‘It’s all a set-up’: the ‘fake’ Australian documentary TV series mining governments for millions

In an unforgiving expanse of red dirt in the heart of Western Australia’s goldfields, a tense confrontation threatens to turn violent. As the cameras roll, grime-smeared prospectors confront an intruder caught red-handed on their claim.

It is a classic episode of Aussie Gold Hunters, a documentary series that its distributor, Warner Bros Discovery, says has captured an audience of 40 million viewers in more than 140 countries, making it the most successful Australian show on its platform.

The face of the would-be thief is heavily pixellated. But the silhouette and distinctive hairdo of the impostor bear a striking resemblance to an Aussie Gold Hunters producer.

“Just be careful, mate,” one prospector, Dale Harring, warns her business partner a few episodes later in the same season, as he prepares to confront another of the show’s intruders. It was a scene that left some in the local film industry wondering who kept the camera rolling, as the impostor’s distinctive goatee and South African drawl was reminiscent of an Electric Pictures camera operator.

In April, the ABC’s Media Watch cited other scenes in Aussie Gold Hunters that appeared to be staged, including one featuring a “poacher” who was in fact the series producer, Michael Dye. Dye told Media Watch the scene was a “recreation” in which he had no choice but to play a part because there was no one else available.

Electric Pictures has built the success of Aussie Gold Hunters on direct funding from the WA government’s Screenwest documentary funding scheme (largely bankrolled by the state’s lottery revenue) and tax offsets through the federally funded Screen Australia, on the basis that it is an Australian-made documentary. The production company received more than $4.7m from Screenwest between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2022, when funding data ceased to be made public, of which $4.1m was directly earmarked for Aussie Gold Hunters.

But the Media Watch report and documents seen by Guardian Australia have raised questions about whether the series should properly be considered a documentary – as opposed to reality TV, which is ineligible for government grants and tax perks.

It is not the only popular WA television show that has drawn criticism for its status as a documentary. A cache of internal documents seen by the Guardian suggests the most daring action in Outback Opal Hunters takes place in the writing room of its Fremantle-based production company, Prospero Pictures. The series, also commissioned by Warner’s Discovery Channel, is now in its 14th season and is screened in more than 100 countries.

Outback Opal Hunters has received grants of more than $850,000 from Screenwest since 2018.

Both shows are also eligible for millions in Screen Australia tax offsets.

‘Ramp up the drama/chaos’

In a drama-packed episode in season seven of Outback Opal Hunters, brothers Matthew and Colin Kathagen, known on the show as Matt and Cozza, or the “Mooka Boys” for their base in the remote South Australian opal hub of Andamooka, have one last chance to strike it rich before they call it quits and return to city life. It’s high stakes as Cozza narrowly escapes a shower of rocks in a shaky shaft. Then, just as disaster is averted, they spy that magical twinkle in the underground gloom – only for the diesel digger to inexplicably die.

The script for that episode was finalised the day before the shoot began and accompanying production notes ask: “Can we produce up a rock fall on digger roof to demonstrate dangers of this project? Ramp up the drama/chaos into a cliffhanger?”

As Matt and Cozza look at the supposedly lifeless digger, the production notes suggest: “Try a cliffhanger take where Matt abandons digger and basically tells camera to fuck off.”

If only Matt and Cozza could take it all a bit more seriously.

“They have a tendency to laugh, which undercuts the dramatic tension,” the production notes complain. “Please get clean grabs and OTFS [off-the-cuff interviews] without the laughter.”

The weather also has a tendency not to cooperate.

“Produce up the weather heating up as the end of season is approaching,” the production notes instruct, in a script written in the final days of an Australian winter (29 August), when temperatures can drop as low as 6C at night in Andamooka. “Please ensure team do not wear beanies or jackets, and make mention of the hot weather impacting them where possible.”

The elements can be equally uncooperative on Aussie Gold Hunters. When the Kimberley wet season, sure to scupper any chance of further gold finds, refuses to kick in on cue, the prospectors “sheltering” under a tin roof are instructed to raise their voices as off-camera crew train high-pressure hoses on the scene.

One Electric Pictures employee who worked on that episode told the Guardian: “I said, ‘Oh, that’s so amazing, they find the gold just before the wet starts.’ And then someone said, ‘That’s a hose, mate.’ And then I took another really careful look and I could see that it was fake.”

The former employee told the Guardian that commercial network pressure heavily dictated the “reality” on the ground.

“You’d have these meetings with Discovery Channel and they’d be saying, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be good if this happened?’ So you’d write scripts where you were saying this sort of thing might happen, but what they really meant – all unsaid or not in writing – was that’s what you had to make happen.”

