21 August 2025 – The David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Australian Theatre Writing has increased in 2025 to become the richest annual playwriting award in the country. The winning playwright will now receive $40,000, with a further $80,000 awarded to the theatre company who staged the winning work, taking the total prize to $120,000. The David Williamson…
Continue readingThursday 7 August 2025: Australian creative workers and their royalty collecting societies expressed disappointment at the Productivity Commission’s advocacy for a text and data mining (TDM) exception, a move that would retroactively legalise the theft of Australia’s creative workers’ intellectual property, voices, images, and work, by foreign multi-nationals. The interim report “Harnessing data and digital technology” seeks feedback…
Continue readingThe Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG) and Australian Writers’ Guild Authorship Collecting Society (AWGACS) have rejected the suggestion that a Text and Data Mining (TDM) Exception for the training of AI models be considered by the government, and expressed disappointment at the Productivity Commission’s interim report. The report “Harnessing data and digital technology” seeks feedback on…
Continue readingThursday 31 July 2025: Screen Australia and the Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG) have announced the seven participants selected for The Creators 2025, a dynamic career acceleration program for high-calibre Australian screenwriters. The seven participants in The Creators program are: Building on the success of Years one and two, this third year will provide participants with high-level showrunner training,…
Continue readingThe Australian Writers’ Guild congratulates screenwriters Mads McRae and Georgia Struckel, who have been announced as the winners of the 2025 Emerging Writers’ Awards. The Awards were announced tonight to a packed room of senior writers, producers, industry folk and Guild members, who spent the evening mixing with the talented cohort of winning and shortlisted writers. Mads McRae won the Long Form Award for her feature film Grave’s End. Following…
Continue readingThe Australian Writers’ Guild congratulates screenwriters Jesse Laurie and Charlie Milne, who have been announced as the winners of the 2025 John Hinde Award. Jesse Laurie took home the award in the produced category for his sci-fi feature Zero, a gripping drama in which a wounded astronaut grapples with disorientation, a dwindling air supply, and his inner demons. The judges described Zero as “a skillfully crafted feature film which…
Continue readingA shortlist of eight outstanding writers has been chosen from hundreds of entries in the 2025 Emerging Writers’ Awards Eight emerging writers and their exciting unproduced projects have been shortlisted for the 2025 Emerging Writers’ Awards. Represented on the shortlist are gripping feature films, dramatic and comedic television pilots and a nail-biting short thriller. These eight…
Continue readingCongratulations to the nine sci-fi writers who have been shortlisted from hundreds of entrants in the 2025 John Hinde Award. The shortlist – which covers entries across the produced and unproduced categories – includes seven feature films and two episodes of children’s television series Rock Island Mysteries. The winning writers will be announced at an industry…
Continue readingThe theft of thousands of creative workers’ intellectual property by AI companies is unacceptable, say creatives of the Australian screen industry, urging the Government to come down hard on the ongoing and widespread use of stolen and uncompensated work by AI developers. Responding to the Productivity Commission’s consultation on policy reform, the Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG), Australian Writers’ Guild Authorship Collecting…
Continue readingWriters who are engaged by production companies to write scripts are entitled to superannuation under the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) (the Act). Section 12(3) of the Act states that if a person works under a contract that is “wholly or principally for the labour of the person” then that person is an employee of the other…
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