MediaWorks Layoffs Call Into Question The Value Of Bailouts

27 May 2020, 17:27 by Taxpayers' Union

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.”