Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

The member who just spoke, Mr Burns, is not somebody who has often made comment on arts policy, to my knowledge, and seems to have been handed a brief that's a year and a half out of date, with this ridiculous argument that arts is not in the name of the department. These are the facts: no government has ever provided more funding for the arts than the Morrison government in 2021-22, with over $1 billion of funding for the arts. It's not Labor that has delivered that. Labor always talk a game about their support for the arts. It's the coalition that has consistently provided support for the arts.

In this year's budget, there is $100 million to extend the RISE Fund, $18 million for regional arts, $293 million for our collecting institutions, $257 million for film and television, $219 million for the Australia Council, $48.9 million for Indigenous arts, languages and repatriation—over $1 billion in arts funding.

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