The Australian (Sydney, Australia)

May 4, 2001

Save TV culture, stars tell PM

Byline: Georgina Safe

THE nation's leading screen stars have written to John Howard to protest

against potential cuts to television local content quotas under a planned

trade agreement.

Cate Blanchett, David Wenham, Sigrid Thornton, Geoffrey Rush, Lisa McCune and

Judy Davis are among more than 40 actors who have expressed ``grave concern''

about the possible reduction in regulations governing TV in the letter, sent

to the Prime Minister on Wednesday.

Trade Minister Mark Vaile last month said local content regulations governing

TV programming would be put on the negotiating table in a proposed free-trade

agreement with the US.

``This is the biggest threat to Australian television for a very long time,''

Thornton said yesterday.

In the letter, obtained by The Australian, the actors have warned Mr Howard

that any reduction to local-content rules under trade agreements would

threaten the future of the local industry.

``We Australians make television that competes internationally, but what we do

best is make television about us -- what it means to live and grow in this

country,'' the actors say in the letter.

``Please don't let the Australian disappear from Australian television.''

Signatories want the Government to maintain the 55per cent free-to-air

transmission quota for local content and fear that without it local content

could dip to as low as 20 per cent.

The actors also want an exclusion clause for cultural industries inserted into

all future trade agreements with other countries.

They have asked for a meeting with Mr Howard to lobby for the exclusion

clause, which was recommended in 1999 by the Senate environment,

communications, information technology and the arts legislation committee.

The actors may also have cause for concern with an Australian Broadcasting

Authority proposal to replace television quotas with subsidies.

The option was one of several canvassed in an ABA paper on the future of the

quota system released yesterday, ahead of an official ABA review of the quota

rules later this year.

Thornton said yesterday Australian television played a crucial role in shaping

our cultural identity, a role that would be lost if the content quota system

was not maintained.

``This sense of ourselves just isn't for sale in the same way meat is,''

Thornton said.

A spokesman for Mr Vaile, who returned last month from talks in Washington on

the proposed agreement and other trade issues, said yesterday TV local content

was likely to be on the agenda in further US trade talks.

``Television content is something that we already know (the US is) likely to

have an issue with because we have spoken about it before,'' the spokesman

said.

But the spokesman said the talks were ``very much at the preliminary stage''

and it was too early to say whether local content would be at risk.