As mainstream Australians hemorrhage jobs and life savings thanks to Wuhan virus, GetUp and the ABC are focused on gouging more of your money for the public broadcaster.

GetUp says it wants to use the “extended opportunity” created by the virus-driven delay to the budget.

So it's studiously using the time to pressure a Coalition government, with cash resources stretched to the limit, for more ABC funding.

Talk about tone deaf:  one million Aussies have been forced to line up outside Centrelink, small businesses are going to the wall in droves, tourism-dependent communities are in tatters – and these guys are worried about cashing up the ABC?!

Clearly an extravagantly taxpayer funded left-wing behemoth telling us what to think is a high priority in lefty land.

Last week GetUp released a report that recommended more taxpayer dough be added to the $1.1 billion the ABC already pockets from us each year.

Former ABC journalist Quentin Dempster penned a tearstained email on behalf of GetUp to their supporters, urging them to spread the word about the “threat” to the ABC’s funding.

“Destructive funding cuts have stretched the ABC to its limit. Like many pillars of our society, the future of the ABC is uncertain.”

Mate…  If being taxpayer funded to the tune of $1.1 billion a year means an uncertain future, sign us up for some uncertainty please.

On Friday, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher rightly said the ABC enjoyed “a level of security that private sector (media) businesses and employees can only dream about.”

It bears mentioning that Dempster’s message in the GetUp ads for the 2019 poll was to vote for “a strong ABC” by not voting Liberal…  So there’s that.

“Between 2014 and 2022, the ABC stands to lose more than $783 million in funding. Without decisive action, the ABC as we know it will cease to exist,” Dempster's dirge to GetUp supporters continued.

But over eight years and for an organisation that gets more than $1.1 billion, that's loose change.

Dempster talked up the ABC’s role informing Australians in times of bushfires and other disasters as if this would be threatened if the ABC didn’t get a funding boost.

But it defies credibility that an organisation with the ABC’s budget would not be able to perform these services.

Unless you're GetUp’s National Director, Paul Oosting, who believes the ABC needs an extra $100 million a year.

“Every funding cut must be reversed to keep us safe and keep our democracy thriving.”

Apparently we’re in danger if the ABC gets less than $1.1 billion a year.

You’d think he was talking about cuts to science labs working on a vaccine, but no.

In the words of the Institute for Public Affairs’ communications director, Evan Mullholland:

The ABC has been shielded from what private media are going through, which have been shedding cash and jobs at great pace.

Yet the ABC, funded with taxpayer dollars to the tune of $1.1 billion per year has the gall to complain about not receiving even more money.

Those suffering job losses and having their hours cut would be rightly appalled at the selfish grandstanding on display by ABC staffers who have been unaffected by the lockdown.

There’s really nothing more to say.