#makeitaustralian
With Conservative Governments and Foreign combines once again pushing for Australian quotas to be removed from local TV it's probably an appropriate time to note that this struggle has been going on for more than fifty years and the local content we do have on TV has been hard fought for over those years.
During the research for our award winning intelligence series PERSONS OF INTEREST we came across the film below in the Australian Intelligence & Security Organisation (ASIO) film vault. It's a protest march organised by member of Actors Equity in 1956 to protest the lack of quotas for Australian content on TV and the consequent swamping of the airwaves with American product. ASIO's interest in this was triggered by the fact that the Communist Party of Australia supported quotas for local content and in the illogical logic of the spymasters these actors were therefore a front for the Communist plot they never actually exposed. This didn't stop ASIO from opening files on Actors Equity, Leonard Teale and a number of others featured in this film. Sounds absurd all these years later but it's a sober warning that if you don't stand up for local production it can easily be smashed by those with no vested interest in it. Check #makeitaustralian
You can pick up the boxed set of PERSON OF INTEREST here.