The Minns Labor Government has announced its 2025–26 Budget. With a $500 million package dedicated to arts, sports and culture in NSW, it boosts the total spend on the sector to $1.35 billion.

Photo © Rijan Hamidovic/Pexels

The NSW screen sector gets an injection of over $380 million, including a $100 million capital fund to find the location for a second film studio in Sydney. The Industrial Paint Sheds in Eveleigh, adjacent to Carriageworks, and the Central Coast’s Glenworth Valley are two sites currently being proposed.

The remaining $280.6 million goes to the Made In NSW program, supporting locally produced Australian and international film and television projects, and the Post, Digital and Visual Effects Rebate program, which offers a 10 percent rebate on a range of post-production services for Screen NSW-registered projects.

Sound NSW is set to receive $20 million to assist in the implementation of the NSW Contemporary Music Strategy, which delivers grants programs, capacity-building initiatives and regulatory reform to support the NSW music industry. It’s a slight bump up from the $18.5 million allocated in the 2024–25 Budget.

Responding to the decades-long decline of live music across the state and...