'Not unreasonably denied': Australian content after AUSTFA

The text of the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), released in early March 2004, makes more concessions than many in Australia's audiovisual and cultural industries might have hoped, but less than they feared. Its precise impact will depend on how 'new media' replaces, subsumes or supplements 'old media', and how quickly. AUSFTA institutionalises much lower aspirations about the level of Australian content in emerging media systems than Australians have come to expect in broadcast television. Some will interpret this simply as an articulation of the policy impotence which will inevitably flow from technological change. Others will recognise it as a partial, but historic, concession of Australian policy capacity and a broad acceptance of the long-standing US agenda for the information economy — long and tough protections for intellectual property rights, but increasingly liberal global markets for trading them. This article explains the provisions of AUSFTA and examines their effect on Australian audiovisual and cultural activities.