As the largest music industry body in Australia, APRA AMCOS has continued to take a leadership approach to advocacy and policy development in partnership with key organisations across the broader music and creative industry over the last financial year.
As in previous years, we continued to lead regular national conversations and provide visibility on advocacy and policy development to as many parts of the sector as possible, including managers, labels, artists, festivals, musicians, venues, promoters, crew and SME music businesses.
A major milestone was achieved in January 2023 when the Australian Government announced a commitment to establish Music Australia: a national music development agency with $70 million in investment.
Creative Australia will be responsible for industry and market development for:
Much of APRA AMCOS’ government relations and policy work throughout this reporting period was centred around the development of a united music industry policy in response to the Australian Government’s National Cultural Policy ‘Revive’, which was released for public consultation in July 2022.
APRA AMCOS was one of the key representative bodies of the Australian contemporary music industry that came together as part of the National Cultural Policy consultation to propose a plan to revolutionise government policy and investment in the music industry at a critical time in its development. A summary of this submission as well as a full copy of this submission is published on APRA AMCOS’ website - National Cultural Policy Joint Submission (PDF 681kb)
In this joint industry submission, the music industry called for the creation of a new national music development agency to oversee strategic investment and policy development to realise the music industry’s potential as Australia’s biggest cultural export and largest domestic creative industry. The industry called for action in six key areas:
A key aspect of this proposal was subsequently adopted by the Australian Government and led to the creation of the new federal body ‘Music Australia’ under the investment and advisory body now known as Creative Australia (previously Australia Council).
The Australian Government also committed to establishing a Centre for Entertainment Workplaces, a new body established as part of Creative Australia, and responsible for working across the arts, cultural and creative industries to raise and set workplace standards for artists and workers.
The establishment of this body is an important next step following the release of the music industry’s ‘Raising Their Voices’ report to investigate sexual harm, sexual harassment and systemic discrimination across the sector. Funding will also be provided annually to Support Act and will support a long-term and sustainable cultural and behavioural change in workplaces across the sector.
The commitment to establish a First Nations Board as part of Creative Australia was also welcomed. This Board will be established to oversee self-determined decision making within arts and culture.
In addition to the Australian Contemporary Music Industry’s joint submission mentioned above, APRA AMCOS developed a standalone submission (PDF 891kb) that builds further on the six key areas listed above.
In April 2023, APRA AMCOS Chief Executive Dean Ormston appeared at a Senate Inquiry into the National Cultural Policy chaired by Senator Sarah Hanson-Young. He outlined APRA AMCOS’s work over the last fifteen years initiating and leading industry and government co-investment strategies and spearheading advocacy with state and federal government. We highlighted the positives of the Government’s proposed National Cultural Policy and emphasised the need for a significant amount of work to build a sustainable live music ecosystem, more robust local content regulations and screen incentives for composers.
In the leadup to the Victorian State Election in November 2022 and the NSW State Election in March 2023, APRA AMCOS continued to collaborate with other music industry bodies in each state to advocate for music industry policy development on a state government level.
In March 2023, APRA AMCOS together with the Australian Hotels Association, Clubs NSW and Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) presented a Parliamentary Friends of Australian Music event at the NSW Parliament. During the day, APRA AMCOS organised meetings with the Treasurer, the Hon Matt Kean MP, the Deputy Premier, Paul Toole MP, the Minister of the Arts, Ben Franklin MP, the Opposition Leader, Chris Minns MP, Shadow Treasurer Daniel Mookhey MP and Shadow Arts and Music Minister John Graham MP together with representatives from across the wider music industry. In these meetings, we urged for the creation of music election policies centred on the establishment of an NSW Music Development Office and significant investment increases for development and export.
Throughout this reporting period, APRA AMCOS continued to work with several other national, state and territory music industry organisations to advocate for our members and the wider live music industry as Australia recovers and rebuilds from the impact of COVID-19.
Martha Marlow at NSW Parliamentary Friends of Australian Music
Photo: Four Minutes to Midnight
Diesel at NSW Parliamentary Friends of Australian Music
Photo: Four Minutes to Midnight
Matt Okine and Becca Hatch at NSW Parliamentary Friends of Australian Music
Photo: Four Minutes to Midnight
Charlie Collins at NSW Parliamentary Friends of Australian Music
Photo: Four Minutes to Midnight
The Labor Government has since announced a significant investment in music with $35.4 million for an extensive Victorian Music and Community Broadcasting package, $20 million over the next two years for its Always Live program, $7.5 million over four years for Victoria’s new Live Music Performers Fund, $2 million for Support Act and $2 million for songwriting in Victorian high schools.
In NSW a total commitment of $103 million was announced by the new Minns Government. This includes funding to establish a state music development agency Sound NSW and a commitment to double live music venues in the state within the first term of the government.
Throughout the year, APRA AMCOS continued conversations with Government and other music industry stakeholders around the importance of local music content across digital platforms and the potential for reform. APRA AMCOS has continued its work on the development of a combined policy approach regarding radio broadcasts, audio streaming, screen content and digital games.
In the National Cultural Policy ‘Revive’, the Australian Government committed to introducing local screen content requirements on streaming platforms to ensure continued access to local stories and content. The policy stated that:
The Government has committed to take the necessary action so that Australians continue to be able to see and hear quality home-grown content, regardless of which platform they are using. It is important that streaming services invest in key genres, including children’s content, scripted drama and documentaries.
This follows similar moves by other jurisdictions including France and Canada.
APRA AMCOS has been involved in consultations with the Australian Government to design a local content obligation that results in positive, sustainable outcomes for Australian audiences and industry. The Government wants to guarantee and incentivise continued, sustainable investment by SVODs in quality Australian programs - in particular, investment in high-quality locally scripted drama, documentary and children’s programs which are genres that might otherwise not be made.
