Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Heritage, the Arts and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support these bills. These bills, of course, are not unfamiliar to the coalition or to me as shadow minister for the arts. It was the Howard government that determined the film industry was best served with an amalgamation of the three different but like-minded agencies to form a merged Screen Australia. Our bill to effect these changes was made available for public comment in September 2007, and you see it virtually unchanged or identical in wording to this bill presented today.

The Screen Australia Bill 2008 will create a single authority that should more effectively and efficiently serve the great Australian film industry. Screen Australia can then better support what is a culturally very important and financially significant film industry; something that we are all very proud of. We have a long history of producing quality, innovative and culturally significant films. Through international exposure, our film work has helped create our reputation based on both our historic tradition and our view of the future. Film making is a high-risk, high-cost business and one that does need careful government support—especially as governments in other countries like Ireland and New Zealand compete with tax measures that offer alternative locations and production opportunities.

The new entity created through this legislation, Screen Australia, will be responsible for managing support and sponsorship for film projects. Still not yet decided, and an issue which I hope the minister is giving his attention to, is just how the Australian content or Australianness of the films will be determined. Will eligibility for funding be cultural context and content or will it be the country of origin of the various workers in that film itself? That is yet to be decided. The film industry, of course, is very keen to know. Screen Australia will be responsible for managing the Howard government’s film rebate scheme as well as the offshore production rebate that we put in place. It should build on the legacies of the Howard government in this area of the arts, provide a solid vehicle for future expansion and encourage quality work within the Australian film industry.

More specifically, the bill provides for Screen Australia to carry out the following functions: firstly, to support and promote the development of a highly creative, innovative and commercially sustainable Australian screen production industry; secondly, to support and engage in the development, production, promotion and distribution of Australian programs, and the provision of access to Australian programs and other programs; and, thirdly, to support and promote the development of a screen culture in Australia. Unfortunately, it is not sufficient to create this new entity. It also has to be adequately funded. There has to be resources for the new administration to be set up. There has to be a lot of extra investment in bedding down this new agency so it can fulfil those important and significant functions. We have already been told that this Labor government has slashed some $3 million over the next four years from what was the Film Commission and what will become part of Screen Australia. So it will be a new agency, but it will be, it would seem, a poorly funded new agency, perhaps strangled at birth unless this minister can become more influential with the razor gang.

The second bill before us is the National Film and Sound Archive Bill 2008. This is a bill to establish an independent agency. The National Film and Sound Archive is Australia’s pre-eminent audiovisual archive. It is to be found not far from here in its home on a Canberra campus.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a very important facility.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Heritage, the Arts and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed, it is a very significant facility. It was established in 1984 to provide for the preservation and accessibility of the nation’s audiovisual heritage. Independence and autonomy are not ends in themselves, but a means to an end. In fact, the existence of an effective and sustainable guardian for the national audiovisual memory is essential, but it too must be adequately funded. Again, I have to stress that this new government, the Kevin Rudd government, has seen fit to slash arts funding. With the new two per cent efficiency dividend, not to mention the other razor gang slashes already mentioned, we are living in quite some trepidation about how the National Film and Sound Archive will continue the excellent work it has been doing with its significantly diminished Australian government support.

I need to remind the minister who is in the committee room today that UNESCO has outlined very special requirements for audiovisual heritage. It sets out minimum standards of autonomy to support organisations in their mission and it does not shy away from the fact that this costs money. UNESCO defines an audiovisual archive as follows:

An audiovisual archive is an organization or department of an organization which has a statutory or other mandate for providing access to a collection of audiovisual documents and the audiovisual heritage by collecting, managing, preserving and promoting.

All of this of course requires adequate funding. The archivist’s mission is defined by the Australian Society of Archivists as follows:

Archivists ensure that records which have value as authentic evidence of administrative, corporate, cultural and intellectual activity are made, kept and used. The work of archivists is vital for ensuring organisational efficiency and accountability and for supporting understandings of Australian life through the management and retention of its personal, corporate and social memory.

The audiovisual heritage includes documents, objects, artefacts and technology, the latter giving AV archives a strong museological aspect. The International Council of Museums, or ICOM, defines a museum as:

… a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment.

