Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make some brief remarks about the Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 5) Bill 2021. These are important matters. The way that we regulate the arts and the media sectors will be some of the most important economic and social judgements that parliament will make over the next decade or so.

We are looking down the barrel of having a vastly greater percentage of foreign control of media organisations simply by virtue of the massive digital disruption we are living through. Basically, everyone knows that there are five very large companies based in the United States that started out as forms of digital supply organisations and are effectively morphing into everything: production companies, banks et cetera.

We need to be nimble in the way that we run our affairs in this country. Now, these particular measures deal with the tax incentives and offsets available to production companies. I note that the Screen Producers Australia organisation has called for this to be dealt with by this parliament in this year, to provide the certainty that is required for these producers. That is entirely valid and welcome, and I'm sure the Senate and the parliament will be able to achieve that goal for the industry. I know there are lots of people who are following this debate very closely, because there are jobs that hang off these things. Tax offsets and incentives are important. We know that from these arrangements and we know that from the research and development tax incentive. The reality is that you wouldn't have organisations like Canva in Australia employing thousands of people unless you had tax offsets, because those companies would set up shop in Silicon Valley with the official family of the digital world, which is already over there.

My point is that these are at first glance details but they are connected to an important and much broader agenda for the country: what are the settings we're going to have to ensure that Australians can get access to Australian content and that Australians can work in the digital, tech and media businesses, which are morphing into, effectively, one sector? That is going to be a very big question, and we can't get stuck with static policy settings. We can't have policy settings which were put in place 20 or 30 years ago, when the media landscape was radically different.

I welcome this measure. I note that the minister and the government have listened to the Senate committee process here. Once again, we see that the Senate committees probably do some of the best work of the parliament in providing that additional scrutiny and providing the capacity for people to have their say. It is very important that we protect and preserve the institution of the Senate committees, which are celebrating 51 years this year, because they serve a really important role in giving people access to policymakers. In this case, I think the revisions here are very sensible, and I look forward to this legislation being debated and passed.