SPA Welcomes Renewed Government Commitment to Local Content Rules on Streaming Services

SPA Welcomes Renewed Government Commitment to Local Content Rules on Streaming Services – Today, Screen Producers Australia (SPA) welcomed the Prime Minister’s statement that the Australian Government strongly supports local content rules on streaming services so that “Australian stories stay on Australian screens”.

“The hundreds of small screen businesses and the thousands of their employees and partners across a range of creative sectors will welcome this statement by the Prime Minister. It signals the ongoing solid support for our creative industries and the importance of local content rules to Australia’s cultural sovereignty,”

– said SPA CEO Matthew Deaner.

“I know that the Australian Government has been under enormous pressure from the USA on this front, amply evident from the aggressive position of the Motion Picture Association, which has sought to resist, delay, and read down the local content rules agreed to in the 2004 Australia-US Free Trade Agreement. This was also an attempt to force a back down on the commitment made to us and the Australian public in our National Cultural Policy Revive, as well as the Coalition’s position when it was last in Government.”

“In upending trade conventions, the Trump Administration has given the opponents of these rules a big boost. That’s why today’s statement by the Prime Minister is such a welcome indication of the Government’s continuing stance in this situation.

“SPA has long advocated for local content rules so that our screen stories are available to our audiences as they move to streaming platforms. Because of the delay in putting these rules into place, right now, finding our own screen stories is getting harder and harder, and that’s not a good situation.

“Local content rules have served Australian audiences very well ever since they were first introduced for television in 1961 – nearly 65 years ago now. Without them, as a small, English-language nation, we would have had little ability or capacity to develop our own local industry and to compete on commercial terms with the scale and dominance of the massive USA and UK industries.

“It is SPA’s highest priority to secure a robust regulatory framework on streaming platforms, and we will continue our fierce advocacy for our industry until this is done,”