SYDNEY -- Australia's screen producers org bitterly criticized the government after studying the full text of the recently negotiated U.S.-Oz free trade agreement, released Thursday.
The producers are angry that the documents reveal the government is obliged to consult the U.S. before introducing new local content regs or raising existing quotas.
"We are not going to sit at a table with the Motion Picture Assn. of America to talk about implementing Australian content regulation," a defiant Geoff Brown, exec director of the Screen Producers Assn. of Australia, said.
Brown is writing to Trade Minister Mark Vaile to assert "there should be no position at the table for non-Australian interests to argue the merits of content regulation."
In the trade pact, the Aussie government agreed not to increase the 55% local content quota on terrestrial webs, but it reserved the right to double to 20% the amount each pay TV drama channel must spend on local programming out of its annual programming budget.
It also retained the right to introduce 10% local spending quotas on pay channels in other genres including children's, docus and education.
Brown also accused the government of setting so many tests before content regs can be imposed on new media platforms as to make it nearly impossible to regulate the sector.
And he's incensed that the agreement says regs can be applied only to new media services provided by companies that do business in Oz, meaning that offshore-based services such as Amazon.com are exempt.
"It appears the government has agreed to a lot of these things at the last moment: it's death by a thousand cuts," he said.
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