It's a long-promised set of rules that would have Bluey and the Heeler family in Dance Mode.
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Quotas for Australian screen content on streaming services will finally be introduced to federal parliament, but there are warnings of possible loopholes.
A bill announced on Tuesday will mandate that streamers with more than a million subscribers invest ten per cent of their total Australian expenditure, or 7.5 per cent of their local revenue, on new Australian drama, children's, documentary, arts and educational programs.
"We have Australian content requirements on free to air television and pay television, but until now there has been no guarantee that we could see our own stories on streaming services," said Arts Minister Tony Burke.
Lobby group Save Our Arts has welcomed the bill but warned of potential loopholes, saying Australian content must be new, easily discoverable by audiences, and clearly defined.
"There needs to be some thresholds around what would count as Australian content, we don't want to be a backlot for making American productions, with an Australian star," said the group's David Latham.
Scripted content, including genres like drama, comedy, and kids' television should also be baked into the new rules, he said.
"The danger would be that based on this revenue model, money goes towards reality TV, or hosted sports shows, or a back catalogue of Neighbours," warned Latham.
The quota levels to be legislated are lower than the local screen industry had been campaigning for, with longstanding calls for global streamers to reinvest a minimum of 20 per cent of local revenue in Australian productions.
Laws to set minimum spending on Australian content for streamers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ were promised as part of the national cultural policy in early 2023.
But global streamers have long resisted, while the Australia-US free trade agreement and US President Donald Trump's tariffs on overseas-produced films were also hurdles to overcome.
The Australian Writers' Guild was among the industry groups to welcome the bill.
"Our members work in a volatile market where streaming platforms wield enormous power," said the guild's chief executive Claire Pullen.
"There is a growing disparity between broadcast and streaming in terms of how they give back to the community and our local industry, even as streaming comes to dominate how we watch shows and films."
Among popular movies and television shows available in Australia during October, there was little local content in the top ten releases for each category, according to charts from streaming tracker JustWatch.
One Australian movie, the horror feature Bring Her Back from filmmaking team Michael and Danny Philippou, made it to number ten on the features list, with Warner Bros supernatural horror flick Weapons at number one.
However Australian actors made their mark in overseas productions, including Cate Blanchett in US production Black Bag, which made it to number two on the movie streaming chart, and Toni Collette in the Canadian Netflix series Wayward.
Australian Associated Press