That is what we hope will be the fulfilled destiny of our stand-alone National Film and Sound Archive for Australia. You heard my emphasis on the non-profit-making aspect of such an institution and therefore, unfortunately, it is dependent on public funding. Again I have to stress that this minister, in his first 100 days in office, has presided over the slashing of funding to such institutions, and this is of very real concern to the opposition, who when in government made sure that there was in fact an increase in arts funding in recognition of the significance of such a sector in our society for supporting the cultural development and wellbeing of all Australian people.

The definitions I have just mentioned demonstrate the philosophical and professional lineage of the NFSA within the field of memory institutions—the libraries, archives and museums which collectively maintain access to the nation’s memory. Let me tell you how little consideration those institutions have, sadly, been given in the first 100 days of the Labor government. I mentioned the museums and archives. Unfortunately, funding for the National Maritime Museum, which is in fact based in Sydney, has been slashed by $1½ million over the next four years—these are the arts cuts already announced. Funding for the National Library of Australia has been slashed by $3,000,800. Funding for the National Museum has been slashed by $2,000,600. Funding for the Australia Council itself has been slashed by $4,000,400.

These are major, iconic Australian institutions which cannot continue to collect or acquire our ongoing cultural materials and artefacts, given their treatment by this Labor government in its first 100 days. We just have to hope the penny drops soon and the first 100 days will lead to backflips, as they have with things such as carer benefits—and, it would seem now, with something as simple as a horse levy, the $100 equine flu levy, where a backflip is in the wind. Let us hope that backflips on the slashing of Australian arts funding come through soon. I see the minister nodding; I am pleased that he understands the importance and significance of those slashes to funding.

The National Film and Sound Archive Bill will create a stand-alone statutory authority with, as I said, the responsibility for collecting and maintaining Australia’s film collection for the enjoyment of future generations. The Australian National Film and Sound Archive is already internationally renowned; in fact, it has The Kelly Gang, which has recently been acknowledged as the world’s oldest feature film, made in 1906-07. The significance of our Film and Sound Archive is recognised globally, and long may we be able to retain its excellence. As I said, though, it will require a different attitude from this government as to its resourcing.

There is another significant issue that I hope the minister will turn his attention to when it comes to the film archive—it is very closely related—and that is statutory deposit arrangements. We do not know what this government is going to do about statutory deposit arrangements. This, for the minister’s edification, is all about where or how statutory deposits of film may be made. Perhaps there will be a selective statutory deposit scheme where the film archive is notified of what new film material is made and then choose what it wishes to have donated for collection for all time, or maybe the minister is thinking about a compulsory statutory deposit, something like the National Library system. Of course, film material is much more plentiful than published material, so these considerations have to be actively contemplated right now. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the minister is even aware of this issue or of how he might be dealing with it as we establish this independent archive authority. Let us hope that, as a result of my reminding him today, he will turn his mind to the statutory deposit issue. It is certainly exercising the minds of archivists as we speak.

The third bill is just a consequential and transitional provisions bill to ensure that the agencies in the first and second bills—Screen Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive—can be established through a set of reasonable transitional arrangements. I repeat that, since our government introduced these initiatives in September last year, we support these bills. They are, of course, not unfamiliar to us.

Let me go on to talk about what is unfamiliar to us, and that is the incredible crashing and burning of arts funding in this country in the last 100 days. I am spending a lot of time talking to the arts community now, and I am quite shocked at the reductions in important programs that they are having to make. In considering their younger performer programs, they are quite aware that there will quite probably be an intergenerational gap in excellence in performer training in this country given the way the funds are being cut. They cannot continue as they were before with major support for young performers in this country. Let me go through for you, item by item, what has occurred in these first 100 days of Minister Garrett being responsible for the area of arts and perhaps being a victim of the Rudd Labor government’s razor gang. I cannot imagine he went along willingly with their decisions. What did we do in the coalition government years? What did we commit to? What did we achieve, and what has happened in these first 100 days of the Rudd government?

