By Liz Hobday

ACTOR Bryan Brown has characterised the push to regulate streaming giants as nothing less than a fight for Australian culture.

The billions of dollars Australians spend on streaming every year should be put back into telling local stories, he told the National Press Club on Wednesday.

“I mean Australian stories, not stories filmed in Australia with American accents – that’s a cultural death.”

The federal government has promised to lock in tougher rules for streamers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ with legislation expected later in 2023, while the streaming companies have argued they should determine their own levels of investment.

A longtime advocate for the local industry, Brown said a 20 per cent content reinvestment quota is needed for the future of Australian film and television.

“If our ability to present ourselves on film is taken away, we will become unsure of ourselves, in awe of others and less as a people,” he said.

After his speech, which got more laughs than most delivered to the press club, Brown was asked about the upcoming Voice referendum and confirmed he would be voting yes.

“If Marcia Langton says it is the right thing to do, then I will do it, simple as that,” he said to applause, referring to Prof Langton, who is a member of the federal government’s First Nations Referendum Working Group.

Brown became an international success in the early 1980s with critically acclaimed film “Breaker Morant” and TV series “A Town Like Alice”.

He confessed that he struggled to grow a moustache to film “Breaker Morant” with director Bruce Beresford, and initially hated his performance, fearing he would never work again.

But he went on to a career of “strange but wonderful happenings” – marrying Hollywood star Rachel Ward, throwing bottles with Tom Cruise, singing with Paul McCartney and even sharing a bath with Sigourney Weaver.

The actor, producer and author revealed his career started while working at financial firm AMP – while training to become an actuary, Brown auditioned for the company’s drama club in the hope of meeting some girls.

On local stages all he had seen was Australians performing English and American plays in accents, so in 1972 he moved to England to become a professional actor.

Returning home two years later, the theatre scene had changed dramatically with local playwrights such as David Williamson telling authentic Australian stories.

“It was as though the shackles had come off and we were set free,” he said.

He made his first feature film “Love Letters from Teralba Road” in the 1970s, a period that produced classics such as “The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith”, “My Brilliant Career”, “Picnic at Hanging Rock” and “Mad Max”.

Financing filmmaking has become far more complicated since that time, Brown said, with offset schemes that attract international productions squeezing the capacity to produce local stories.

Brown has won numerous acting awards during a career spanning 40 years, with recent credits including “Red Dog”, “Sweet Country” and “Palm Beach”.

Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime have been contacted for comment.