As part of this, APRA AMCOS is seeking to ensure that local songwriters, composers and music publishers can benefit from this new policy direction. For the Significant Australian Content (SAC) Test for screen incentives, APRA AMCOS’s position is that key music professionals, such as ‘Head of Music’ or ‘Director of Music’ of a production, must be elevated in the hierarchy to a level commensurate with “particularly important” or “very important” tiers, given the opportunity of these positions to generate high-value screen music and return ongoing revenues to the Australian economy long term.
APRA AMCOS is increasingly concerned about the imbalance in bargaining power between Australian and New Zealand music creators and large digital platforms such as SVODs. There are signs of an emerging global trend where composers and creative contributors are expected to sign away a full suite of their proprietary rights to the commissioning party (generally an SVOD service or production company producing for an SVOD service).
To support a vibrant local screen industry, we have been encouraging Government to turn its attention to the longer-term value of supporting our world-class screen composers and music creators so that the entire screen ecosystem can benefit. To support a vibrant local screen industry, we are urging Government to consider the long-term value of intellectual property arrangements to ensure these valuable assets are not repeatedly lost.
In September 2022, APRA AMCOS made a submission in full support of the Government’s proposal to remake the Broadcasting Services (“Broadcasting Service” Definition – Exclusion) Determination 2019 in order to provide industry with stability while broader reforms to modernise Australia’s media regulatory landscape are underway.
The Attorney-General, the Hon Mark Dreyfus KC MP has invited APRA AMCOS, together with 30 other organisations to participate in a series of Ministerial Roundtables on Copyright to be hosted throughout 2023.
In late February 2023, APRA AMCOS participated in the inaugural Ministerial Roundtable on Copyright which focused on establishing priorities for copyright reform. In June 2023, APRA AMCOS attended the Second Roundtable which covered the topic of potential reforms relating to an orphan works scheme, remote learning and quotation. A high-level summary of each of these roundtables has been published on the Attorney-General’s Department website.
In December 2022, the Attorney-General’s Department announced the commencement of a Copyright Enforcement Review to provide an opportunity for those dealing with copyright enforcement issues in practice to comment on how the current system is working and what could be done to improve it.
In March 2023, APRA AMCOS submitted a substantive response to the Issues Paper in which we expressed support for the proposed ‘small claims’ model for the hearing of copyright infringement claims. Read APRA AMCOS’ full submission in response to the Issues Paper.
During the previous reporting period ending 30 June 2022, APRA AMCOS engaged BIS Oxford Economics to undertake an independent report on how and whether tax incentives for venues and artists would support live music.
The report found that a tax offset would incentivise existing live music venues to host more live performances and enable non-live music venues to host live music performances and support the growth of live music. The report found that a tax offset of this kind would have wider benefits across the tourism and hospitality economy.
We published this report in September 2022 and shared it widely with relevant government departments and other music industry stakeholders. A copy of this report is published on APRA AMCOS’ website. Read the full report (PDF 2MB).
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Amyl and the Sniffers at Parliament House
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Lime Cordiale at Parliament House
New Zealand music enjoyed solid support from industry and government during the pandemic through wage subsidies and targeted support for artists, venues and music businesses. But as we enter this post-COVID period, there is urgent need to continue our focus on cohesion, collaboration and artist-focused programs to ensure that all those within the industry have every opportunity to thrive. The creative environment has been particularly hard hit in the resulting and continuing difficult general economic environment.
In the absence of the government’s Copyright Act review, we have focused on general creative industry settings. We work collaboratively with all our industry and government partners to this end. Focus has been on the upcoming election, compiling industry data and value, recognition of the wider creative sector, issues around music education and the development of a bi-lingual music industry.
The report, produced in conjunction with the NZ Music Commission and RMNZ, combines two years of data, sourced from APRA AMCOS and Recorded Music NZ and reveals that, in 2022, the Aotearoa music industry contributed $720 million to Aotearoa GDP after accounting for multiplier effects and directly employed around 2,250 people in full-time equivalent jobs (FTEs).
The findings show a continued impact of COVID-19. Between 2019 and 2021, the industry’s economic contribution decreased year-on-year, primarily because of the COVID-19 pandemic, on live performance revenue and overseas income. Radio broadcasting revenues decreased initially but have since recovered to 2019 levels.
In 2022, GDP contributions increased relative to 2021, driven by streaming and overseas earnings. Overall, the retail (digital) sub-sector has continued to grow, driven by continued growth in streaming revenues.
WeCreate is the alliance of Aotearoa’s creative industry associations and organisations (representing 30,000+ Kiwi creators and creative businesses), which was founded in 2014 to propel growth in our creative ecosystem and increase its contribution to New Zealand’s economic wellbeing. APRA AMCOS is a founding member and supported the kaupapa since its inception, focusing on advocacy and information across the wider creative sector.
This year, our collaboration with Ministry of Culture and Heritage Regeneration Fund resulted in support for infrastructure work around our ORO strategy and the creation of a bi-lingual music industry. The fund has five outcomes:
Auckland Council is a key partner in the creative infrastructure in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. With the announcement of possible cuts to core cultural services in the city, the creative community rallied quickly to make its voice heard. APRA AMCOS’ submission focused on the value of music to the city and the potential of our endorsement as a UNESCO Creative City of Music and, thankfully, it appears that these representations have had an impact.
Whilst only recent, much of the activity described in our election manifesto relates to activity and relationships developed with government and agencies over the last year. While music is not likely to be an important policy for any of the political parties, it is critical that each have a background on issues facing the wider music community and ideas and possible solutions to grow the NZ industry in Aotearoa and around the world. The Aotearoa Music Manifesto is part of this.