At the Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) Conference in Melbourne today, Screen Australia’s Chief Executive Ruth Harley released the results of a survey undertaken on the Producer Offset – a tax rebate of 20 per cent for television drama and documentaries and 40 per cent for Australian films, introduced in 2007.
The survey, Getting Down to Business: The Producer Offset five years on, reveals that not only has Australian narrative production increased overall – by 70 per cent for feature films and 36 per cent for television drama – it has also provided a seven-fold increase of producers retaining more than 25 per cent equity share in their films. Pre-Offset only 12 per cent of films provided this level of equity, compared to 85 per cent of films made with the Producer Offset. The tax incentive has also provided relief from the challenges involved in raising production budgets.
