Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

The merger announced in the budget of the AFC, the FFC and Film Australia comes into effect on 1 July 2008. We have been aware for a number of years that Australia’s film industry has been underperforming. Only last year filmmaker George Miller was reported as ‘feeling despair at what is happening with the Australian film industry’. The AFC’s National survey of feature film and TV drama production 2005-06 found the value of production activity had fallen by one-third from the previous year and the value of foreign features shot in Australia was significantly below the five-year average.

Now the government’s long overdue response has been announced, including the formation of the Australian Screen Authority, could the minister advise what evidence the government has to suggest:

the introduction of the new Producer’s Rebate will significantly lessen the call on direct funding from the Authority over time.

Could the minister advise what modelling the government has commissioned to back up this claim? Can the minister guarantee funding levels to the various government film agencies will not fall following the merger?

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