First of all, we were committed to developing a rich and stimulating cultural sector accessible to everyone in the Australian community. Let me stress ‘everybody’. I am the member for Murray, a rural and regional community, and we do not see much of the opera or the ballet, but we have certainly had a lot of touring companies like Bell Shakespeare, the Flying Fruit Fly Circus and so on. They really add to the cultural life and the sense of inclusion of our rural and regional community. The first thing that the arts institutions have decided is that with the slash in funding—the two per cent efficiency dividend, for example, which has been required of them—they will stop their touring programs. Australia is a huge country; the tyranny of distance is always a major contributor to whether or not we move programs across from, say, Sydney to Perth. Of course touring is the first thing to go if you have to cut performances. That is a great tragedy for this nation, particularly for rural and regional Australians, who are doing it so tough with drought or with flood. I see nodding opposite, so I am pleased that they understand.

We also assisted Australian artists to create distinctive and Australian cultural works that enrich our culture, national identity and reputation for international excellence. We helped the Australian film and television industry to forge new pathways to investment and to capitalise on opportunities for international partnerships. It has always been Liberal governments that have built on the capacity of Australians to perform and to produce new works. It began for the Australian film industry in the days of the Gorton government, followed up by the Fraser government, who introduced the 10BA tax measures which stimulated the great Australian film industry resurgence.

In helping the film and television industries to forge new pathways, the Howard government understood cultural diplomacy. We established the Australia on the World Stage program, which was funded to the tune of some $20 million over four years. The program gave emerging artists, new companies, smaller companies and even larger companies the opportunity to tour overseas to develop international partnerships and their international reputations. I have to say that one of the very first cutbacks by the razor gang was to slash Australia on the World Stage. It is gone, so Australian performers, dance companies, poets, musicians and visual artists will no longer be able to have federal government support to move into the international arena to show their excellence. As I mentioned before, Australia is an expensive place to move from. It is not like slipping across the border in Europe. Without that funding, Australia’s new, emerging and established artists will be less able to gain recognition and less able to enhance the reputation of Australian performing arts offshore. I think that is a great tragedy. I ask Minister Garrett to review that particular funding slash. Perhaps it was the razor gang not understanding the importance of cultural life in this country. I ask that he revisit cutting the funding to that particular program—and others I will refer to—because it was a cruel blow.

The coalition also worked with our Indigenous artists to identify ways of protecting the value of their unique expertise and works of art. We were particularly concerned that a lot of our Australian Indigenous artists did and still do depend on CDEP—the Community Development Employment Projects program—funding, particularly in Northern Australia. You could say that Indigenous artists have been exploited over several generations, having been paid an allowance equivalent to Work for the Dole rather than being commercially rewarded for the value of their work. And it is not just the artists but those who support the artists—those who live in the communities, those who help market their art and those who work in the art galleries—particularly in smaller places like Katherine, Finke River and Haastes Bluff.

The coalition government understood only too well the potential for exploitation, and, in fact, the real exploitation, of a lot of Indigenous artists. We were in the process of transferring people in the arts sector—people in the emergency response areas of the Northern Territory, in the first instance—to real, paid jobs. We already had the first of these people on salaries, particularly in places like Finke River. I have to say that I was hugely disappointed to hear that one of the first moves of the new Rudd government was to announce that our transitioning of people off CDEP—work for the dole for Aboriginal people—into real jobs was to be halted and that there would be a review in some six or eight months about the whole business of CDEP funding. In the meantime, our transition to real work programs has been halted and therefore those art communities are back where they were, depending on welfare subsidies. I am talking about some of the most significant artists in Australian society today. I think that is shameful, quite frankly. I think it was one of the short-sighted moves in response to pressures during the election campaign. The Labor candidate, the member for Lingiari, went about talking to those who were profiting from the status quo of CDEP—and they were a tiny minority, those who were able to gain more income from top-ups and so on. The candidate helped secure his re-election by promising that CDEP would be retained. CDEP was sit-down money. It excluded some 80 per cent of the local population who had no jobs and most of those on CDEP, mostly men, had no real work to do. It was a huge disappointment. Again I say to the minister: please re-examine what we were doing to support Indigenous people in the arts sector to be properly reimbursed for their artwork and to be genuinely upskilled, trained and initiated into the mysteries of art marketing and resale.

