Intro
In 2024, cultural and creative activity (excluding computer systems design) contributed $6.2 billion to the Western Australian (WA) economy in gross state product (GSP), or $10.5 billion including computer systems design.i This followed six years of consistent growth. Between 2018 and 2024, cultural and creative GSP increased by an annual average of 6.8% per annum, excluding computer systems design (a total increase of $1.9 billion or 45%). Including computer systems design, cultural and creative GSP increased by an annual average of 7.4% per annum (a total increase of $3.6 billion or 53%).
The value of cultural and creative activity as a share of total GSP decreased over the study period (between 2018 and 2024). This is because of the dominance of mining and resources in WA, and its growth rate, which outstrips rates of growth in the rest of the economy. For this reason, the report features cultural and creative activity as a proportion of total GSP excluding mining. This shows that the value of cultural and creative activity (excluding computer systems design) as a share of non-mining activity in WA was steady, at approximately 2.40% between 2018 and 2024. When computer systems design is included, the value of cultural and creative activity as a share of non-mining activity in WA increased, from 3.85% in 2018 to 4.06% in 2024.
In 2024 WA generated 9.3% of the value of all creative and cultural activity across Australia (excluding computer system design), an increase of 0.8 percentage points since 2018. This suggests that while WA’s cultural and creative sector is growing at a faster rate than that of the rest of Australia, it is still smaller relative to the rest of its economy than across the rest of Australia; proportionally, WA’s gross state product is 17.2% of Australian gross domestic product.
Table 1: Cultural and creative activity value add, GSP and share of GSP, 2018 to 2024 (excluding computer system design)
Source: University of Canberra (UC) estimates, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2025 Australian National Accounts: State Accounts, Table 1
Figure 1: Cultural and creative activity by domain, 2018 to 2024, current prices (excluding computer system design)
Table 2: Cultural and creative activity value add, GSP and share of GSP, 2018 to 2024 (including computer system design)
Source: UC estimates, ABS 2025 Australian National Accounts: State Accounts, Table 1.
Figure 2: Cultural and creative activity by domain, 2018 to 2024, current prices (INCLUDING computer system design)
Source: UC estimates
The creative domains contributing the most to the WA economy in 2024 were:
Between 2018 and 2024, five out of these six top domains experienced growth exceeding that of non-mining GSP (which grew at an annual average of 6.7%). Those creative domains with average growth above non-mining GSP were:
Note that Film and television activities’ share of non-mining GSP fell from 0.23% in 2018 to 0.16% in 2024. This aligns with national figures published by the federal government’s Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research. The turn towards online content which has led to a decline in broadcasting activity is key to this decline.
Three quarters of the value of cultural and creative products and services are generated within the creative industries themselves, while one quarter is generated in other industries. This aligns with our analysis of 2021 Census data for WA:
A notable difference in the creative products and services found within and outside the creative industries are advertising and promotion activities. The value that advertising and promotion activities contributed to the WA economy through industries other than the cultural and creative industries is far greater than they contributed to the cultural and creative industries themselves – $861.6 million compared with $337.0 million. Advertising and promotion is a critical enabling activity, utilised across the economy with businesses employing these creative skills directly, holding and developing them in-house rather than relying on contracting them from specialist providers. Other domains where their economic contribution is greater outside the cultural and creative industries in WA are libraries and archives ($203.8 million vs $116.0 million) and music production and distribution ($74.0 million vs $6.0 million).
Other domains also made significant contributions to GSP outside the cultural and creative industries, including computer systems design ($315.1 million) and print media and publishing (excl. internet) ($230.1 million).
This paper presents estimates of cultural and creative activity value add and gross state product for all of WA and for 14 creative domains. While these estimates follow methods developed by Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research (BCARR) in its 2024 refresh of the cultural and creative satellite accounts originally developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), we also include results for Computer Systems Design in order to capture the full extent of the value of creative work in WA.
Some caution should be used in interpreting the statistics reported here. These are estimates calculated by our UC research team, based on estimates calculated by the FootprintLab (developed in collaboration with the University of Sydney and University of New South Wales) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The trends and relative comparisons presented here are highly informative and are the most important findings. We recommend avoiding any emphasis of standalone numbers taken out of the context of trend and comparative analysis.
This Briefing Paper was produced by the University of Canberra (UC) in partnership with the Western Australian Government Department of Creative Industries, Tourism and Sport. It presents estimates of the economic value of cultural and creative activity in Western Australia, drawing on input-output tables supplied by the FootpintLab. This Briefing Paper and the report on which it is based were prepared by Associate Professor Yogi Vidyattama , Faculty of Business, Government and Law and Dr Marion McCutcheon, News & Media Research Centre.
Suggested citation: Vidyattama, Y. & McCutcheon, M. 2025, Western Australian Cultural and Creative Activity: Contribution to state product and industry value add, September.
i In 2024, the Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research (BCARR) narrowed the scope of the cultural and creative activity captured by the satellite accounts, excluding wholesaling and retail components from creative activity value chains, and removing computer system design. Computer systems design has been included here to provide a more holistic picture of creative activity.