Category Archives: Advocacy

Make it Australian responds to Government extending offsets to streaming services

14 April 2019 – The Morrison Government’s decision to extend tax offsets to streaming video services is another missed opportunity to require those platforms to invest in Australian content, say members of the Make It Australian campaign. Screen Producers Australia (SPA), Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), the Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG), and the Australian Directors…

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Will writers be better off after the senate inquiry?

4 April 2019 – Our industry feels like it’s in a constant state of flux as the media landscape continues to change, with added ferocity over the last two decades as screening models make the leap from free-to-air television to online streaming services.  The Senate Inquiry into Australian Content and Broadcast, Radio and Streaming Services has sought…

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EU Parliament passes Copyright Directive acknowledging rights of creators to proportionate remuneration

3 April 2019 – The Australian Writers’ Guild and Australian Writers’ Guild Authorship Collecting Society (AWGACS) commend the European Parliament on their vote last week to adopt the EU Copyright Directive, a move that will see the rights of authors, artists and composers to receive proportionate remuneration for the use of their work defined under European…

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There is no such thing as a free lunch

10 March 2019 – CJZ addresses drama budgets, shortage of writers and original concepts, in which CJZ claimed that high production and development costs and the lack of Australian writing talent were making it more and more difficult to create Australian drama. ‘There are work practices which make it impossible to make drama at the price…

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AWG Members Take ‘Make it Australian’ to Parliament House

5 July 2018 – The Australian Writers’ Guild visited Canberra last week to urge federal politicians from all parties to support the The delegation first attended an afternoon tea with the Labor caucus in Parliament House hosted by Labor MP Tony Burke. An informal panel where the caucus heard from actor Deborah Mailman, director Gillian Armstrong,…

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“Far out, brussels sprout!”

28 February 2018 – On 22 January 2018, The Australian published an article from the incoming CEO of Free TV Australia Bridget Fair, who likened Australian children’s content on commercial television to the brussels sprouts of a child’s dinner. This is yet another example of Australian commercial broadcasters’ self-serving efforts to claw back the already derisory amount of…

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Make It Australian campaign takes its fight to Canberra

17 October 2017 – Today, AWG will join with some of the giants of Australian film and TV to descend upon Parliament House in Canberra to directly lobby politicians to support the industry’s future and the Make It Australian campaign. Representing AWG, writer Katherine Thomson and writer-actor-director Leah Purcell will join actors Bryan Brown, Sigrid Thornton and…

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Productivity Commission recommendations could cripple Australia’s creative industries

Recommendations by the Federal Government’s Productivity Commission to cut copyright protection in Australia would have a devastating impact on the nation’s screenwriters and other authors .Jacqueline Elaine, Executive Director of the Australian Writers’ Guild said the draft recommendations – that include slashing the length of time copyright protects an author’s work from 70 years to…

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