MUMBAI: Australia has stopped asking nicely. The government will introduce legislation this week forcing streaming platforms to invest in Australian drama, children’s shows, documentaries and educational content—or face the consequences.
Any service with more than a million Australian subscribers—Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime and others—must commit at least 10 per cent of their local expenditure, or 7.5 per cent of revenue, to homegrown productions. It’s a quota system that puts streamers on par with free-to-air and pay television, which have long faced similar obligations.
The rules were meant to arrive in July last year but got tangled in trade politics. Concerns about how they would mesh with Australia’s free trade agreement with America led to a pause. The government blamed difficulty negotiating with Washington during an election year. After Donald Trump’s victory, questions swirled about whether the quotas could trigger retaliatory tariffs.
With both elections now behind them and the US-Australia relationship stable, Canberra has pushed ahead. Tony Burke, arts minister, and Anika Wells, communications minister, framed the move as a jobs safeguard for an industry increasingly threatened by artificial intelligence.
“Since their introduction in Australia, streaming services have created some extraordinary shows,” Burke said. “This obligation will ensure that those stories—our stories—continue to be made.”
Wells pointed to Bluey, the children’s programme that became a global phenomenon, as proof of concept. Australian content connects people with “who we are” and shares that with the world, she said.
The government hasn’t explained how it will calculate the two quota options—10 per cent of expenditure or 7.5 per cent of revenue—leaving room for future friction with the platforms.
The Australian model raises an obvious question: could India impose similar quotas? While Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Lionsgate Play are commissioning o9r acquiring local content, it’s unclear whether they’re hitting anything close to a 10 per cent threshold. Indian regulators have repeatedly failed to enforce local quotas on television channels, making it unlikely they’ll succeed with streamers.
But the precedent matters. If Australia can strong-arm global platforms into funding local productions without sparking a trade war, other markets may feel emboldened to try. For now, India’s streaming landscape remains a free-for-all—heavy on local content by choice, light on obligation by design. Whether that changes depends less on regulatory ambition than political will. And in India, that’s always been in short supply.
