Instead, the money — our money, taxpayer money, at a time when we’re being told we need fiscal discipline — is going straight in to the pockets of TV network shareholders — many of whom don’t live in Australia. We’re not just talking the private equity owners of 7 and 9 here.  Bruce Gordon, owner of WIN Television and the biggest shareholder in Ten, lives in Bermuda. Don’t expect too much of that $250m to come back to Consolidated Revenue as tax.

At the very least, the networks should be forced to pay their full licence fees for this year and next and only have them refunded if they increase the hours of quality drama they are putting on the screen. Either that or the Government should drop the pretence that this is anything other than a blatant attempt to curry favour with the most powerful media outlets in the country.