Free trade agreement - Australia's cultural industries lose out?

The free trade agreement with the US threatens significant losses to Australian culture, representatives of the Australian film and television industry said today.

As more details of the deal become available, the industry says it is deeply concerned by the contradictions between the Australian Government's statements and those from the US.

"This is despite the Government's assurances that they have protected our right to ensure local content on Australian media whilst retaining the capacity to regulate new and emerging media, including digital and interactive television," said Simon Whipp, Director Equity, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

"It appears, for instance, that the Government has not agreed to an overarching cultural exemption such as that secured by the Canadian government with the US or the Singapore-Australia FTA, but rather to a set of narrow exemptions, some of which remain unclear."

"At this point, the lack of detail is causing the industry considerable concern," said Richard Harris, Executive Director of the Australian Screen Directors Association. "In new media, for example, it is not clear whether the Government has really retained the flexibility it claims or whether it will have to go cap-in-hand to the US government for approval every time it wants to intervene on behalf of Australian consumers. "

"The US statements about the FTA describe "unprecedented provisions to improve market access for US films and television". Someone has to explain the gap between the rhetoric of the two governments," says Geoff Brown, Executive Director of the Screen Producers Association of Australia.

The industry believes that commitments in the FTA include:

"For Multi-Channels on Free-To-Air TV: 80% of channels will be free of local content regulation. Of the 20% remaining there is no detail about the mix of programming that may be required, for example drama, documentaries, and children's programming. The industry fears that content requirements could be satisfied with one genre of programming - such as sport or reality tv " rather than a diverse range of Australian programming.

"For subscription television - both analogue and digital - a restrictive and inadequate regulatory regime, which locks in regulation at levels that reflect a "fledgling" industry, rather than an industry which is about to achieve critical mass. Under the subscription deal, up to 80% of a drama channel1s expenditure can be on overseas programming while up to 90% of all programming on documentaries, children1s, arts and education channels can be sourced from overseas. Every other channel can spend 100% on non-Australian programming, and show no Australian programs.

"The Government has agreed that we will only ever be able to introduce a 10% expenditure quota for children and educational channels on pay television. We know that the existing 10% expenditure quota on drama channels only delivers 3% Australian content - do we expect it to deliver more on educational or children's channels? Yet the agreement is supposed to be in the national interest?" Megan Elliott, Executive Director of the Australian Writers Guild.
The industry is also concerned that new media in the FTA is defined as interactive (such as the internet and mobile telephony) and doesn't refer to other future technologies, such as e-cinema.

"There's a real question as to whether any level of regulation can be imposed on media not referred to in the document. It seems that something like e-cinema - where movies are beamed into cinemas directly from Hollywood studios - is not covered by the agreement and that the Government has given away for all time its ability to regulate for Australian content in Australian cinemas," Richard Harris said.

"With recent box office figures revealing that 89% of ticket sales in Australian cinemas are from the US, and as distribution of cinema becomes more centralised from Hollywood with the advent of digital delivery, we can assume it will be even harder for Australian films to receive a theatrical release," said Geoff Brown, Executive Director of the Screen Producers Association of Australia.

"The industry will be looking for a significant boost in funding from the federal Government to counteract the negative impact of this agreement."

"It is important that the Government immediately provides the industry with details about the deal in the audiovisual sector, because the details will determine whether Australian content will be adequately protected into the future,"said Simon Whipp.

"The Government has promised us all along the way that they'd discuss any offer they made to the US with the industry, and they've reneged on this Commitment."

More information:

Simon Whipp 0413 153 059
Chris Warren 0411 757 668
Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance

Geoff Brown
0416 115 028
Screen Producer's Association of Australia

Megan Elliott
0414 573 336
Australian Writer's Guild

Richard Harris
0413 051 434
Australian Screen Director's Association