I put another issue to the minister, and that is the royalty resale scheme, which I understand the Labor government committed to as part of its election commitments. I have heard nothing from the minister in the first three months about the royalty resale scheme. It is a complex issue and, for Indigenous artists in particular, as he would acknowledge, a matter of huge import as their artwork passes from one owner to another, going from several hundred dollars reimbursement, say, out at Finke River to hundreds of thousands of dollars perhaps on resale in the international market. I ask the minister to address the royalty resale scheme urgently, because it is a matter that is of very live and real interest, particularly to Indigenous artists.

I want to talk about building upon the success of our world-class training institutions. The coalition put a lot of resources and effort into our training institutions to provide Australia with our next generation of artists and performers. We encouraged understanding, knowledge, participation and appreciation of Australian culture across Australia and the world. We did this through funding programs, not by writing press releases, giving interviews or making feelgood statements. We actually put resources behind our ideals and our values.

Let me go back to the business of younger people. I mentioned that our coalition government was very concerned about ensuring generations of young musicians and others develop their talents. The Young and Emerging Artists Fund was a coalition initiative which was commenced in 1996. It is in limbo, I am sorry to tell you. The Young and Emerging Artists Fund provided funds for fellowships, cadetships and so on for rural and regional artists, as well as metropolitan artists. As we speak, there is no advertising of those positions and there are no calls for expressions of interest, because bodies like NIDA, the Australian Youth Orchestra and so on have no idea what Labor is going to do about this emerging artists fund. They have had no instructions and no information. They do not know whether it is like the other axed programs: simply gone. Or is the minister contemplating something even more generous than that which the coalition put into the system? The young artists and performers want to know. They have to know. Our young and emerging artists deserve better than what they are getting right now from the Rudd government.

The coalition provided record levels of financial support, totalling $680 million in our 2007-08 budget. That represented an increase of $40 million since the previous year, and an increase of more than 65 per cent since Labor was in office last, in 1996. As I have said repeatedly, Mr Garrett has presided over a slash of over $40 million in his first 100 days. Sadly, we are told there is more to come, with the depreciation issue being revisited and the two per cent dividend on the table that the agencies must deal with.

The coalition introduced a $282.9 million film package, which was to bring more international film productions to Australia, encourage greater investment in the Australian film industry and strengthen our film production and acting skills base. All we have got so far from Labor is the legislation before the House today, the Screen Australia Bill, but no funding attached to it and heaven knows what might be attached in the future to anything they might call a film package. We committed almost $420 million over three years from 2007-08 for the Australia Council—an increase of $20 million over the previous three years. Labor has already slashed the Australia Council funding by $4.5 million. That has been announced and is already being dealt with by the Australia Council, which is an umbrella funding body for the other institutions.

We committed over $30 million over four years from 2006-07 to make Old Parliament House the premier institution interpreting Australia’s political history. Canberra citizens are still reeling from the shock of the slashes to the National Capital Authority, which is making the icon institutions in the Australian Capital Territory look very much like the poor relations, given that many of them are still young and building up their collections.

We committed $26.5 million for the National Archives of Australia over four years for the new purpose-built preservation and record storage facility. As we say, the Labor government has no such commitment. All it is doing is enacting our legislation. There was a commitment for $10.6 million over four years, from 2006-07, to improve the governance, finances and artistic standards of the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, and Orchestra Victoria. Mr Garrett is silent on that issue too.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You will refer to the minister by his appropriate title.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Heritage, the Arts and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will, Madam Deputy Speaker. We were committed to securing the future of Australia’s small to medium performing arts companies with funding boosts in the 2004-05 and 2007-08 budgets, providing $7.8 million per year to 60 small to medium arts organisations. As I keep saying, Labor has slashed that funding, demanding a two per cent efficiency dividend overall, and of course it has taken away the international touring opportunities for any performers who wish to take their talents offshore. Then there was the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s funding slash. They can no longer put forward their international competition and their masterclasses—something they had become internationally famous for.

