Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think the member for Cowper and I might be reading different legislation, because, far from improving the situation for Australian creatives, this legislation contains one particular section that, on our side, we will not be supporting, and that is: undermining the existing content quotas for pay television services. The reason it's so important that these are not halved—which is what this legislation will do—is that, as the member for Cowper said, we do need to see Australian stories on our screens, but this piece of legislation is not going to make that happen. In fact, it will undermine it significantly.

For a kid in the 1960s, when I was growing up, there wasn't a lot of Australian content. There was no government support at that time for Australian film and television. There was no real Australian screen industry. In 1961, it was something like one per cent of drama on TV was Australian drama, and the other 99 per cent was foreign. That only changed when, in the 1970s, there were decisions made to support the Australian television industry. There were actually marches in the 1970s demanding local content quotas. That's where it started. It was a direct result of that that we started to see Australian stories more and more on our screens. By the time my kids were born in the 1990s and watching television, they were able to see a lot of Australian stories, everything from the Adventures of Blinky Bill through to Bananas in Pyjamasall the great Aussie kid stuff. As they have grown they have been able to be really nurtured and nourished by absolute quality Australian drama on our screens.

The devices on which we watch these things have changed, but Australian drama remains one of the few things that allows us to see who we are in the myriad of genres that is there. I don't know if it was watching Australian drama that was one of the reasons, but I have a daughter who is an actor. She wants to tell Australian stories, and I despair when I see legislation like this that will hit people in the industry, people who for the last year have seen things dry up. There are foreign productions here and they're hiring people, but very few of them are telling Australian stories; they're telling international stories. That's not to say that we shouldn't be making our stories head overseas. I remember living in New York in 1988. Of course, that was the era of Crocodile Dundee and one of our Australian stories was being well and truly told across the United States then. We should be ambitious. We should be trying to share our stories with the world, but we should not—and we will not on this side—be supporting legislation that makes it harder for those stores to even get made.

What we have here is a piecemeal approach to adapting to the changing platforms that we're facing. Whether it's people watching on iPads, whether it's streaming or whether it is the changes that are affecting pay TV, none of those things should be dealt with in isolation. Unfortunately, this is what the government has been doing time and time again, ever since it first talked about trying to bring our laws into the more modern environment. I think it was four years ago that they started talking about it. Yet here we are, in 2021, and we're getting little bits of stuff happening along the way.

The reduction in expenditure required by subscription television broadcasting licences on new eligible drama expenditure from 10 per cent to five per cent, which is what this legislation contains, will, according to the creatives who live in my electorate of Macquarie, covering the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury—and there are many creatives who use the mountains and call the mountains home—be a death knell on their industry. That's not just actors and directors; that's writers, set designers, graphic designers, the composers who write the music et cetera—the ecosystem of creatives who are involved in getting something from someone's concept in their head onto a screen. So we cannot support this. We'll support every other thing in this legislation but, as the member for Greenway has moved, we're moving an amendment to excise that particular section of the bill.

When I look at the bill and this part of it it really highlights the ongoing failure and the delay that the government has created when it comes to supporting Australian stories on our screens. Another area of the legislation that we're asked to pass here, which is around public interest journalism, also highlights a failure. I will speak about that a bit later, but it's basically a failure to get media reform in all its elements right. So, while we won't stand in the way of changes to captioning rules, the digital radio channel plans, the regional commercial radio licensees or the time frame for ACMA to make grants to regional journalism, we will not be supporting the halving of Foxtel's Australian screen content obligation without any new requirements being put in its place.

I want to take you to these screen content rules in more detail, and just think about the time line that we've had since 2017. The minister—Minister Fifield at the time—very boldly announced a broad-ranging and comprehensive review of Australian and children's content. This was a review that would identify sustainable policies to ensure the ongoing availability of Australian and children's content to domestic and international audiences regardless of platform. That was a very noble ambition, and I wish that's what we were here talking about today. But, after all this time, there is nothing modernising the Australian content obligations for this contemporary media environment.

