Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 5) Bill 2021. I love the movies. Hollywood blockbusters, edgy indies, documentaries, Korean films—I love them all. But I especially love the Australian screen industry. The fact is, we have long boasted being home to some of the world's greatest screen industry figures both in front of and, just as importantly, behind the camera. In Tasmania, we've played host in recent years to Van Diemen's Land, The Hunter, The Nightingale, The KetteringIncident and Lion. For TV we've just seen season 5—the last season, unfortunately—of Rosehaven wrap up. If I may have a brief indulgence: there's a small section of me in Rosehaven. If you look at season 1 as the car's driving through New Norfolk, there's an old election poster as they drive past. There's my head. Not quite a starring role, but I'm there!

We've got so much to offer in Australia: a wealth of acting talent and, of course, eye-popping scenery. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that we are blessed with some of the most enviable natural landscapes and backdrops right here in Australia. Film is etched into our national DNA. It's part of our national identity. 'How's the serenity?' 'You're terrible, Muriel.' We even produced the world's first ever feature film, way back in 1906: The Story of the Kelly Gang, a story that's been told and retold in many ways. The original launched on 26 December 1906 at Melbourne's Athenaeum Theatre—the first ever Boxing Day release, as it were. Australians are pioneers of film, and it's clear that we punch well above our weight on the world stage, with Australians featuring heavily on and off the screen in Hollywood.

But, as great as it is to see Hugh Jackman flash his metal fingers, Nicole Kidman play Woolf, Chris Hemsworth fling Mjolnir or Cate Blanchett rule England, it is even more vital that we continue to see Australians portraying Australians and telling Australian stories. We can only do that with an Australian screen industry rooted in Australian culture; embedded in this nation's soil and spirit. We are a country designed for the screen—our light, our landscapes, our people and our histories—and we should be making full use of these resources. Imagine an Australian film industry without Chips Rafferty, Robert Tudawali or Bill Hunter. It's unimaginable.

This bill is so disappointing. It is steeped in mediocrity. There are just two proposed measures in this bill that are of benefit: an increase in the producer offset for TV productions from 20 to 30 per cent and the removal of the 65-hour cap on the producer offset for TV. But the government has attached a bunch of other things that are harmful. And it could have been worse, of course: without a concerted campaign by the screen sector, by this side of the House and, it must be said, by the junior partner in the coalition government, this bill would also have included an outright reduction in the producer offset for the Australian feature film sector.

Unfortunately, the other measures remain in place. The increase in the qualifying expenditure threshold for the producer offset is bad news for many smaller and lower budget films. Documentaries, which typically have a budget of just over $500,000, will suffer the most. How do we tell our Australian stories without documentaries? Think about recent hits like Mountain, Mystify, 2040 and That Sugar Film. These are productions we want to encourage, not discourage, because truth-telling has never been more important—documentaries about our Indigenous origins and their intersection with European influences; about our natural environment and how it is impacted by climate change; our military traditions; the emergence and decline of industries and their replacement with new technologies; and our incredible people. These are documentaries that are unlikely to ever turn a profit but serve the nation nevertheless and become repositories of footage and curators' stories. And there need to be Australian stories. American documentaries and British documentaries are fantastic, but they are American stories and British stories. We need to protect the Australian story. Documentaries hone the skills of filmmakers. We want to nurture these talents and see them bloom.

If we value the role of the screen industry only in the dollars and cents that are transacted at the box office, we do ourselves a great disservice. How cheap our love of culture is if it is to be measured only in how much popcorn is devoured. There are similar problems with the increase in the qualifying expenditure threshold for the PDV offset, which applies to post-production and visual effects—a long-winded way of saying special effects. This is a sector Australia excels at, even though you don't hear about it as much. It's a growing industry. But a change like this could cut it off at the knees. The special effects industry is massive, and our excellence in this country continues to be noted on a global scale by huge production companies like Marvel.

Again, a short-sighted government seeks to hike the eligibility threshold and leave growing companies without a leg to stand on. Perversely, you've got to be big and successful to get government assistance. It's a bit like happily handing out government millions to billionaires while shaking down pensioners for the return of Centrelink overpayments. If there is one aspect of this bill that highlights the ignorance of the government when it comes to our cultural heritage on screen it is the removal of the Gallipoli clause. This clause got its name from the 1981 movie Gallipoli because it is the best example of an Australian story which could not avoid filming part of its production overseas. This clause existed so that Australian movies that needed to film scenes overseas could still claim that expenditure against the offset and not be disadvantaged. It's a simple concept: Australian films should not have to suffer financially just because essential scenes are shot overseas. How would one film Gallipoli without the Dardanelles? How would one film Lion without going to India? It's both unreasonable and impossible.

In typical fashion, the government has not provided any clear rationale for these damaging changes. It seems clear that the reason is nothing more than penny-pinching—from an industry that is already reeling from the pandemic. A sensible government would know this is not the time to make life harder for business—any business. We have heard from the shadow minister that, if these changes go ahead, one production company alone faces losing 40 of its staff—40 jobs gone, just like that, because of entirely unnecessary and counterproductive changes.

But we do know that this government has little regard for Australia's arts sector. To those opposite, the arts is all berets and caftans, and wine and cheese and cocktails spent discussing Kafka. But the arts is so much more diverse than a meeting of the Kooyong branch of the Liberal Party. The arts is a $3 billion sector that employs 30,000 Australians—far too many of them poorly and insecurely. The fact is that this is not a minister who cares about the screen sector or the jobs or the people in it. This is not a government that cares about telling Australian stories crafted by Australian people.

But it never used to be this way. The Liberal Party used to value traditions and culture as the bedrock of this nation. The party of Sir Robert Menzies and Malcolm Fraser would never have inflicted these wounds on our arts sector. They valued the arts, and the richness and the vigour that the arts provide to our country. But now the Liberals are the wreckers and the radical agents of change. They have no interest in protecting our national culture and our national institutions. Instead, they want to destroy and remake them in the warped visage of the modern Liberal Party—a hollow creature that values nothing but the accumulation of money and power.

Australia's screen industry contributes billions and employs thousands, and it's as valid an industry as construction, tourism or retail. The jobs are just as real. The people are just as real. The need to pay bills and rent and mortgages and feed a family is just as real. This is a sector that has been smashed by COVID but has received none of the support that it needs. But we have seen that, with this Prime Minister, support is conditional on who you are and who you work for, and the Liberals are all too happy to turn off the lights and pull the curtain on Australian arts.

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