At the National Press Club in Canberra last week, Australian veteran actor and producer Bryan Brown characterised the push to regulate streaming giants as nothing less than a fight for Australian culture.

Brown, 76, who has just finished filming a Netflix adaptation of Australian author Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe in Brisbane, said a 20 per cent reinvestment obligation [for streaming services], complemented by strong and sound IP arrangements, “would help secure the future of our industry and keep it vibrant”.

“There’s a new game on the block for our industry: streaming.

“Australian audiences are loving streamers, and a few billion dollars in revenue is handed over by us each year to the streaming companies.

“We need some of that revenue put back into Australian stories.

“And I mean Australian stories. Not stories filmed in Australia with American accents. That’s a cultural death. We’ve been there,” he said on July 12.

“If our ability to present ourselves on film is taken away, we will become unsure of ourselves, in awe of others and less as a people,” he told his captive audience.

A montage of just a few of Bryan Brown’s body of work dating back to the early 1970s. Photo: National Press Club of Australia

Brown became an international success in the early 1980s with the critically acclaimed film Breaker Morant and television miniseries A Town Like Alice.

He described a career of “strange but wonderful happenings” – marrying Hollywood star Rachel Ward, throwing bottles with Tom Cruise, singing with Paul McCartney and even sharing a bath with Sigourney Weaver.

‘The shackles had come off’

On local stages all he had seen was Australians performing English and American plays in accents, so in 1972 he moved to England to become a professional actor.

Returning home two years later, the theatre scene had changed dramatically, with local playwrights such as David Williamson telling authentic Australian stories.

“It was as though the shackles had come off and we were set free,” he said.

That decade he also made his first feature film, Love Letters from Teralba Road, and enjoyed golden years that produced classics such as The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, My Brilliant Career, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Mad Max.

A string of hits followed, including The Thorn Birds, Gorillas in the Mist, FX, Newsfront, The Shiralee, Cocktail and Two Hands.

Brown said financing filmmaking had become far more complicated with offset schemes squeezing the capacity to produce local stories.

He adds a regulated streaming reinvestment would “allow companies to expand and allow creative people to join them, give the opportunity for writers to come up with ideas”.

“It can only be a positive thing.

“Can we use it? Can we make it work? You bet we can.”

The federal government has promised to lock in tougher rules for streamers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ with legislation expected later in 2023.

Industry lobby group Screen Producers Australia (SPA), which facilitated Brown’s speech this week and labels him an icon of the entertainment industry, says formal consultations on a streaming reinvestment obligation have now closed.

To coincide with Brown’s appearance on July 12, SPA – a campaign associate of the Australian Made Campaign – revealed survey results of a Roy Morgan report commissioned by Australian Made earlier this year.

Aussies demand Aussie content

It makes for interesting reading and clearly supports the quota push, with 89 per cent of Australians saying they want to see more Australian-made media content.

Other key findings include 81 per cent of Australians want to see more Australian-made films, more Australian-made TV shows/series and an easier way to identify Australian-made media.

“This data reinforces the government’s National Cultural Policy – Australian audiences want to see and find more Australian stories on their screens,” SPA’s boss Matthew Deaner says.

“Government investment requirements on streaming platforms is a win-win-win proposition. It is a win for audiences, a win for cultural impact and a win for the screen industry.

“That’s why SPA and the production industry strongly supports government policy for a requirement on streaming platforms to reinvest at least 20 per cent of revenues earned in Australia into new Australian content.

“The message from the Roy Morgan report couldn’t be any clearer,” he says.

Tweet from @NetflixANZ

Netflix ‘committed”

The streaming companies argue they should be able to determine their own levels of investment in Australian content, with the Heartbreak High reboot a recent hit for Netflix and documentaries such as Fearless: The Inside Story of the AFLW on Disney+.

In a statement provided to The New Daily, a Netflix spokesperson said the streaming giant “has been on the ground and investing in Australian film and television content for years, and is committed to making quality Australian titles”.

Netflix’s first commissioned local project was in 2015 with fiction series Mako Mermaids and has several series in production or post production, including Brown’s  Boy Swallows Universe, Eddie’s Lil’ Homies (an adaptation of Eddie Betts’ series of children’s books), Heartbreak High Season 2, and Surviving Summer Season 2.

“On media regulation, Netflix’s position is clear: we don’t oppose it, but do want it to be sustainable, equitable and evidence-based so that it creates good outcomes for Australian storytellers and audiences, and will continue to see our many home-grown films and shows enjoyed here and around the world,” Netflix wrote.

Brown says there’s “a lot of money to be made out of Australia and we’re happy to give them that money”.

“But we’re saying … you’ve got to make local stuff.”

“The streaming companies will fight hard to not legislate, they are a business, and we must fight just as hard for our culture.

“I’m sure once again we will all find an answer and so move forward.

“We owe it to Australians, Indigenous, old migrants and new to keep telling our stories.

“Our Australian stories – and what a story the Australian story is!”