Australia’s screen production industry will be boosted with television series and mini- series distributed through online platforms now able to claim refundable tax offsets if they meet the other eligibility requirements.
The Morrison Government announced the game-changing decision that will make Australia an even more attractive environment for screen production and provide more opportunities for the thousands of highly-skilled Australian professionals working in the industry.
The extension of the Post, Digital and Visual Effects (PDV) and Location Offsets for online platforms such as Stan, Ten All-Access, Netflix and Amazon Prime, will ensure the industry can capitalise on opportunities and attract more investment in Australian screen production. This aligns with eligibility of the Producer Offset.
The Australian Screen industry is performing strongly and matching it with the best in the world. In 2017-18 we saw record expenditure on Australian titles of $718 million with 38 Australian feature films, 36 Australian television dramas and 10 Australian children’s drama titles commencing production. In 2018 Australian films enjoyed their third-highest ever best box office result. Increasingly, Australia is benefiting from investments by international productions, attracted by our talented and sought-after screen professionals and our competitive policy settings.
The introduction last year of the $140 million Location Incentive has already reaped dividends, with several major productions opting to base here as a direct result. These large budget productions employ thousands of creatives and crew, use the services of hundreds of small businesses.
Increased demand for our screen skills is essential to developing a sustainable sector. Large budget productions strengthen Australia’s capacity to produce high quality stories for Australian and international audiences by providing skills development and training opportunities that go significantly beyond what can be achieved on smaller budget productions.
The Government has also confirmed that there will be no changes to the format eligibility for the ASPI ensuring these mechanisms are still available for the creation of some of Australia’s most popular shows.
These decisions were taken by the Government prior to the caretaker period commencing and therefore is in effect for eligible applications received from 11 April 2019.