We had enhanced the stability of Australia’s 20 major performing arts companies, which benefited their combined audience of around 2.4 million Australians, including one million children. The 2.4 million Australian audience was a direct result of their better resourcing. Even more importantly than the better resourcing, we had ensured the stability or security of ongoing funding. Without that security, our 20 major performing arts companies are in serious jeopardy.

We provided $6 million over four years, from 2007-08, for the Bundanon Trust. We had developed and extended the visual arts and craft strategy to support artists, galleries, Indigenous visual arts centres and contemporary art exhibitions. Until three months ago, that coalition strategy had resulted in a 23 per cent increase in the earnt income of the organisations, a 98 per cent increase in public programs and a 41 per cent increase in gallery visiting numbers. We are very proud of those achievements of the John Howard government in the visual arts and craft strategy area.

What have we had in the first three months, or 100 days, of Labor? As I have said to you, we have seen funding slashed, we have seen the heart taken out of young performers’ futures and, in particular, we have seen a constraining of international exposure for our artists as our Australia on the World Stage program was slashed. As I said to you before, to ensure that generations of young musicians could develop their talents through the Australian Youth Orchestra, we provided $1.9 million over four years. We do not know about that funding’s future. We certainly do know that the Young and Emerging Artists Fund, which commenced in 1996 and needs re-funding from June this year, is in limbo.

We also supported the National Institute of Dramatic Art to the tune of $4.8 million over four years. NIDA—in the minister’s own electorate—waits with bated breath to see if it will be able to continue to be pre-eminent in Australia, training not only some of what have turned out to be the world’s best actors but also the producers, the makers of costumes and the interpreters of great and new works. All of that, as I say, is in limbo.

I will end with a quotation from the minister himself which I think is rather compelling. The minister, Mr Garrett, said:

I think most people who have ever had a go at writing a poem or doing a painting realise it’s very hard to do it well, but at the same time, for artists, it’s a choiceless act, although you’re choosing to do it because it’s your vocation.

You need more than a vocation; you need Australian government funding support. Arts can never be financially self-sufficient right across the board. I ask the minister to rethink his funding cuts. (Time expired)

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank the member for Murray for concluding her remarks with a quote from me, and I would be happy to provide her with further quotes, at length, to deal with some of the issues that she raised in debating and responding to the legislation before the House—the Screen Australia Bill 2008, the National Film and Sound Archive Bill 2008 and Screen Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2008but I do not think that is what people want to hear. I will say that the member opposite, the shadow minister for the arts, spoke about the Liberal Party’s commitment to the arts and Australian political history, but there is one thing that she neglected to address: that is the fact that, for the first time that I am aware of in Australian political history, the government of the day, the Liberal-National coalition, went to the 2007 election without an arts policy. There was no arts policy at all. We basically heard nothing from the then minister for the arts, Senator Brandis; we knew nothing of his views about the future of arts and culture in Australia. It was a glaring absence, a remarkable absence, at the time.

I say to members opposite that, rather than their description of the Rudd government’s approach to ensuring that there is fiscal prudence operating across all departments and portfolios—something that I had every expectation the opposition would in fact acknowledge and support—as slashed funding, what we are actually talking about is an efficiency dividend. That is absolutely clear. This government is tackling the inflationary pressures that were left behind by the previous government, and I do not expect any aspects or parts of my portfolio to be immune from that. At the same time, this government will ensure that Screen Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive are properly resourced. We will ensure that there is robust attention to the situations and conditions that artists across the spectrum find themselves in. We will ensure that there is a strong and clear voice of support for their endeavours. The voices that we heard from the past government—the former Treasurer, Mr Costello, and others—were voices of derision. The voices of the Rudd Labor government are voices of support.

I will refer very quickly to a couple of other remarks that the member for Murray made. I was very interested to see that she raised the discussion paper on the legal deposit issue. My understanding is that a discussion paper was committed to in 2004 and, three years later, it was produced. That seems to have been the totality of the opposition’s commitment to legal deposits. It is an issue that I will be looking at further down the track and I will endeavour to move a little more quickly than that, I have to tell you.

