Arts Minister Tony Burke promised we’d have Aussie content on our streamed TV services like Netflix. But he’s done nothing … except spend tens of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars to try to keep the lobbying of streaming service’s secret. Transparency Warrior Rex Patrick reports.

It’s good to be a foreign streamer in Australia. You get to sell your product to 27 million customers through a National Broadband Network that you didn’t pay for, you earn billions in revenue which is extracted from Australia largely tax free, and you don’t have to support the local arts industry in return.

While the Federal Government promised to fix the local content part of the scam, and started down the pathway of fulfilling that promise, its action has come to a complete halt. When Senator Jacqui Lambie went on the hunt to find out why, requesting access to correspondence between the streamers and the Minister for Arts, Tony Burke,

he responded to the Freedom of Information request with an ‘R’ rating – redacted!

Lambie wasn’t having that and took Burke to the Administrative Review Tribunal. He engaged taxpayer funded lawyers and, to August 19 this year, had spent $32K resisting transparency.

Things have moved on from August with more money spent, now likely around $50K. Burke belatedly came to an understanding he was on a losing ticket, so he’s capitulated into releasing most of the information. And it’s all quite revealing.

Dithering over local TV content plays into hands of global streamers

Legal requirements

Commercial (free to air) TV licensees are required to comply with Australian content obligations under the Broadcasting Services Act. They must make sure that not less that 55% of the total hours of programs transmitted during the year on their primary channels between 6 am and midnight are Australian programs.

They must also comply with genre specific obligations set out in the Broadcasting Services (Australian Content in Advertising) Standards 2018 and the Broadcasting Services (Australian Content and Children’s Television) Standards 2020.

Those requirements create Australian jobs in arts, drama, film and in production. They ensure Australians get to see Australian culture and products on TV.

Subscription Video on Demand (streaming) services such as Netflix, Stan, and Disney+, are currently not, and have never been, required to meet any Australian screen content requirements.

Promises, promises

During the 2022 election campaign the Albanese opposition promised to “work with all stakeholders” on a National Cultural Policy “to determine ways Australian content can be boosted for both Australian music and screen content on streaming platforms”.

Having won government in May 2022, they released a policy paper in January 2023 and commenced consultation with stakeholders (including screen industry peak bodies, free-to-air TV and streamers). By March 2023 they had come up with Targeted Stakeholder Consultation Paper which presented two regulatory models for content quotas. The regulatory models were refined and updated in November 2023.

Shortly thereafter, Disney, Netflix, Paramount Prime and Stan wrote to the Burke expressing their views on the regulations. Everything suddenly came to a screeching halt. The big boys had spoken.

Manufactured secrecy

Burke was politically arrogant in his secrecy, advancing the idea in the original Freedom of information (FOI) decision that all the information was obtained in confidence.

It’s a clear trend of the Albanese government. As well as trying to shut down FOI, it’s made consultation under non-disclosure agreements a routine practice. The government doesn’t want companies spilling any public policy beans, let alone politically embarrassing secrets, and, perhaps most importantly, they wants to be able to claim that there are confidentiality agreements in place to block any FOI requests from journalist or members of the public.

But the Government has no right to manufacture confidentiality to avoid transparency with the public it is there to serve.

The issue of public officials being able to usurp transparency by setting up, or just agreeing to, secrecy is one that will be tested in the Full Court in March next year (Rex Patrick v Secretary of Climate Change, Energy and the Environment and Water & Ors).

Snowy 2.0 legal cost avalanche – more public money spent hushing more public information

But for now, the Minister has fallen on his secrecy sword and released most of the information. Perhaps it’s the fear of the spectacle of Lambie v Burke in the Tribunal. Perhaps it’s because Transparency Warrior is on the case. Perhaps the legal advisors, the Australian Government Solicitor, had whispered ‘futility’ into the minister’s ear.

Whining. The documents reveal all

The documents begrudgingly released so far show that the streamers were most unhappy. In a collective letter to Minister Burke they wrote:

“We are profoundly disappointed with the two models that have been put forward. They ignore the feedback we have provided.”

 They went on to say, 

“These models would have serious negative consequences on the diversity of content being produced, whilst having significantly inflationary effects that will impact the sustainability of the production industry”.

And with that the Government stopped dead in its tracks.

[Insert FOI documents]

Industry response to the FOI release

Simon Nasht, one of the few documentary story makers willing to speak out, posted on LinkedIn.

A dump of FOI documents today reveals just how effective the lies and misdirections of the largely US owned streaming platforms have been in scaring off the Labor government from delivering on its promise of local screen content quotas.

Labor went to the 2022 election promising to enforce Australian content on the streamers. Nothing happened. They then promised to have the quotas in place by July 1 last year. Nothing happened. Labor reiterated its commitment before the 2025 election…well you know what happened. Nada. That’s 4 years of broken promises, and meanwhile thousands of jobs have disappeared from the screen industry. That’s careers ruined and lives broken.

The documents show how Labor buckled to an intense lobbying campaign from the streamers who claimed they were ‘profoundly disappointed’ by the quota plans and annoyed that their “feedback” had been ignored. The lobby duplicitously claimed the quotas would reduce the viewing options for Australian subscribers while threatening the sustainability of the industry.

Pretty breathtaking stuff coming just days after the news that Netflix reported revenue of $1.2 billion in Australia in 2023-2024 yet somehow was unprofitable and paid zero tax. They sure know a thing or two about how to sustain a business, tax avoidance being the #1 priority. Priority #2- leach off a public asset in the NBN. Priority #3- hire an army of lobbyists to maintain the status quo. #4-invite Arts Minister Burke to your local office opening, and claim, with a straight face, to be 100% behind Australian production, then wave goodbye to your entire local commissioning team.

You won’t find many in the domestic Australian industry that are so bold. They’re desperate to get the next trickle of Federal funding from Screen Australia and are fearful of the consequences of speaking the truth.

Brazilian wax for Netflix nrofits

While Burke fails Australian culture and the local industry, Brazil has taken a different position.

The Government In Brazil has just extracted $US619 million ($950 million) from Netflix in response to its in-country tax practices.

Burke has no such courage.

Dire straits

1,200 screen industry workforce participants have just responded to a survey on the state of play in Australia. More than 500 respondents reported a severe decline in work, of which 71.6 per cent said they had experienced financial stress or significant income loss over the past 1 to 2 years, with 45.1 per cent reporting they had lost over half their income.

Nearly 5 per cent had been forced to sell their homes, while others have been pushed onto welfare (6.8 per cent) or to close their businesses entirely (3.7 per cent).

Nearly a third of respondents also reported serious mental health issues stemming from the workload collapse.

Meanwhile the Government has capitulated to multi-national streamers. Minister Burke is sitting in comfort in his ministerial office unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation. He’s been convinced that the Art’s industry complaints are one big fiction.

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This post was originally published on Michael West.