HOW TO SAVE THE COAST’S FILM INDUSTRY

FOR the people who make the world’s cinematic blockbusters, there is no bigger star than Queensland.

In meetings with senior executives of 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warners Bros and Disney, they all recalled positive experiences producing films in Queensland, particularly the Gold Coast.

They love our locations, our facilities for filming and most importantly our crews.

To secure our most recent major productions – Thor: Ragnarok and Aquaman – the Queensland Government, through Screen Queensland, offered incentives to film-makers.

Warners Bros explained to me when we met this week that 2100 cast, crew and extras were employed with 81 per cent – or 1700 – of those Queenslanders.

These jobs can be sustained if we can attract additional films through a dedicated fund through Screen Queensland, but we can only secure the international blockbusters with the support of the Federal Government. Last financial year, Queensland secured a record $214 million in film production investment, supporting 2300 jobs.

Queensland, and more specifically the Gold Coast, is competing with the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, eastern Europe and the United States itself. The next film we are pursuing is Dora the Explorer, but there are more films planned including possibly another Marvel instalment.

The studios are hopeful the Turnbull Government will play its part, by increasing the location tax offset from 16.5 per cent to 30 per cent, and make it permanent rather than a case-by-case – indeed, film-by-film – basis.

The studios are buoyed that this has been recommended by a bi-partisan Federal Parliamentary Committee.

I have written to the Prime Minister to urge him to make these changes; to play his part, so there are more films, more jobs and more credits for Queensland.