An example of how nominal defenders of public service provision have thoroughly internalised neoliberal dogma:

"There is nothing morally wrong with the proposal that public service bodies such as the ABC should be subject to budget cuts like other organisations, public or private. Commercial media companies, driven by shareholder pressures, have shed thousands of jobs in the past three years."

There is everything wrong, morally and otherwise, with the proposal that, in the interest of some perverse definition of fairness, public institutions should be driven into artificial crisis because of market failure in the private sector. This is precisely the time at which public services are most needed. How does arguing otherwise make any sense? If, for example and for whatever reason, taxi companies started laying off drivers, how would the situation be improved by defunding public transport?