Netflix, Disney and other streamers to be forced to pay for more Australian-made content

After years of haggling, stalling, negotiation and threats, a deal to force the streaming services to fund Australian screen content is finally imminent.

Labor is set to introduce a bill to parliament this week that will impose quotas on Netflix, Disney and any other services with at least a million Australian subscribers.

Dubbed an Australian content obligation, the legislation will require services that meet the threshold to invest at least 10 per cent of their total expenditure for Australia in the production of new local drama, children’s, documentary, arts or educational programming.

Alternatively, they can opt to invest 7.5 per cent of their Australian revenues in the same. The obligation will apply to Stan and Paramount+ if they meet the subscriber threshold, even though each is associated with a free-to-air broadcaster (Nine and Ten respectively) that already has an Australian content obligation.

Either model is likely to result in a significant boost to the amount of money invested in Australian content, particularly compared with recent levels, which have declined starkly after years of increases in anticipation of regulation.

Netflix is the largest streamer in the local market, with an estimated 6.2 million subscribers and local revenue of $1.3 billion in 2024.

Filings with the corporate regulator show the service incurred expenses of about $1.25 billion last year, reports the Australian Financial Review.

On the revenue model, Netflix’s obligation would equate to $97.5 million, while on the expenditure model it would be $125 million.

“We have Australian content requirements on free-to-air television and pay television, but until now, there has been no guarantee that we could see our own stories on streaming services,” said Arts Minister Tony Burke on Tuesday.

Hailing the “extraordinary shows” the streamers have already produced locally, Burke said “this obligation will ensure that those stories – our stories – continue to be made”.

Debate has raged for almost a decade over how and whether to regulate the streamers to ensure they support local content production. As they have stolen audience share from free-to-air television, the sense of urgency has risen dramatically.

In 2021, Paul Fletcher, the then Coalition government’s minister for arts and communications, proposed a voluntary 5 per cent quota on the streamers. Labor condemned the figure as far too low and the Greens have consistently argued for a levy of 20 per cent of Australian revenues.

Since becoming arts minister when Labor came to power the following year, Burke has been repeatedly frustrated in his attempts to develop a framework that adequately manages the complexity of the streaming sector, in which the various players operate with vastly different models. Netflix and Disney, for instance, are pure-play services, but Amazon bundles its subscription with its Prime delivery service, while Apple offers it as a bonus with many of its hardware products.

More recently, the threat of legal challenges for potential breaches of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement has been raised, as has the potential for retaliatory tariffs to be levied by the Trump administration.

The precise detail of the model Labor will take to parliament is not yet clear, but the Australian Writers’ Guild and Screen Producers Australia have been quick to welcome it.

“This announcement marks a landmark day for the Australian screen industry,” said Screen Producers Australia chief executive Matthew Deaner.

“Amid global uncertainty, the government has said it wants to ensure a future for Australian content,” said Claire Pullen, chief executive of the Australian Writers’ Guild.