Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I notice that the members here today are surprised by that, and that is part of the reason I have risen to speak on this bill. We are a growing area of international film, and we need to be recognised as such, because we do that despite having no studio infrastructure of any kind. There is studio infrastructure in Melbourne, in Sydney and on the Gold Coast, but there is no studio infrastructure in tropical North Queensland, in Cairns or Port Douglas. But movie stars and directors continue to come to our part of the world because of the great environment that we provide them. These films come to tropical North Queensland even though, as I have said, they cannot do postproduction activities there. These are done in other locations because of the lack of sound stages and production infrastructure.

There are tremendous opportunities to continue to grow the film industry in the tropical north. Location filming in Australia continues to increase every year, with extended projects now appearing from India, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. China also seem poised to increase their overseas filming in the next several years. Not only do we have the film industry; we also have television shows, including Survivor, which have selected tropical North Queensland as a place to shoot local productions.

It is a huge industry in the tropical north, and it is a huge industry in Australia. Tackling regulation is extremely important, and that is what this bill is about. I understand that the film and television industry in Australia is valued at $1.5 billion annually to the GDP and employs more than 5,000 people, so it is a significant employer nationally. It is a growing area, and it is a significant employer in my electorate of Leichhardt, in tropical North Queensland.

Why do producers come and choose tropical North Queensland? I noticed that members present were very interested in the fact that we produce so many large films in the tropical north. There are some key selling features of the region for premier films. We have a broad choice of diverse exteriors. Anybody who has flown into Cairns over the cane fields and over the Barron River and then looked up into the wet tropical rainforest understands the beautiful environment which we have. It gives us an internationally competitive advantage, and it is part of the reason that people come to Cairns and Port Douglas to shoot films. I believe there is nowhere else in the world in a First World country where you can find an environment with beautiful golden beaches sweeping into palm trees or cane fields but you can also go to places where they directly run into rainforest environments. You can go from a beach to an urban environment, from a beach to a palmy tropical environment, from a beach to an agricultural environment and from a beach to a tropical rainforest—an unbelievable place to come and shoot a film. That is why so many big blockbuster films are coming to tropical North Queensland, even though we do not have the infrastructure to do the postproduction work.

We also have fantastic accommodation. You can come to Cairns or Port Douglas. Movie stars and directors like Hanks and Spielberg want to come and stay somewhere first class, and coming to the Marina Mirage, where Bill Clinton and other political leaders, as well as movie stars, come to holiday is also a big attraction for a cast and crew coming to our part of the world. You can bring in large numbers of people, which are needed in the production of television and movies, and allow them to be housed in first-rate accommodation facilities either in Cairns or in Port Douglas.

The film industry and the television industry are increasingly becoming international. When producers from Hollywood, Britain, America, China or India are looking around the world for where they want to produce their films, they are also looking to issues of safety and the infrastructure that is in place. Having in Australia—not only in Cairns but in other parts of Australia—that sort of First World environment is also very important in the decision making that builds on our natural environment.

We have an international airport in Cairns that is the sixth busiest in Australia for passenger numbers, ensuring production teams are in close proximity to their shooting locations. A number of small carriers offer charter services throughout the region. You can also charter out of Cairns into the dry tropics of Cape York Peninsula, into the unique cultural environment of the Torres Strait. So there are tremendous variations of location and tremendous opportunities to actually get out and explore new and different film locations.

We have communication technology, happily, I would say, improving under the current government, with our new national fibre-to-the-node broadband network. I am looking forward to that being rolled out. The fibre increasingly being laid down is important to the creative industries and continuing to grow the creative industries, whether that is film, television, computer games or a range of other areas. Making sure that we have First World telecommunications infrastructure is critical to us continuing to grow and support these industries.

There is great community support for, and welcoming of, new industries and investment in Cairns and tropical North Queensland. The local film industry established the Film and Television Association (FNQ) Inc. in 1998. Membership consists of documentary and television producers, underwater and marine services, stunt coordinators, directors of photography and so on. There is political stability, as we know, in the First World in terms of some of those issues that I talked about earlier on, but there is a tremendous desire to continue to grow and prosper in terms of this industry into the future.

There are numerous recreational opportunities for people that are visiting. There is a bit of down time, often, in shooting films. They can get out to the Great Barrier Reef or explore our great rainforest or the wilderness areas in Cape York Peninsula. They can experience great Indigenous culture, whether that is in the Torres Strait or in Cape York. So it gives us competitive advantage, and that is why film and TV producers are coming to Cairns, are coming to tropical North Queensland, to produce their films—even though, as I have said before, we do not have the infrastructure of the Gold Coast, Melbourne or Sydney. We do not have that infrastructure but they choose us and they come here because of the great locations, the great accommodation and the great people that we have living in Cairns, Port Douglas and the entire tropical North Queensland region.

Global film and television production is a multibillion-dollar industry. It is also one of the world’s fastest growing. The tropical north, as I have said, has distinct competitive advantages and has also demonstrated its ability to attract big blockbuster films. I see tremendous potential to continue to grow the film, television, sound recording and other creative industries in the tropical north and I look forward to working with local industry players to undertake this work. There is a need to build new infrastructure that would enable postproduction work to be undertaken in the tropical north. I certainly want to put this on the agenda of groups like Advance Cairns, which is our peak economic development agency, and encourage developers and other local businesspeople to look at how they can invest and grow in this very important industry in the tropical north.

The creative industries, as I said earlier, nationally produce $1.5 billion and employ over 5,000 people. This is a great opportunity for us to grow an industry that will ensure that we have high-skill, high-paying jobs into the future. If we want to grow and ensure that we have these high-technology creative industries then we need to ensure that the regulatory and government environment in which they operate is efficient and effective and allows business to do their work effectively. That is what this bill deals with. It will reduce regulation. Industry welcomes it. It is part of federal Labor’s plan to continue to grow the economy and strengthen the economy. If we are to grow and strengthen the economy we need to do regulatory reform. We need to continue to make sure government works effectively not only at the federal level but at each of the state and territory levels. COAG has an important part in that in dealing across a whole range of different areas in health and education to make those changes, but the film industry will also benefit from the changes that we are making here in federal parliament and from the supportive changes that are being made by our state and territory colleagues. I commend the bill to the House.

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