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Intro
Western Australia’s screen industry is central to the future development of our State.
Our screen industry creates jobs, nurtures innovation, attracts tourists, is essential to our social fabric and sense of identity, and promotes
Western Australia to the world. All Western Australians will see the benefits of increased employment, economic activity, social impacts and cultural outcomes associated with a thriving screen industry.
The Western Australian Screen Industry Strategy: 2024-2034 is the State’s first whole-of-government strategy to support the industry to deliver social outcomes and diversify and grow our economy in line with the WA Government’s economic development framework, Diversify WA.
Western Australia is home to fantastic companies who are actively developing and producing screen projects. We have highly skilled and experienced screen practitioners and developers, praised internationally for their innovation, drive and distinctive storytelling.
Building on our screen industry’s successes, the WA Government is committed to strengthening the competitiveness of the industry, investing in the creative knowledge-economy jobs of the future, ensuring Western Australians have high-tech skills, and providing access to the facilities needed to maximise the full potential of the sector.
Just like our vast State, WA’s cultures are diverse and extraordinary. WA is home to the world’s oldest living and continuous cultures, stretching back at least 60,000 years, along with the rich contribution of Western Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) backgrounds. With this strategy, we can expand our opportunities to share WA stories and celebrate the diversity of cultures our State has to offer.
Western Australia offers spectacular and versatile filming locations across our nine distinct regions and our capital city, Perth. This strategy provides the opportunity to build our attraction as a screen production location, and a place for games and interactive businesses to grow and invest. It also provides a coordinated approach to the marketing and promotion of WA screen opportunities, successes, culture and identity locally, nationally and globally.
The strategy will ensure WA is best placed to grow and develop the screen industry over the next ten years, resulting in tangible benefits to the local economy, WA tourism and businesses, and the global screen industry.
Minister for Culture and the Arts; Sport and Recreation; International Education; Heritage
The strategy’s vision statement outlines the Western Australian Government’s aspirations for the WA screen industry by 2034. The vision statement informs the goals, strategic pillars, initiatives and outcomes of the strategy.
Western Australian screen companies are also cultivating innovation across other industries including tourism, education, engineering, construction and health. They create interactive games; immersive technology; and virtual, augmented and extended reality that solve real-world problems.
Western Australia has a talented, award-winning screen industry that encompasses film, broadcast television, subscription video on demand and other interactive platforms, digital games, postproduction, animation, visual effects, virtual reality, augmented reality, extended reality and screen culture.
In the past three years4, production activity in which the Western Australian Government has invested, via Screenwest, has generated:
Western Australia's games and interactive sector has tripled in size in recent years:
Western Australia has a world-renowned screen industry showcasing exceptional creative content and stories to the world. Government and industry align to create new highly skilled jobs, attract investment and activity to grow and diversify our economy, and enrich our cultures and our people.
Through this vision, Western Australia will work towards significantly increasing the value of the State’s screen industry over the next 10 years.
The strategy goals are the verifiable, measurable signs of success that will be achieved through the delivery of the Western Australian Screen Industry Strategy: 2024-2034.
The goals are:
The strategy goals have been set at an industry-wide level to provide a framework for the implementation of the strategy across all industry sub-sectors. The goals are quantifiable measures of the achievement of the vision statement.
Strategic pillars provide focus areas for the strategy. Each of these strategic pillars has targeted initiatives that the Western Australian Government has committed to delivering.
The initiatives are prioritised as short term, medium term or long term, with numbering occurring across strategic pillars to represent this prioritisation.
A screen friendly Western Australia means ensuring the WA Government is working towards a common set of objectives and outcomes to deliver the strategy. Sharpening the capacity of State Government to work collaboratively with Screenwest, Lotterywest, Regional Development Commissions, the Federal Government, local governments, and the broader industry will ensure WA can take advantage of opportunities to grow our screen industry.
Short term13
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) across the WA Government to prioritise the procurement of local WA screen industry businesses to produce content for Government information and promotional campaigns. This will reinforce the Western Australian Buy Local Policy 2022 and the WA Industry Link initiative to grow opportunities for the WA screen industry.
