Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion. You could be forgiven, if you heard the minister's speech, for not understanding exactly what has just happened.

We had a debate in this chamber and we heard it was about a change in the drama content obligations. What the minister tried to do was to cut Foxtel's obligations for Australian-scripted drama in half. He tried to cut it in half! The Senate, including members of his own party, said that would be an appalling thing to do. We had the debate in this House, and he sat here scoffing while I was making the points about the importance of Australian drama.

This is not the only attack on Australian drama that has come from this minister. We have also seen the demand for scripted drama as part of free-to-air television to be cut. And when has he chosen to do these cuts? In the middle of a pandemic, when this exact sector was the first to be hit and was hit so hard. The concept of 'minister for the arts' is meant to imply that in some way you're for the arts. It's not meant to be that you're somebody who sees an industry going through its toughest time and says, 'Now's the time to attack them.'

I want to commend those members who stood up to this minister. I want to commend those crossbenchers who stood up to this minister. I want to thank my own party for being willing every time to defend Australian stories. I simply say to the minister: you might not be willing to acknowledge what's happened in the chamber, you don't need to, just stop the attack. There's been a really good effort from the government in making sure that we get extra jobs from Hollywood stories being told here, and we support those jobs. We support those efforts. Why do you hate the Australian stories? Why on earth is it really good for Marvel to make stories here in Australia and it's not really good for Australian companies to tell Australian stories here?

You would have thought if those businesses and those workers had one defender on that side of the House, it'd be their own minister, but, instead, who do you think's led the attack? It's actually been their own minister. What the sector needs is for the attack to end, and there's one action the minister needs to take. Streaming companies hadn't seriously arrived when we were last in government, but even then we were flagging, in the lead-up to the 2013 election, that for the next term action needed to be taken to make sure there are obligations on the streaming services to provide Australian content. We have now had eight long years—we're about to have a government enter its ninth year—and before we know it they're going to be asking the Australian people for 12 years. Take action on the streaming services. Demand Australian content. The relationship that matters isn't whether someone's viewing something through bandwidth or through cable; what matters is when you're watching your screen at home, are Australians going to be seeing the stories of our own nation? Are Australian children going to be growing up watching Australian stories, whether the remote goes to free-to-air, to cable or to the apps that come in through the web. Whichever way you're getting those stories, you want to make sure that Australian stories are part of it.

A whole lot of people in this parliament, a clear majority of this parliament, and, I acknowledge, a good number on the other side of politics, showed a real commitment to delivering on Australian stories. This minister has not. He has been dragged there every time. I simply say: (1) stop the attack, and (2) finally act on putting obligations on the streaming companies to produce scripted Australian drama and to make sure that children's content is a component of that. We all grew up watching Australian content on our screens. Don't rob the next generation of that.

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