The Reconfiguration of Culture Post- Project Blue Sky : Culture as a ‘Service’ in Broadcasting Law

Abstract

International agreements or treaties can have profound impacts on the interpretation of domestic law. The effect that such agreements can have in the cultural context was made apparent in the 1998 High Court decision in the Project Blue Sky case. The issue of Australia's involvement in the audiovisual sector's current renegotiation of the GATS, as well as the desire for the present government to limit the impact of Project Blue Sky to New Zealand only, indicates the wider policy issues concerning this decision. However, what is not explicated is the way that the meaning of ‘services' in law in the cultural sector will tend to negate any specifically cultural target adopted within policy questions. The question must then be asked whether or not the law must always view the cultural as ‘just another service industry’ because of the particularly ‘service’ basis of the sector.