ABC Managing Director Mark Scott returns to his desk next Monday to face, among other things, the most crucial challenge in the ABC’s calendar – the preparation of the triennial funding submission.

The present funding agreement with Government expires in 2009, and the ABC must have its submission for the new round all done, dusted and on the Minister’s desk by late this year. How will it be received? And what will happen to some of the key funding issues that must be decided before then?

Labor in opposition committed only to vagaries. “Labor will provide adequate funding on a triennial basis” the national platform said. Significantly this was contained in Labor’s Arts policy. Labor did not release a media policy before the election, despite several promises to do so.

So what is “adequate funding?” The most recent analysis on this was the KPMG report commissioned by the Howard Government at the behest of the ABC Board. It was never released, but a leaked summary contained the conclusion that the ABC needed an extra $125.8 million in core funding over three years just to maintain its present operations.

Will Communications Minister Stephen Conroy take this as his benchmark of “adequacy”?

Has he even got the complete KPMG report? The previous Government defended its decision not to release it by claiming it was a Cabinet document. If this is really the case, then it is possible that Conroy does not have access to the complete report. Cabinet records are closed to all comers, including new Governments, for 30 years.

During the election campaign the Howard Government used the ABC for rural pork barrelling, promising money for expanded regional radio and online services in Hervey Bay, Armidale and Warrnambool, as well as improving transmission services for Flinders Island and Devonport – strategically important seats, all.

More important on a national level the Howard Government committed to $82 million for the long-proposed digital children’s television channel – a political win-win of a project if ever there was one. The children’s channel would not only please the vaunted “working families” but also give them a reason to take up digital technology. The need to do drive this take-up is one of the major headaches of communication policy.

Conroy has said that the funding for the ABC children’s channel will be considered as part of the Budget, and not before. As for the regional services touted by the Howard Government, Labor has had nothing to say.

The Shadow Minister, Bruce Billson, is not slow to take the free kick, telling Crikey: “I would have thought this was a perfect opportunity for additional Labor ‘me-tooism’ particularly considering all its ad-nauseum rhetoric about supporting the needs of working families. The digital channel would also provide creative incentive for the production of new and innovative children’s content by the many talents within the Australian industry.”

But neither side of politics is covered in glory here. The children’s channel should have been funded in the 2007 budget. Instead it was cynically saved up as a feel-good election promise. As a result, with the new Government getting its collective feet under the desks, it is now in no-man’s land. What a tragedy.

This is what happens when ABC funding is used for election pork barreling. Important and beneficial projects are at best stalled and perhaps lost. Meanwhile authoritative reports such as the KPMG document, that should form part of the basis for decisions, are potentially lost in the mire.

ABC optimists hope Labor’s silence is because it is going to do something visionary – such as significantly increasing ABC funding without tying it to particular politically convenient ends. Pessimists fear that nothing will happen, or that only bad things will happen.

Lots of questions and very few answers. Senator Conroy’s office did not respond to queries on these matters in time for Crikey’s deadline today.

Never mind. There will be other opportunities. ABC funding will be one of the big media issues of the next twelve months, and Crikey intends to give it continuing attention.