‍Tuesday 25 November 2025

The Albanese Government’s refusal to accept a transparency amendment on regional spending by streaming platforms has left regional Australians on the cutting room floor, Shadow Minister for Regional Communications Dr Anne Webster said today.

In the House of Representatives debate Dr Webster moved an amendment to Government’s Communications Legislation Amendment (Australian Content Requirement for Subscription Video On Demand (Streaming) Services) Bill 2025 that would have required regular reporting on how much streaming platforms produced in rural, regional and remote Australia.

“Today we saw two recurring Labor themes come together – a lack of transparency and disregard for regional Australia,” Dr Webster said.

“My amendment would have ensured that as Australia requires the likes of Netflix, AppleTV and Amazon Prime to not only spend 10 per cent of their revenue (or 7.5 per cent of their spending) on Australian creative content, they had to show Australians where the filming occurs.

“Nothing is more iconically Australian than our rural, regional  and remote people and locations.  I am disappointed Labor dismissed my amendment out-of-hand and, yet again, said its our way or the highway.

“This is typical of Labor’s arrogance with their super-majority in this Parliament, which makes them even more disdainful of regional Australians.

“I call upon the Senate to back this transparency amendment so that regional Australians see more of themselves on the big and small screens, and we market Australia to the world.”

VIDEO: Regional Voices Shut Out: Government Blocks Transparency on Streaming Spend