Budgets for Tourism Australia, Screen Australia and overseas marketing under threat
Government support for marketing budgets for small businesses looking to promote themselves overseas, Tourism Australia and funding for Screen Australia are all in the firing line after today’s Commission of Audit report.
The report, commissioned by the Federal Government last year, has made a series of recommendations for areas the government can make savings, as part of what is expected to be a belt-tightening budget next week.
Recommendations in section 8.1 of the report, which may be ignored by the government, include cutting the budget for Screen Australia by half and focussing it on Australian content and shows “with an historical perspective that might not otherwise be funded”.
Matthew Deaner, executive producer of Screen Producers Australia, told Mumbrella the proposals were “drastic measures which would upset what is a critical balance of support in the industry”.
While the dollar is this high, and Sydney the most expensive place on earth why bother trying to entice people to come here. Let Flight Centre or Qantas pick up the tab…
Because there are so many Australian films getting made without Screen Australia at the moment…. In the future people still won’t see Australian films but they won’t go and see Australian period films.
+ direct the savings from the budget cut into ‘historical films’ … hmm, i wonder who is driving that angle? Oh, wait – maybe it’s retro Tony since he seems so intent on taking everything in this country back into the past from broadband to social policy to health reforms.
I probably wouldn’t say the EMDG grant is the perfect mechanism, however perfection is pretty hard to obtain anywhere let alone in government policy. What I would say is that it is at least a mechanism that does provide opportunities to develop export markets that otherwise would not have eventuated. If the successive governments had been developing support for Australian industries (the solar power industry is a good example of an industry that should have had significant support in this country years ago so by now should have been a cash cow) then the EMDG grant may be cut and not impact so many companies to attempt to globalise their operations, but sadly at this stage if this grant goes then so will overseas opportunities for many Australian companies. This sounds like traditional Liberal thinking of a market economy ideal which is now based on theory that is many decades old, and many others have moved on.
I guess it can’t be taken as a huge surprise that this Liberal government is looking at cuts to cultural institutions. Both the major parties have been up and down with their support for this sector in the past. Seems to come down more to the interests of individuals within parties as to how much funding flows here. To that end I’m not at all surprised that an Abbott government would make cuts in this area.
As for Tourism Australia? That ones probably a good move. Once we dredge in the Great Barrier Reef and increase the shipping passing through that area, continue our dependancy on ripping up the ground and selling it, ripping down beautiful old buildings in our cities and replacing them with lego apartment blocks, etc etc etc no-ones going to want to see how it ends up anyway.
Screen Australia says, “Its functions are to support and promote the development of a highly creative, innovative and commercially sustainable Australian screen production industry.”
A film stand or falls on people paying to see it. Not on taxpayer money. The government needs to scrap Screen Australia and its staff of rent seekers.
What exactly does Tourism Australia do? I quote its website:
“The Tourism 2020 Strategy is a rallying call to Australian industry and governments to focus on increased returns from the tourism industry. To achieve the Tourism 2020 Strategy, Tourism Australia will focus the majority of its global marketing resources on markets which represent the greatest potential for tourism growth to the year 2020. Tourism Australia will also target those emerging markets that have the strongest growth potential, and will continue to support rest-of-world markets.
How else do we get more tourists to come here? Mug taxpayers pay millions of dollars to Tourism Australia to churn out ‘2020 Strategy’ drivel. The government should do long-suffering taxpayers a favour. Scrap Tourism Australia.
Paul, the world is a more complicated place that ‘people watching or not watching a film’. There is seed money, marketing money, development money for films. Best you look into things first before you say such mindless platitudes.
The silver lining in this massive cloud of doom in terms of Tourism Australia is that by pulling a lot of its budget it might focus the organisation to address the issues that can’t be fixed by the usual TA process of making massively expensive and emotive/romantic commercials, i.e. TA might actually address the long-standing problems that tourists face when they get here by educating airport, tourism and other service staff (maybe even the broader community) about the importance of tourism to this country and how their actions impact our tourism potential.
If the best form of promotion is word of mouth, then all the offended tourists who love our country but are put off by rude and racist service staff will not be advocates for our wide brown land when they go home. But making big budget TVCs is much more fun than strategically addressing the poor experiences when visitors land eh!
It’s just a commission of audit report. The recommendations seldom get implemented… Look at your history… It’s a softening up tactic. Who gets the BCA to submit their wishlist and have it implemented?
@john ‘Mindless platitudes’ beat abstract drivel like ‘seed money, marketing money, development money’ . What on earth are you blathering on about?