Recently the President of the Australian Screenwriters Guild pointed to the high incidence of foreign drama compared with Australian drama on Sydney's commercial television stations each week between 7 p.m. and closing time. The President of the Guild stated that in a vast number of cases commercial television stations were devoting their time to the presentation of overseas productions. Therefore, I might ask rhetorically: Is it any wonder that Australian writers, producers and actors are critical of this Government? About 12 months ago the Minister in charge of this important matter said in this Parliament -
In relation to this problem of Australian production - I believe that the principal problem is the shortage of scriptwriters. 1 do not think wc have many good scriptwriters in Australia ... we have not many good actors in Australia. You do not find people who will practise, practise, practise to become good actors unless they have some worthwhile instruction.
The answer to this argument of the Minister is found in the report of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, lt is reported that four years ago the Commission was receiving about 200 scripts a year for consideration as television» «plays , but that this year the figure has increased to 600. So how can it possibly be said that there are insufficient script writers in the Australian community? 1 believe that the PostmasterGeneral (Mr. Hulme) is very wide of the mark in this regard. I suggest that he would only have to read the evidence presented to the Senate select committee to find this out for himself. If good Australian scriptwriters and actors are not available in Australia, they are overseas because of the attitude of .this Government which is directed at protecting the commercial television stations.
The Australian Broadcasting Control Board has said in its report that there is evidence of continuing interest in the report of the Senate Select Committee on the Encouragement of Australian Productions for Television. That reference appears at paragraph 261 of the Board's report. It is also said that the question of televising Australian programmes is being examined by members of the Board and that the Minister hopes to be able to make a statement on this matter before the end of 'this year. Two years have expired since the report of the Select Committee was tabled in this Parliament. Everyone interested in this subject seems to be pushing the Government to do something about it. Everyone is doing something except the Government.
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