Finally, in relation to the shadow minister’s remarks about UNESCO, I really look forward to the opposition reviewing its approach generally to UNESCO and other UN instruments, because for 11½ years what we really had was disdain for the UN from Mr Howard, the former Prime Minister, and from members opposite. Now it seems they have discovered that UNESCO has produced a phrase that buttresses a political point they want to make here in the House. I hope this leads to better things—in other words, a more mature, more constructive multilateral engagement by the opposition with UN fora and institutions, including UNESCO. And I look forward to their support for a resale royalty. It is our intention to introduce legislation for a resale royalty scheme for visual artists. We have long said that it is a great deficiency in our system that artists, particularly Indigenous artists, whose work experiences pretty significant increases in price do not gain some measure of benefit from that. So I look forward to the support of the opposition.

As I said when we introduced these bills into the parliament on 20 February—and I do acknowledge the role played by the previous government in bringing this legislation forward in its initial phase—the government place a very high value on a creative and viable Australian film and television industry, and the passage of these bills is one means of providing support to the industry as it seeks to meet and overcome the many challenges it faces.

I note that the public consultation process showed widespread support for the new agency, which I strongly supported from day one in opposition in the Labor Party and in my capacity as shadow spokesman for arts and then shadow minister for the arts. I want to acknowledge and thank all those who took time to provide submissions. While all the submissions could not be acted upon, nevertheless they did inform the overall process and will continue to inform Screen Australia as it goes into its establishment phase. If Screen Australia is to do the job it is being set up to do, it cannot simply be an amalgam of the three agencies which will be merged into it, although the government acknowledges the very fine efforts of these agencies over many years. But Screen Australia cannot operate in distinct silos nor, on merging, with three separate cultures. It must become a unified single entity with a fresh perspective on the challenges which the Australian film and television industry faces.

The government expects Screen Australia to adopt a balanced approach to the various functions which it is required to undertake, to offer leadership to the industry during a period of significant change and to be efficient in its operations so that it maximises funding available for its programs. As Screen Australia will have a number of diverse functions and a broad range of stakeholder interests to consider, the board and management will need to ensure wide consultation in relation to agency priorities, objectives and processes to ensure all voices can be heard as the new entity emerges. However, I caution that the industry will need to be patient as the agency builds up to full capacity. The industry must also seek to change, grow and become more sustainable. The new funding body cannot and will not have all the answers. It will operate alongside the producer offset, and its functions and operations must be seen in that light. The government is committed to putting the framework for change in place, but the extent of the change which occurs will largely be determined by industry willingness to embrace new approaches and explore new business models. It is an exciting challenge for both Screen Australia and the film and television industry, but one I am sure they will be able to meet.

In particular, I want to emphasise the importance of documentary funding through Screen Australia. As I indicated in the second reading speech, it is the government’s intention that the National Interest Program, currently administered by Film Australia, be strengthened and broadened so that programs of all types which are of special cultural and historical importance can be made. This is not meant to constrain Screen Australia from supporting documentaries through other funding programs where they meet criteria for funding. Indeed, I would hope that the documentary sector as a whole will benefit from stronger resourcing as a result of the creation of Screen Australia.

I am also excited by the potential of the new National Film and Sound Archive to become a national collecting institution of some note and to build on the good work that has been done by archivists there. I know that many people have lobbied hard for the archive to have statutory independence to assist it to be an even more effective institution than it has been to date. In particular, I want to thank Senator Kate Lundy for her ongoing support for the archive, and also the member for Fraser, Bob McMullan. I trust supporters will continue to provide input to the archive’s objectives, priorities and programs.

As I said when introducing this legislation, the archive cannot just be about maintaining and preserving the national collection. It will need to have a high public profile and an outward focus on developing public awareness of and access to the collection, as well as providing support to other less well-resourced collecting bodies around the country. With its new autonomy comes a requirement for greater transparency and accountability. Both the government and the industry will have high expectations of what the archive can achieve. I hope the archive itself will embrace this new role and status and seek to work with all its stakeholders to strengthen and expand its role so that generations to come will see it as a valuable resource and leader in its field. This legislation is important. The government strongly supports a viable and sustainable film industry, an expression of the great cultural vitality of our creative communities and of our nation.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.