Burke’s backyard. Local content deal for streamers not what it seems.

Are there lobbyists in Burke’s backyard? Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has announced legislation that will force multinational broadcasting giants to produce more Australian content. It’s not what it seems it says Simon Nasht.

Recently government MPs have been arriving at Canberra airport and being greeted by large signs demanding Australian stories be featured on newer streamers such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon, Paramount, Apple and HBO Max. It was a reminder that Labor has been promising for years about regulations requiring these global giants to spend some of their huge, tax-free Australian profits on local production.

The Australian film industry finally took action and launched a damaging grassroots campaign that targeted local MPs and garnered considerable support from a cross-section of politicians who began asking uncomfortable questions in Parliament.

scare campaign

Meanwhile, publishers were waging a harsh scare campaign; They were falsely claiming that any local content legislation would violate the Free Trade Agreement with the US and threatening Trump’s wrath if Australia dared to protect its cultural life (completely ignoring that similar quotas are already in place in the EU, Canada, South Korea, Brazil and many other countries).

Yesterday, as jockeys saddled up for the Melbourne Cup, Arts Minister Tony Burke finally broke the news of action. It has proudly announced its new quota regime, which it claims will lead to a huge increase in Native content across broadcasters for drama, documentaries, children’s TV and, oddly enough, given the commercial tastes of broadcasters, education and the arts.

Hooray! It’s a red-letter day for Australian culture and the end of a long-standing sore that has embarrassed the government for some time now, breaking promises to introduce local content quotas on global streaming platforms.

Their Spruikers were relaying the news to the Press Gallery; They bought the story just the way Burke wanted it. But in their enthusiasm, someone gave the game away. Buried another way misleading article ($) inside AFRpolitical reporter Ronald Mizen was told the alarming truth. Mizen quoted an anonymous government spokesman who accidentally let the cat out of the bag:

The government’s view is that all broadcasters except the first are spending enough on Australian content to meet the new thresholds.

Here we have it. After years of evasive statements, position papers, consultations and confusion, and in the face of a severe stagnation in the film industry largely caused by broadcasters’ disruption, the result is, wait for it, no change. The status quo will be preserved.

Details tell another story

The devil, of course, will be in the details. As the government continues to make changes today by introducing a bill that no one has seen, it is obvious that there is a huge get-out-of-jail-free clause for broadcasters. They have the right to choose how quota spending is measured. On the one hand, it is either a simple percentage of their income in Australia, set by the Government as low as 7.5%; or they can choose to receive a 10% quota based on their programming ‘spend’ in Australia.

This second spending pattern is almost impossible to evaluate independently. Remember, these platforms have already managed to manipulate their books to the point of paying almost no tax on several billion dollars of income in Australia. Now Labor has gotten them out of this situation by letting them pick basically any figure they choose as the basis for calculating how much they should spend on original Australian productions.

Netflix, Google and Facebook are scamming Australia!

It’s a dark joke, a scam that delicately threads the needle between being seen to protect Australian screen culture and appeasing the powerful broadcast lobby.

We might expect some ritualistic hand-wringing from publishers about ‘undue interference in the market’, but in reality the message to head office is ‘mission accomplished’. The Australian government had stepped back and given them what they wanted. And there will be no serious pushback from Washington in return.

Exhausted by the fight and captured by spin doctors, even Screen Producers Australia, perhaps the industry’s largest lobby group, welcomed the news and issued its statement. media release Simultaneously with the government (and apparently the SPA council, actually before the board of directors saw this statement). Maybe a case of Stockholm Syndrome?

You’ve got to give it to Albanese and Burke. They are resourceful political actors and, as with recent environmental legislation, the government appears to be keeping its promises while stealthily avoiding any negative consequences. But the outcome of this case is an act of cultural vandalism that will reverberate for decades.

Soon we will all be speaking American.

Burke is connecting to Netflix. Secret lobbying benefits big publishers