Actor Roy Billing launched the campaign calling for the relaxation of restrictions on casting overseas actors in Australian screen productions, and he’s not giving up.
Billing has received support from all sectors of the screen industry, including fellow actors, since his op-ed piece ran on IF on September 17.
“Five weeks on and the support continues unabated,” he said today. “Initially I received many emails and phone calls and now as I interact with my colleagues as a working actor I am getting face-to-face support. The issue is still very much alive in the screen sector.”
Billing questions why his union Actors Equity appears to be ignoring the issue, apart from an op-ed article from newly appointed Equity director Zoe Angus, which, he says, failed to address the issues he raised.
“There has not been one mention of my stance in Equity e-bulletins so the majority of rank and file members would probably be oblivious to my concerns,” said the actor whose recent credits inciude It's a Date, Manny Lewis, Jack Irish: Dead Point, Rake, Cliffy, Wonderland and Robyn Malcolm’s TVNZ comedy Agent Anna.
Equity's national performers' committee is the body that adjudicates disputes on imported actors in taxpayer-funded film and TV productions but its decisions can be over-ruled by the federal Arts Ministry.
He disputed NPC member Jonathan Mill’s contention on Facebook that all 32 members of the committee spend hours at meetings weighing up the pros and cons of each film affected whenever there is an issue about casting foreign actors.
Billing, who resigned from the NPC earlier this year, said that in his experience the committee meetings often were not quorate, were poorly chaired phone hook-ups and decisions were made by a few then later ratified by email vote.
“I will continue to push for the relaxation of the current government guidelines on the importation of foreign actors and continue to urge that Equity and its NPC be taken out of any decision-making processes relating to this issue,” he said.
“MEAA/Equity's leadership and committee seem to think that government subsidies for screen productions are for the benefit of actors only. Can anyone tell me if any other industry in the country has a situation where one faction of the workers in that industry can make decisions on whether to approve the granting of temporary work visas to short term, overseas workers?”