Pitched as a way to make global streaming giants "pay their fair share" so Kiwi stories keep getting made, Labour's streaming levy would force the likes of Netflix and Disney+ to plough a slice of their New Zealand revenue back into local film and television.

The Policy: Labour Streaming Levy for Local Content — January 2026 →

What it does:

• Labour's broadcasting and media spokesperson Reuben Davidson announced the policy on 15 January 2026, pledging that a future Labour government would require large international streaming operators to invest directly in local content rather than leaving it to chance.
• The mechanism is a percentage levy on streamers' New Zealand revenue. Industry modelling cited by RNZ suggests a 5% levy could return about $25 million a year, and a 10% levy up to $50 million a year for local production.
• The money would be channelled through the existing screen-funding agencies — the New Zealand Film Commission, NZ On Air and Te Māngai Pāho — to back drama, documentary, children's and te reo Māori programming.
• For scale, the only money global streamers currently pay here is a flat compliance charge: Netflix's annual fee is about $57,200 under the 2021 commercial video-on-demand levy regulations, a fraction of what a revenue levy would raise.
• Labour frames a levy (rather than a hard local-content quota) as the safer legal route, because New Zealand did not secure explicit cultural carve-outs in several of its trade agreements, leaving quotas more exposed to trade challenges.

The result: The pledge is a clear point of difference heading into the 2026 election rather than a settled law — it sits outside Labour's published policy platform and has not been legislated. It responds to a real squeeze: Screen Producers NZ president Irene Gardiner says cuts to NZ On Air and the Film Commission in Budget 2026 are "extremely tough" and that the industry must "move from discussion to policy," calling streaming regulation overdue. The model has a clear precedent next door: Australia's law, passed in November 2025 and effective 1 January 2026, makes streamers with more than one million subscribers spend 10% of local outlays or 7.5% of local revenue on Australian content. On the other side, Media Minister Paul Goldsmith (National) has not committed to a levy, saying the government is requesting "voluntary reporting" from streamers and "still considering the options" while it watches how Australia's regime beds in; in June 2026 it opted instead to require local apps to be pre-installed on smart TVs. In the government's earlier consultation, global platforms including Netflix and Apple opposed mandatory local-content obligations.

The impacts to watch:

• Cost pass-through: a revenue levy could be absorbed, or it could nudge up subscription prices for New Zealand viewers, depending on how platforms respond.
• Trade friction: whether a levy stays clear of New Zealand's free-trade commitments, or draws objections from the United States and the platforms, will shape any final design.
• Sector dependence: with agency budgets cut, a levy could become the screen sector's main growth funding — making the exact rate, and which genres get priority, decisive for local jobs.
• Design detail: thresholds (which platforms are captured), the levy rate, and whether it is a clean revenue levy or a direct-investment obligation are all unresolved and will determine the real-world take.