Warner Bros Discovery did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

Electric Pictures did not respond directly to detailed questions, including allegations the company has used staff members to play scripted characters.

Instead, the chief executive, Andrew Ogilvie, said in a statement that Electric Pictures was grateful for the ongoing funding Aussie Gold Hunters received from government sources. “These funding agencies have clear eligibility criteria which they rigorously assess, and Aussie Gold Hunters has been found to comply with the relevant guidelines on multiple occasions, over many years, by all agencies involved in the production,” he said.

A statement from Prospero Productions’ managing director, Julia Redwood, said the stories told in Outback Opal Hunters were “authentic and based on extensive discussions with our contributors”.

Episode outlines were necessary for logistics, she said, and were scrutinised for critical health and safety risks as well as legitimacy.

“Story recreations can occur if anecdotes or scenarios happen when our cameras are not in the field,” she said, adding that all production staff were instructed to use the prewritten story outlines as a guide, not a script.

‘Doesn’t pass the pub test’

In April, an anonymous group of WA film industry insiders demanded that the Screenwest board launch an immediate investigation into the funding of Electric Pictures and Prospero Productions. In an email to the industry’s advisory group committee, they questioned why the series continued to attract Screenwest grants and lucrative federal tax rebates, and referred to the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s baseline test for a documentary, which is the definition used by Screenwest. One element included in the Acma test is that the subject matter must be grounded in fact, meaning the documentary must be a record of something that “would have happened whether someone was there to film it or not”.

Screen Australia’s criteria for accessing the producer tax offset that gives documentary-makers a 30% rebate on their eligible Australian spend – a refund that can run into millions of dollars – states that “the extent and purpose of any contrived situation” is one consideration as to whether a project counts as a documentary. Projects that are explicitly barred include “a reality TV program (other than a documentary)”.

Shows such as the ABC’s Back in Time for Dinner, for example, may attract the offset because although it uses reality TV techniques such as casting a real family and putting them in a staged environment, the set-ups are used as a historical device to explore real, documented history.

Screenwest told the Guardian it believed Aussie Gold Hunters and Outback Opal Hunters satisfied Acma’s documentary definition test.

Acma’s framework is somewhat elastic, however. Its guidelines recognise that “within the documentary form itself, there are various genres, such as the observational versus fully scripted form, and hybrids such as programs that combine re-enactments and interview”.

None of the scenes described above were marked “re-enactment”.

In their letter to Screen Australia, WA film-makers say the reliance on engineered jeopardy, manufactured cliffhangers and personality clashes places Aussie Gold Hunters and Outback Opal Hunters in the same category as staged interpersonal dramas such as Married at First Sight, which do not qualify for the rebates.

“It doesn’t pass the pub test,” one source told the Guardian.

“I mean, is this what the average student at school is taught is a documentary? The amount of money going to these companies to make work that isn’t factual is hollowing out our industry in this state.”

In 2019, Ogilvie told an industry magazine that the show was helping to grow the talent pool in WA by providing “long-term employment for a sizeable number of professionals, as well as training opportunities for less experienced filmmakers”.

An analysis of available data between 2015 and 2022 shows 32% of all documentary-eligible production funding went to Electric Pictures and Prospero Productions. Aussie Gold Hunters and Outback Opal Hunters alone accounted for 16% of that funding pool.

Screenwest ceased publishing program-specific grant information from 2022. In May 2021 Rikki Lea Bestall, a previous head of production for Prospero’s Outback Opal Hunters, was appointed chief executive of the funding body. In 2026, Bestall appointed Ingrid Longley, a former head of production at Electric Pictures, as Screenwest’s head of industry development.

Screenwest told the Guardian that the organisation employed individuals with industry experience, adding: “In a small, interconnected industry, a workforce with prior professional relationships and experience is common. Screenwest has a strong governance framework in place to manage conflicts of interest and decision-making within the organisation.” The statement, sent in response to extensive questions by the Guardian, did not address why grant information is no longer made public.

Screen Australia told the Guardian it was bound under tax law to keep any rebates confidential and would not be in a position to confirm that a review had taken place or “confirm what actions may have been taken as a result”.

“All application information provided by producers is carefully reviewed when a project is assessed,” Screen Australia said.

“When new information about projects and applications is received, this is considered in accordance with Screen Australia’s statutory obligations.”

One former cast member of Aussie Gold Hunters told the Guardian they would be astounded if viewers believed what happened on the show. “I can’t believe they really believe all of everything that goes on, because it doesn’t,” they said. “It’s staged, like a drama.

“When things get stolen in the camp, it’s always a set-up. When people’s cars break down, the loader or the dozer, it’s all made up, it’s all a set-up. These things do happen out here, but not when we’re filming.”