MEAA continues to campaign for film funding policies that create maximum job opportunities for members and provide cultural and economic benefits for the entire country. MEAA has lobbied the Federal Government to take urgent action to attract large budget international productions to our shores.

The location offset was introduced by the federal government in 2001 to attract big-budget international productions to Australia. Productions that have received the location offset ( a rebate on their Australian spend) include Superman and The Matrix.

The location offset must be raised from 16.5 per cent to 30 per cent to build a sustainable screen industry that utilises our world-class studios and services, and provides training and employment for our talented cast and crew.

At the time of the introduction of the offset in 2001, the Australian currency was sitting at around 52¢ compared to the United States dollar. Since that time the dollar has begun to climb and has reached above parity. This increase has impacted on the film industry – The drop in overall production in Australia fell from 92 productions in 2001 to 64 productions in 2004. In 2011 there were no international productions shot in Australia.

Since the introduction of the 2001 offsets the Federal Government has made a number of changes. As a result of the 2006 review of the refundable tax offset scheme the offset was increased to 15 per cent. Again in 2008, in response to another review by the Federal Government, the offset was increased to 16.5 per cent.

Since 2010 MEAA has called for the location offset to be increased to 30 per cent to ensure that Australia remains internationally competitive – the strong Australian dollar and competing incentive schemes offered by more than 40 states within the US and countries such as the UK and Canada make Australia too expensive for big-budget foreign productions.

Mal Tulloch, Director, Entertainment, Crew & Sport, MEAA: “The location offset is no longer competitive. Until it is, we will continue to loose big-budget productions that employ thousands of people to our counterparts overseas.”