Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

In the light of the amount of the proposed expenditure that was directed to the arts in the 2006 budget, I would like to discuss the budget announcement by the Attorney-General and the Minister for the Arts and Sport to unilaterally cancel any prospect of a resale royalty scheme for Indigenous and other visual artists. Over the years since the Myer report considered this issue there have been unanimous calls from arts organisations, Indigenous arts organisations, the Australian Copyright Council and others for a resale royalty scheme to be considered by the government. These calls were contested by the major auction houses but, at the same time that this debate unfolded, various jurisdictions, in the European Union in particular, considered and brought into effect resale royalty schemes.

I ask the parliamentary secretary representing the minister whether the department conducted a review with the Attorney-General’s Department and, if so, whether it did any costings of the likely consequences for artists of a resale royalty scheme. I also ask whether or not consideration was given to the likely impact on or flow-through of income to artists, particularly Indigenous artists, who were the ones most likely in the first instance to benefit from resale royalties, given that in some instances the price of their artworks has escalated very quickly over a short period.

In the budget papers, under the announcement ‘Individual visual artists—enhancing business skills’, some $6 million was made available, of which I believe $4 million is for Aboriginal art centres and $2 million for forms of training. I point out that the estimate given by some analysts of the likely benefits that would flow to Indigenous artists if a resale royalty scheme were introduced is in the order of $20 million to $25 million. I draw the minister’s attention to that discrepancy and ask whether that was considered in this decision and whether any additional reasons will be given for the government not considering a resale royalty scheme.

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