With the Coalition Government elected for a third term, Screen Producers Australia (SPA) has today released an update of its policy ledger first released over two years ago, which provides an overview of the Government’s decisions over the last five years and how they have impacted the Australian screen industry.
CEO Matthew Deaner said “The ledger shows that our Government has unfortunately not achieved much to rebalance the policy ledger when it comes to supporting the local screen industry. While there are some positives, such as the site blocking legislation to make it easier for copyright owners to tackle the unauthorised distribution of their content, the failure to tackle the hard issues has been overwhelmingly negative for the sector and since its first release, there has been another significant reduction in overall funding for the ABC from the May 2018 Budget.”
“The ledger is a graphic reminder of how a failure to make decisions on matters such as local content regulation for streaming services is costing the industry and the broader economy and it continues to remind us that decisions to date have offered only benefits to parts of the sector in what looks like trickle-down economics” Deaner added.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if the Government is committed to an efficient market and effective support mechanisms for Australian content, we need to rebalance the ledger in favour of the small, nimble and agile businesses that allocate and extract most value out of the resources in the market.”
“With a new term of Government, and publication of the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry Final Report, the time is ripe for the Government to begin to address the needs of the Australian screen industry in a holistic and not asymmetrical way. We look forward to working with Minister Fletcher and other stakeholders on creating policy settings that will see our screen stories told and our industry flourish now and into the future.”
Updated policy ledger released