The Australian screen industry plays an important role in our economic, social and cultural life. To protect this crucial national asset, and meet the ambitions of the National Cultural Policy, we need evolved regulatory safeguards that reflect today’s entertainment landscape.

*Mother and Son*, Wooden Horse Productions (ABC)

(1) INVESTMENT OBLIGATION

We need a meaningful 20 per cent investment obligation, based on a streaming service’s Australian revenue.

We need a robust, transparent and incorruptible regulatory model that all Australians can have confidence in and that will take our industry forward, meet the promise to audiences of Revive, and demonstrates an ambition to grow the Australian screen industry as an important future industry for our economy in a screen content-hungry world.

It is unacceptable to the screen industry for any detail of this to be left to the regulator to deal with at an uncertain future date. We need legislative certainty.

(2) INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

We need a mechanism to retain Australian intellectual property in Australian stories.

Ownership of Intellectual Property (IP) is foundational. Australian creatives need a mechanism to ensure IP is under Australian ownership and control. A rights reversion model would allow the ownership of IP and rights in Australian screen stories to revert to the independent creatives who created the material, after a fixed period of time. The rights reversion model is a sound approach, that would be administratively simple, keep Australian stories under Australian creative control and arrest the increasing risk that too much of our Australian culture is lost to overseas entities.

*The Last King of the Cross*, Helium Pictures (Paramount+)

*Wellmania*, Fremantle Australia (Netflix)

(3) INDEPENDENT SECTOR

We need a recognised role for Australia’s independent screen sector.

We cannot fulfill the promise of “Revive” without ensuring a strong role for screen stories from the hundreds of small, independent voices - including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytellers - committed to developing original and creative projects. If done right, new investment will flow across the screen ecosystem to foster new projects that reflect the diversity of our culture.

(4) AUSTRALIAN CONTENT

We need a robust definition of “Australian content” that meets the aspirations of the National Cultural Policy to see and hear more Australian stories and voices on our screens.

The current ACMA definition is inadequate in that it includes spending by streaming platforms on ‘acquired’ programs - which are mainly re-runs, not new titles.