The strategy, and enabling governance reforms, will play an important role in positioning WA as an attractive destination for screen productions and screen industry businesses. It is an opportunity to promote the strengths of the WA screen industry globally and locally, including the success of local practitioners and developers, unique stories and outstanding locations across WA.
Promoting our dynamic screen culture ignites audience engagement with the WA screen industry. This builds an appetite for WA screen content and grows appreciation of the talent we have in Western Australia.
This strategic pillar identifies investment-ready opportunities to grow WA screen industry production over the next 10 years, and a framework for better coordination of investment to support the vision and goals of the strategy.
Develop a 10-year plan to provide better coordination and a prioritisation framework that can deliver greater effectiveness and efficiency to Government investment in the WA screen industry and the realisation of the strategy’s outcomes.
Longer-term, sustained production levels create confidence within the WA screen industry, and signals to interstate and international stakeholders that WA is open for business.
This strategic focus area identifies WA Government investment in screen industry infrastructure and the needs assessments required to ensure infrastructure investment is fit-for-purpose for screen industry growth over the next 10 years.
A large-scale screen production facility, associated infrastructure, and major production incentives have been identified as opportunities for the future growth and development of the WA screen industry. The size and kind of projects Western Australia can host can be expanded, accelerating growth and development, increasing employment and the skills capacity of the local industry.
Infrastructure to support screen productions in the regions, and the post, digital and visual effects (PDV) sector, will ensure a holistic approach to growing WA’s local industry.
A hub for WA’s emerging digital games and interactive sector has been identified as a long-term goal. This timeframe gives the opportunity for both the progression of the proposed Screen Production Facility (Initiative 3), and the assessment of regional and PDV sector needs (Initiative 7), to inform how the Games and Interactive Technologies Hub can best contribute to the growth of the games and interactive sector in WA.
This strategic pillar recognises the growth of the WA screen industry cannot occur without a skilled and available workforce. Increased industry investment will create a steady pipeline of screen production activity in the State. This requires a workforce of skilled and experienced practitioners ready to fill the jobs these productions will bring.
The development and implementation of a workforce plan will inform the future needs for people and skills within the WA screen industry. Western Australia has a tertiary and vocational training eco-system with a strong track record in supporting students to develop the technical and creative skills that lay the foundations for a career in the screen industry. On-the-job training and development opportunities are a critical component of early-stage career development in the screen industry.
Long term sustained investment in the screen industry will create a steady pipeline of production in the State and improve the retention of screen industry creatives and professionals in Western Australia, including tertiary graduates. Ongoing employment opportunities can mitigate the risk of skilled personnel being drawn away by employment opportunities outside Western Australia and in other industries, such as mining and energy where their technical skills are highly applicable and in strong demand.
Following a Ministerial Roundtable workshop with key industry representatives in May 2022, the development of the strategy has been guided by a cross-agency Screen Industry Working Group and consultation with other key stakeholders.
The Screen Industry Working Group consists of representatives from the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries (DLGSC); the Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation (JTSI); the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD); the Department of Training and Workforce Development (DTWD); the Department of Treasury; Tourism Western Australia; and Screenwest.
How the strategy will work alongside Diversify WA, and related WA Government strategies and funding programs to grow the economic and cultural impacts of the WA screen industry is mapped in below.
A representation of the Screen Industry Development Team’s place within the governance architecture for the delivery of the Screen Industry Strategy is provided below14.
Screenwest will be a member of the Screen Industry Development Team on an ongoing basis, to ensure it is able to provide input and respond to the State Government’s strategic direction and progression of screen industry initiatives at a whole-of-government level.
A Monitoring and Evaluation Plan will be developed by the DLGSC. The Monitoring and Evaluation Plan will outline the implementation of the strategy’s initiatives, communicate baseline data for the strategy’s goals, map how the initiatives will be assessed against the intended outcomes, and evaluate their efficiency and effectiveness annually and at the conclusion of the strategy delivery. This will incorporate revisions as circumstances change on both a global and local scale.
This document has been published by DLGSC. Any representation, statement, opinion, or advice expressed or implied in this publication is made in good faith and on the basis that the government, its employees, and agents are not liable for any damage or loss whatsoever which may occur as a result of action taken or not taken, as the case may be, in respect of any representation, statement, opinion or advice referred to herein.