Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Heritage, the Arts and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I hope the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts is attuned enough to what is happening in the Murray-Darling Basin—as of course I am as the member for Murray—to know that the $50 million already spent on water allocations has so distorted the water market that irrigators can no longer buy water to grow food. I refer to the extra $2 billion that the government is putting into the market to buy water. Minister, you say ‘willing sellers’, but sellers are being leaned on by their banks and other lenders and that is going to knock out any agribusiness in the Murray-Darling Basin that is dependent on water use. Minister, I really wish you would tune in to that because, let me tell you, if it were any other sector involved you would have blood on the streets given the way this has happened.

You said a minute ago—and I am very happy about this—that on-farm water use efficiency dollars will be made available. I would like to know when, because the crisis is occurring now. But I am very pleased to hear your statement, because it is the first time I have heard this government utter those magic words. I hope the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, is in tune with you.

I will move quickly to the arts budget. The arts sector had great expectations that the extraordinary contribution by the coalition—our extraordinarily high level of funding—to Australian arts, both performing and visual, would at least be continued by this government. What in fact has happened is that we have seen that funding crash in the budget. The budget announced that there would be no money for the Australia Council for the Arts for the theatre and dance action plans. There was no money for the Australian Academy of the Humanities. The ArtStart program has vanished, with no mention of and no funding for what was a key Labor commitment prior to the election.

As for the new Young and Emerging Artists Fund funding of $6 million or so, which was highlighted in the 2020 vision summit, that new funding is to be squeezed out of existing funding. I would like the minister to tell us which existing program he wants to have slashed to find a way for the new Young and Emerging Artists Fund. The minister has cut $4 million from the Regional Arts Fund, a for-travel fund which has seen rural communities also able to participate in the cultural life of Australia. I note that this government is very big on social inclusion. Let me tell it that social inclusion involves having taxpayers from country areas seeing travelling exhibitions of works from our great collections or indeed performances or those taxpayers having their own artists being supported in their own communities. Minister, if you continue to slash the Regional Arts Fund funding in the way that you have done, we cannot see that happening. The strategic vision for the Australian film industry which the coalition put into place, the new Screen Australia authority, is to receive a one-off injection of $103 million but the authority is to see 28 jobs lost in the process.

We have seen that the CrocFest funding has also gone. We have seen Australia on the World Stage funding cancelled—it was one of your earliest acts, Minister—and that of course is our cultural diplomacy opportunity out the window. And the funding for Chamber Music Australia has been cut—and this international program was one of the most important ways that Australia could showcase its chamber music. The extra two per cent efficiency dividend is driving agencies and institutions to cut their touring and their new acquisitions, particularly agencies like the Maritime Museum in Sydney, which is now wondering how it can maintain its floating museum pieces—its great ships and its submarine.

Can you tell us, Minister, how it is that you intend these budget cuts, plus a two per cent dividend, to deliver anything like the arts program that we saw before? Are you advising them where to slash for their two per cent dividend or is it meant to be found from whatever they can cobble together? I am concerned that most of the institutions are having to reach into their touring budgets; that is where they find the greatest efficiencies. I am very keen to hear your answers to these questions, because Australians have enjoyed opportunities to develop world’s best performances—some of the world’s great singers and artists—but, with these funding slashes, young and emerging artists are very worried that they are now going to have very much reduced opportunities to participate in the arts both in Australia and abroad.

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