Australia’s grassroots live entertainment industry—the comedy rooms, local band nights, fringe theatre, cabaret showcases, and independent arts venues—is facing an administrative crisis that threatens to wipe out independent live performance across the country.

Under current Superannuation Guarantee (SG) interpretations, independent artists and performers engaged as sole traders are deemed "employees" strictly for superannuation purposes. While intended to support retirement savings, applying rigid, corporate-style payroll frameworks to irregular, one-off arts gigs has created an unmanageable administrative and financial nightmare for independent producers, grassroots promoters, and small venues. 

Recent policy shifts and the closure of the free government Small Business Superannuation Clearing House (SBSCH) have compounded this crisis. Small arts operators are being forced to turn to third-party commercial clearing houses, payroll intermediaries, and paid software platforms just to distribute mandatory contributions.

Forced Third-Party Fees: Paying $15 in Software Costs to Send $6 in SuperSmall promoters and venue operators are being coerced into using commercial platforms that charge prohibitive fees to process micro-contributions:

Per-Seat Software Subscription Tiers

Mainstream payroll systems charge subscription tiers based on the number of "active payees" per month. A promoter running a showcase with 20 guest performers across a month can see their monthly software bill double or triple just to process single payments.
Commercial Clearing House & Transaction Fees: Third-party clearing houses and merchant portals frequently charge per-transaction processing fees, setup fees, or minimum monthly spend commitments. 
Bookkeeping & Administrative Overhead: Navigating the SuperStream compliance standards requires independent operators—who are usually sole operators working out of spare rooms—to pay bookkeepers or spend dozens of unpaid administrative hours every week managing forms.
When an operator incurs $10 to $25 in software costs, transaction fees, and administrative labor just to process a $6 super contribution, the system is fundamentally broken.

Art is Subjective: Why One-Size-Fits-All Regulations Fail
Unlike conventional hourly employment, art is subjective. There is no standard, universal pay scale for creative performance:

A five-minute guest spot at an open-mic tryout may pay $50.
A 15-minute feature set at a local showcase may pay $100 to $150.
An independent fringe festival spot might operate on door-split arrangements where a performer walks away with $30.
A comedian, musician, or guest speaker might perform at a specific venue only once in an entire year. Under the current system, for that single 10-minute appearance, the promoter must:

Issue and collect a Super Choice Form.
Verify Unique Superannuation Identifiers (USI) and fund details.
Manually onboard the artist into a paid payroll system.
Transmit a $6.00 super contribution through a third-party commercial clearing house within strict deadlines.
This burden does not exist for standard business contractors—it is imposed specifically on performers and creative contractors under specialized extended definitions. 

Performers Lose Too
This system does not even serve the artists it claims to protect:

Erosion of Opportunities

Promoters unable to shoulder the compliance cost are cutting lineup sizes, scrapping developmental showcases, and canceling open-mic nights. Up-and-coming talent loses the stage time required to hone their craft.

The existing regulatory framework poses an immediate threat to working artists and performers across Australia. Grassroots venues and independent promoters—who typically remunerate talent between $50 and $200 per appearance—cannot absorb the disproportionate administrative overhead or retroactive liabilities mandated under these compliance rules. Confronted with unsustainable costs, many small-scale operators will have no viable option but to cease programming altogether.
 
 The immediate consequence will be a severe reduction in paid opportunities across the sector. For practitioners who depend on irregular showcase engagements to sustain their livelihoods, these closures will directly eliminate critical income, shrink stage time for career development, and hollow out the grassroots arts ecosystem.
 
 If you rely on independent stages to pay your bills and develop your craft, your voice is essential.

Super Fragmentation: Performers working across 30 different indie rooms a year end up with micro-deposits scattered across funds or lost to administrative account fees.
Paperwork Fatigue: Independent artists are drowning in administrative onboarding forms for negligible payouts across multiple promoters every weekend.

What We Are Calling For

We call on the Australian Government and the ATO to introduce an urgent, common-sense reform package for the independent arts sector:

A Practical Exemption Threshold

 Introduce an administrative exemption threshold for short-duration, low-value contractor engagements (e.g., individual artistic engagements under $450 or fewer than 15 hours per month).
A Free, Streamlined Direct-Payment Alternative: Provide a simplified, government-backed micro-contribution mechanism so small promoters are not forced into expensive third-party commercial software subscriptions.

Formal Distinction for Independent Creative Engagements

Re-evaluate the classification of one-off, irregular sole-trader performers to distinguish genuine creative contractors from disguised employment.
Direct Industry Consultation: Engage directly with independent comedy promoters, grassroots music venues, festival directors, and independent artists to design compliance rules that reflect the economic reality of live performance.

Without immediate change, independent venues will close, line-ups will shrink, and Australia’s cultural pipeline will dry up.

Sign this petition to protect our live entertainment industry and support sensible, workable regulations for independent arts.