Written by Shona Smith on Jul 20, 2020. Posted in Incentive News

Australia’s Location Incentive given financial boost to aid recovery

Australia's Screen Production Location Incentive grant has been given an additional AUS400 million funding. Having had relative success in managing Covid-19 the boost is hoped to help attract a longer term pipeline of major screen productions in Australia.

Since its implementation in 2018, the Location Incentive grants have supported ten incoming productions Thor: Love and Thunder and Godzilla vs Kong. Productions interrupted by the pandemic and planning to resume shooting in 2020 such as Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in New South Wales and Shantaram in Victoria are also recipients of the Location Incentive.

The added AUD400 million is estimated to attract AUD3 billion in foreign expenditure and create eight thousand employment opportunities for Australians each year. In addition, the Australian government have extended the scheme until 2026-27 to secure a longer term pipeline of major screen productions in Australia.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the announcement would help back the screen sector’s recovery from the impacts of COVID-19. Other supports include to help the Australian screen sector include a AUD250 million over the next twelve months to help restart the creative economy as well as a AUD50 million Temporary Interruption Fund that will support local film and television producers secure finance and recommence filming halted due to the challenge of accessing Covid-19 insurance coverage.

Ausfilm CEO Kate Marks says “international screen production delivers sizeable amounts of expenditure in a short space of time, can tool up quickly, and creates employment immediately. Today’s announcement ensures Australia will now be in a position to secure a significant pipeline of large budget productions across Australia into 2021 and beyond and will increase our market share of global production activity. The increase to the Location Incentive enables Australia to tap into this demand and is a strategic driver for economic recovery”. The return of production will also positively impact sectors heavily impacted by the pandemic such as tourism, hospitality and retail through production spend.

Ausfilm also notes that Australia’s relative success in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic has generated even greater interest in Australia from international filmmakers and studios, estimating that it has received AUD1.2 billion worth of real production enquiries from US-backed feature film and TV series looking to film in Australia. The additional AUD400 million to the Location Incentive grant is hoped to ensure Australia secures some of these productions.

The Location Incentive grants are provided in addition the 16.5% Location offset, which is accessible to productions with a minimum spend of AUD15 million. The Location Offset combined with the Location Incentive grant enables international productions to access a tax rebate of up to 30% of qualifying Australian production spend. A 30% Post and Digital Visual Effects Offset for projects that have undertaken physical production elsewhere in the world is also available. State incentives are also available to top up federal offsets.