The proposal in the bill to halve Foxtel's Australian screen content obligation without putting anything in its place—nothing such as requirements for streaming services like Netflix to produce Australian content—really means that when you combine it with other things that have happened there are very few opportunities for Australian stories to be supported. If anything, this throws a blanket, a wet blanket, over the creativity of telling those stories. It comes on top of the recent decision to water down the Australian screen content rules for commercial free-to-air broadcasters. You know, in the middle of COVID, under the cover of COVID, the minister announced changes to the subquota of drama, documentary and children's content on commercial TV. It was interesting that those changes did not come to the parliament but they were made by ACMA at the direction of the minister. Those same subquotas were then suspended as the emergency COVID measure and reintroduced in a watered down form from 1 July. At that time we said that the changes would mean fewer Australian stories and fewer job opportunities for local creators. Let me tell you what one of my constituents said about that change, about the plans to scrap quotas for local drama and children's programming: 'As a writer who's worked in the local industry for the past 12 years, I know how integral the current quota system is to ensuring that Australian audiences can see new quality content that both entertains and informs. Most kids shows are put together with money from a range of sources, both here and overseas, but a local sale through one of the major broadcasters has for every production company I've ever worked for provided the basis upon which the remainder of the finance is then secured. Without that linchpin, the viability of locally produced kids' content is very much under threat. The viability of my career as a writer and the careers of thousands of other creatives currently producing, engaging and enriching screen content that sells all around the world is under threat.' That's what the government did at the start of this year. That's the sort of impact that comes from decisions made by this government.

The government continues to kick the can down the road on comprehensive changes, comprehensive reform. I don't think the government knows what reform is. There's just lots of tweaking around the edges, none of it being matched up with any commensurate changes. The current minister, Minister Fletcher, has failed creators and the small businesses who really make up the screen sector, and, let's be clear, this are small businesses. These are small, independent operators. The people who live and work in the Blue Mountains have an ecosystem of their own, and their work generates work for other businesses, but they are all small. For a party that is meant to be supporting small business, those opposite do a terrible job of supporting the creatives, and that's without even talking about how many people missed out on JobKeeper in the last 12 months. It does seem that there is a determination to destroy these businesses, because for some reason being creative does not in their eyes constitute a small business. I might add that the poor quality of the NBN in my region also adds to that effect. It makes it hard for people to get businesses and to get the bandwidth they need, especially the creatives, to be able to operate.

The current minister has even failed his own test on these measures. He previously announced that he would harmonise the regulatory framework and address the disparity in regulation between broadcasters and online streaming services. At a time when the French, German and the Canadian governments are all moving to require platforms like Netflix and Amazon to invest in local content, there is an absolute vacuum on that issue here. That just says it all. The content rules are being dismantled effectively by this government, leaving only the ABC as a body that will invest, yet its funding is under extraordinary pressure and is being reduced. The content obligations for commercial TV are watered down and there is a halving of Foxtel's expenditure and nothing for the streamers. That is why we will not be supporting that component of the bill. I support the amendment that has been moved by the member for Greenway.

In the couple of minutes I have left, I will touch briefly on the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund, which has clearly been an absolute dud in supporting and helping to maintain local independent journalism. I draw attention to the decisions being made by ACM in my electorate, where the North Richmond printing facility has been closed. That doesn't directly affect journalists' jobs, but it affects the other jobs that go with that process. It means there have been job losses. What's more, a lot of people have been kept on casual arrangements, and they are not receiving redundancies that are commensurate with the years that they've worked, even though they've worked regular shifts and regular days for years and years. I've had women in their 50s who have had the same shifts for decades, yet they are being considered as casuals and are not receiving redundancies for that time. When I see that these sorts of publishers are being given incentives, the incentives have been the wrong ones. They haven't achieved the outcomes that we need, and that is independent journalism—I say this is a former journalist and a commercial broadcaster. We need those voices. We need a multitude of voices to hold governments to account. I don't care who is in government, that is going to be the job of journalists, but this government is getting rid of those voices, which is an appalling situation to be in for the sake of a democracy.

This bill, this overall package of legislation, has many disappointments. It is disappointing that the government is having to extend and change the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund. They had to change it to the PING Fund and now want to bring about more changes to it. We will support those, but we will not support a watering down of Australian content on pay TV.

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