Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 29 April 2016, the Senate committee tabled the report Game on: more than playing around—the future of Australia's video game development industry. I chaired this committee at the time, and the report contained eight unanimous recommendations to advance the games development industry. Despite an open letter from the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association, it took well over 600 days for the Turnbull government to produce a substantive response. A motion from earlier this week that I co-sponsored with Senator Steele-John details the complete failures of the government and the minister when it comes to the interactive games industry. The response from the Turnbull government is a massive disappointment for the games industry development. The simple fact is video games are big business, both in Australia and throughout the world. But we need a government that is prepared to work with the games industry and support the games industry, not just provide it with lip service.

The video games industry faces the same problems as many in our knowledge economy—an inability to keep professionals here in Australia. There is immense competition across the world for video game design studios. As a result, the 2012 former Labor government created the Australian Interactive Games Fund to support the ongoing development of the video game industry in Australia. The $20 million fund was working and working well. It was helping to build a sustainable base for the Australian games industry, partnering with investors, and it was also creating jobs. But of course the fund was a victim of the ridiculous 2014-15 Abbott-Hockey purge budget. While the government announced a National Innovation and Science Agenda in late 2015, it has no explicit references to the video games industry. It's an overarching policy without complementary policies included within.

This inquiry found that there was a strong economic return from funds provided as grants and loans during the Interactive Games Fund's existence. The fund was cut because of the Abbott-Hockey era ideological warfare on Australian jobs. We saw it with the car industry; we have seen it in the construction industry. Their war on workers was littered throughout their 2014-15 budget. In the government's weak response to this report, the current Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, demonstrates that he is not innovative, that he is not agile and that he is just as bad as Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey. The Turnbull government response merely notes or rejects most of the unanimous recommendations of the Game on: more than playing around report, and doesn't even support the recommendation that the government commit to rolling out 21st century broadband infrastructure.

Games have the capacity, as I learnt through the inquiry—and I'm sure there are people younger than me that would have known this—to solve high-value problems across health, education, defence and numerous other sectors. Australia has the potential to lead in the development of games for entertainment and non-entertainment purposes alike. We must support our creative industries to grow and employ more people in Australia. Bandwidth-hungry technology such as virtual reality and augmented reality, potential applications for so-called serious games and educational games, will only continue to increase.

Australia is on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution and cannot afford the ongoing ineptitude of the Turnbull government, which overpromises and underdelivers in the communications space. Not only is the Turnbull government ploughing billions into the 19th-century copper broadband network but it is neglecting the video game development industry that will help transform our economy and society into the future. The game industry deserves much better, so much better. The value and importance of the video game sector is clear. Currently there is no policy leadership to support the future of Australian game development from the Turnbull government. They are happy for these excellent professionals in these fields to just get up and leave. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.