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Australia's Labor party courts devs with pledge to reinstate the Interactive Games Fund

$25 million fund will be reinstated pending the results of elections this Saturday

Australia's Labor party courts devs with pledge to reinstate the Interactive Games Fund

The Australian Labor party will reinstate a $25 million Interactive Games Fund should it take power following this week’s election.

The Federal Labor party released a statement ahead of the country’s national election this Saturday, calling for Australia’s “world-class” creatives to receive the support they deserve. It bemoans "six years of Liberal [party] cuts and policy inertia" and pledged to put serious cash behind the games industry down under.

A $20 million fund was scrapped in 2014 by the current Liberal Democrat government. Should it take office this week, Labor vowed to up the budget to $25 million, and push $60 million into TV services ABS and SBS.

Working together

It's welcome news for the Australian Interactive Games & Entertainment Association, which released a statement of its own. The IGEA has actively courted politicians to put this fund back together and is ready to work further with the government to pump some life back into the Aussie games sector.

"Australian game developers are creative, talented, resilient and ready to lead and grow the digital revolution," said CEO Ron Curry.

"Should the Labor Party win the election, we are ready to work with them on the re-establishment of the fund to deliver successful outcomes for the industry."

This story was originally published on PCGamesInsider.biz.


Staff Writer

Natalie Clayton is an Edinburgh-based freelance writer and game developer. Besides PCGamesInsider and Pocketgamer.biz, she's written across the games media landscape and was named in the 2018 GamesIndustry.biz 100 Rising Star list.