Mr Carson, the taxpayer does fund your viewing habits, albeit indirectly. It costs taxpayer funds for the government to manage and regulate all TV broadcasting. Taxpayers also subsidise a portion of the content produced on many commercial stations, and as another poster pointed out, we all pay for the ads whether we want to see them or not. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the cost to the average taxpayer that allows you to watch your bouncing breasts was barely any less than the average cost to the taxpayer that allows us to watch the 7:30 Report.

And no, I "can’t say people want to finance the ABC because it may well be the least worst of the options available", nor would I have any reason to. I'm not sure how you gathered that from my previous post. The polls mentioned didn't ask why people wanted to finance the ABC, just whether they were happy to. Overwhelming, they were, and in most cases were happy to increase funding.

This is part of the problem of private versus public. It seems no co-incidence that the quality of lots of things (including human behaviour) seems to have gone down with the increase in anti-public propaganda and "the only the private sector does things properly propaganda" whether in the media, health or education and transport. The anti-public propaganda has been followed by public endorsement of this regardless of the reality, which has to make you question what an intelligent human being is. We are all susceptible to propaganda so need to acknowledge that Australia was a better place when we respected the public sector and the space it gave for human decency.

Wizofaus,

The “in contrast to other services” led me to believe that the poll respondents had to decide where the money was going. But true, as is reported, the majority of the sample group apparently want more ABC funding.
However:
Democracy is the only answer to an issue when we have to decide whether or not we go to war, become a republic, increase or decrease immigration or other issues where there can only be one answer.
However there are some instances where democracy is not a justification for partisan government action where the people themselves can sort out an issue in multiple ways according to their own disparate values.
EG. supposes the government decided to get into religion business and decided to establish a large number of churches and cathedrals around the country. To be ‘democratic’, they would find out which is the more popular religion, and then bequest to it all these newly built resources. The fact that the majority of the people supported the chosen religion doesn’t dispel the reality that people of other religions still have to support through their taxes churches that they will never be attending. The simple response is obviously for the government to step out of the religion business and then let all religions flourish according to the respective degrees of popularity.

Wizofaus,

“[taxpayer funding to private media is almost the same as for the ABC]”
Gees, and I thought Vanilla needed an economics lesson!

“It costs taxpayer funds for the government to manage and regulate all TV broadcasting” That’s like a dictator complaining about the cost of the upkeep of all the prisons he uses to lock up his opponents.
…err, have you ever heard of the concept of freedom of the press?

“we all pay for the ads whether we want to see them or not”
Whenever you buy a Mazda or a Big Mac you are paying the least on offer for a car or sustenance of required value. The supplier doesn’t arbitrarily set the price. It charges whatever it thinks it can get, immaterial of whatever its overheads are. You are not specifically paying for its advertising. If sales were so good that it decided to dispense with advertising the price would remain the same. If ads were kept but sales were bad the price might drop just to move stock.
If a minister pays a plumber $1,000 to do work on the church gutters and drains and after the job is done the plumber proceeds down to the brothel, would you say the local Baptist congregation is financing boozing and whoring?

Let me give another example.
For five years every payday you have been paying a visit to a Miss Gilda Goodthighs in a certain establishment downtown. For the err… personal services you get from her you think it is the best $100 you spend every month. By accident you happen to find out something Gilda tries to keep secret, that she actually is the proverbial street lady with the heart of gold. For the past ten years she has been donating 25% of her wages to the local orphanage. Wizofaus, are you going to dare tell me what a great humanitarian you are because for the last five years you have been giving $25 a month to orphans?

Persuasive arguments Mr Carson, but there's a rebuttal for each and every one of them.

Your first assertion is essentially, where there are a multitude of acceptable outcomes, choice trumps a government decision.

Firstly, I'd point out there is a marked difference between the nature of the public broadcasters and those in the private sector.

Earlier, I made the point that seeing as I can't locate any examples of people identifying a 'better' news provider than the ABC, even amongst those who preference the commercial network, that this indicates consensus that the ABC news provision is of a higher standard. Yes, 'better' is subjective, but I think it's reasonable to assert that without fair examples of dissent this point is nullified.

Theoretically, I suppose you can make the point that if there is indeed demand for this programming, market forces will ensure it exists. Practically speaking, it's more likely that given the fact that more resources have to be devoted to the provision of this news, and it's unlikely to have a market share as large as providers of dumbed down news outlets, this is unlikely to occur.

Yes, the first response is that it's because the market share is low therefore it doesn't warrant being subsidised by government.

But, given that this standard of news is unlikely to exist outside of being a public broadcaster, we then have two distinct forms of news provision - the point I make in this paragraph, is that it isn't necessarily a matter of multiple outcomes as you suggest.
It is a matter of two - more akin to your 'go to war' or 'have a republic' scenario. We have two outcomes - one, we have these higher quality news providers, subsidised by the government, or two, we don't.
Thus it comes back to a democratic decision - and it would appear that most believe the ABC is worth keeping, given the comparatively low cost compared to other national services. Of course, all this applies to the provision of niche viewing as much as news broadcasts.
Ultimately, this is something the majority accepts.

Further to that:

A model exists for the privatisation of almost every single government service. Aside from the fact that in practice, almost every privatisation has been poorly carried out and resulted in a reduction in services, there is the point that many services are believed to be a necessity for all Australian residents.
Take the wrangling between Telstra and the government for communications provision, or the ongoing complexities between private water industry stakeholders and government, to ensure that water is reasonably priced and accessible to all.

Where a service is deemed necessary for all citizens, privatisation often results in a requirement for government conditioning to ensure profit doesn't result in the loss of service to unprofitable citizens. This often results in more red tape and conflict with shareholder demands.
Especially in monopoly situations, which are bound to be frequent in a country with a low population base like Australia.

So it comes back to what is deemed necessary, and I suspect the only 'democratic' way to define this, is what's defined by the public.
I grant you, the ABC doesn't seem like a necessity in the same manner as say, water, electricity etc, however I'd assert that this is a decision to be made by the public majority - given that I've made the point that almost all service provision is something that can be privatised.

This point is particularly underlined in the case of the ABC, due to the points I raised above - the ABC can be what it can be, due largely to the fact that it is a government organisation. A private entity would be something else entirely, something more like the major networks.
The public has stated they wish to keep the ABC, which is why it's privatisation not used as an electoral promise. Selling it is indeed a single-outcome proposition.