The Full Federal Court has dismissed Screen Australia’s appeal against an earlier AAT decision which held that a production company was entitled to a producer offset certificate under s 376-65 of the ITAA 1997 in respect of a film series designed to improve household management (called Lush House). The AAT had held the series was a “documentary” and on that basis set aside the decision of Screen Australia, which refused the application for the certificate.
The appeal before the Full Court centred on the Tribunal’s construction of the term “documentary” for the purposes of s 376-65(6). Screen Australia submitted “the Tribunal arrived at its own understanding of the word ‘documentary’ without reference to statutory context or purpose, including as explained in extrinsic materials, and expressly deferred the exercise of referring to extrinsic material and dictionary definitions until after it had formulated its own understanding of the word ‘documentary’, and applied that formulation to the facts so as to reach a conclusion that Lush House was a documentary.”
The Full Court held the appeal did raise questions of law. However, it was of the view the Tribunal had derived its construction of the “ordinary” meaning of “documentary” from the Oxford Dictionary meaning as well as with the aid of extrinsic materials – which included the explanatory memorandum to the Tax Laws Amendment (2007 Measures No 5) Bill 2007 (which introduced Div 376) and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) Documentary Guidelines.
(Screen Australia v EME Productions No 1 Pty Ltd [2012] FCAFC 19, Full Federal Court, Keane CJ, Finn & Gilmour JJ, 7 March 2012.)
[LTN 50, 14/3]