TRANSCRIPT - ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING 21/11/2022

GREG JENNETT: Now, finally in between duties in the House as Manager of Opposition Business, Paul Fletcher is also Shadow Arts Minister and he's taken stock of comments his opposite number in the Albanese Government, Tony Burke, made on television production at a writer's guild function last week. It's got to do with what streaming shows services like Netflix, Amazon and Disney Plus might have to make under an expanded local content set of laws in this country. Paul Fletcher is with us now in the studio. Welcome back, Mr Fletcher. Now, you are suggesting, I think, that Tony Burke is foreshadowing he's ready to go there, might be looking at imposing a 20% content order on streaming services. Where does that figure come from?

PAUL FLETCHER: That is what the Screen Production Association has been calling for. So, the background here is streaming video on demand, Netflix, Amazon, Stan, Paramount, Disney Plus, five or six or seven years ago didn't exist. Now, big part of the scene, over 70% of Australian households have a streaming video on demand service. When I was Minister of the Communication and the Arts, I imposed obligations on the streamers to report regularly on their spending on Australian content. We just seen the numbers for 2021-22, $335 million, they're spending on Australian production, 718 programs.

JENNETT: That's without any obligations?

FLETCHER: That's right. We did a lot of work in Government, we released a Green Paper, we then put out a media statement, and what we were proposing was there be a legislative obligation to report to Government, to the Australian Communications and Media Authority on how much you spend on Australian programming. Next - if you don't achieve 5% of your Australian revenue, then the Minister would have a legal right under the legislation to set a specific requirement as to how much Australian programming you need to spend money on.

JENNETT: Would that threshold have been met with the sort of figures you have seen?

FLETCHER: Pretty close to. We're seeing significant spending on the Australian content by the streamers. We're seeing a lot of spending on Australian content across free-to-air, subscription TV and video on demand. The other thing we did is we increased from 20% to 30% the tax offset which is available for productions that are going to go on to television. Previously it was only 20%, movies were 40%, but with the growth of streaming, that made a lot of sense. So we're seeing a lot of activity in production.

JENNETT: OK. So Tony Burke is going to go there, but to be fair to him, he did stress while we haven't made the decision on exactly how to define it, the consultation process is continuing, he wanted to relay broadly where he's going to the industry and that he's doing that. It may very well be that he lands something along the lines of what you're proposing.

FLETCHER: One of the issues that my colleague Sarah Henderson, Shadow Communications Minister and I, have highlighted in our media release today is that it's very odd that the discussion on this has been led exclusively by the Arts Minister. Arts is very important, I am a former Arts Minister, but we need to weigh up the media policy issues here as well. That's Sarah Henderson's responsibility from a Coalition's perspective. But the point I make is that the Australian Consumer and Media Authority produced the digital platforms inquiry, hundreds of pages of detailed work, reported to the previous Government in 2019. One of the things they recommended was the harmonisation of media regulation, as much as the possible the rules should be the same for businesses that are - compete and serve the same audiences but might be using different technologies. Some over free-to-air, some other subscription television and others over the internet. Now, what the current Government seems to be doing is going in the opposite direction from that which would be a bad outcome. So, we need to see an integrated approach. The previous Government was following integrated approach. That's what we're calling for.

JENNETT: We can't be certain that this Government is not going to integrate all of these platform considerations because we know it's taking on other reviews, is it not, around streaming services? Michelle Rowland has said as much.

FLETCHER: Well, it's been quite hard to hear from the Communications Minister as to what her views are on this. We heard a lot from the Arts Minister. These two things need to come together. Indeed one of the previous national cultural policies, Mr Burke is very fond of his national cultural policy. One of the earlier ones going back to the mid-90s recommended arts and communications should be held by the same Minister. I think that's a good idea. That's what we did in Government. Now we got Arts with Tony Burke and Communications with Michelle Rowland, they don’t seem to be very aligned. I am very aligned with my colleague Sarah Henderson. We want to see an integrated approach here and we think you need to do the detail policy work rather than pulling the number like 20% out of the air. That's the issue.

JENNETT: Let's talk briefly and finally - I'm interested in that figure you identified today - $335 million worth of spend by the streaming...

FLETCHER: And one of the things also is that we're now seeing Australian screen productions get around the world. Heartbreak High on streaming produced in Australia, but seen in the US and other countries. We all want to see great Australian screen productions doing well in Australia, but doing well globally. We want to see the Australian screen production sector being a big export player and so that's where streaming offers and new opportunities...

JENNETT: Would you pull the trigger on them? If you were the Minister sitting here today and saw $335 million in spend on local content, would you make them reach higher?

FLETCHER: The way I do it, would be as we set in the detailed work we did and said we would legislate it if we came back to Government, you must report and if you don't meet 5% then the Minister can set a target and that target could be potentially be that 5% or a different level, but what we got to do is weigh up all of the competing considerations, we're worried that's not happening and we're not getting the right balance of the media policy issues and the arts policy issues. Australian production is a great thing, let's have more of it, but it's not as simple as, "Just keep dialling up the regulatory requirement", because you could have some unintended consequences.

JENNETT: It looks like the Government is edging towards, exactly what that is, we don't know. We'll see and perhaps talk to you about it when we do know the exact details. Paul Fletcher, thanks for joining us again in the studio. 

FLETCHER: Thank you Greg.

ENDS

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