Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

With this legislation, we will take a major stride in the implementation of Australia's new National Cultural Policy—Revive. The modernisation, strengthening, and expansion of the Australia Council for the Arts is the centrepiece of Revive. For more than five decades, the Australia Council has supported creativity across the continent. It's funded the creation of countless works of music, visual arts, dance, theatre, literature and other art forms. It's shared Australian creativity with the world. It's nurtured the careers of generations of artists and arts workers. It's given Australians access to cultural experiences that have moved us, entertained us and changed how we see the world and how the world sees us. It is the federal government's principal channel of support for creative endeavour. It's crucial to the health of the arts ecology that we have an Australia Council that is fit for the future, properly funded and given the mandate that it needs to effectively serve the arts. The Creative Australia Bill 2023 and other legislation are the second piece to implement the government's National Cultural Policy and transform the Australia Council for the Arts into Creative Australia.

Through the legislation, two important new bodies, Music Australia and Creative Workplaces, will be established, and they will be accountable to Creative Australia. Legislation to establish the First Nations body will be introduced next year and legislation for Writers Australia the following year. Through these reforms, public, philanthropic and commercial support for the arts will be brought within the one agency for the first time.

The reforms set out in this legislation are complemented by a significant new investment of $199 million in Creative Australia over four years. Those opposite have said that this investment will do little to support artists, Creative Australia will ensure that the vast majority of this investment will go to support artists. Its track record on this speaks for itself. Last financial year, the Australia Council invested 95 per cent of its budget in the sector, with just the remainder spent on overheads and operational costs.

The objectives of the National Cultural Policy that were delivered in January of this year arose from the arts community itself. The policy was not imposed by the government. It's based on extensive consultation with the arts community. The calls to establish the new bodies defined in this legislation came through powerfully in the consultations and submissions in the development of the National Cultural Policy, and I was very privileged to support the Minister for the Arts by conducting many of these consultations throughout the country.

This legislation also builds on many of the things I learned back in previous parliaments, in the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts inquiries into the sustainability of the music industry and the film and television industry. I've learnt them from my highly creative constituents in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, not to mention the lived experience of having children and many of their friends working in the arts sector.

Let's talk about Music Australia. The sector told us that there was a need for a single body responsible for supporting, promoting and developing markets for Australian contemporary music. They told us that the sector needs a single table to meet around for representatives to share ideas, concerns and aspirations. They told us that the sector needs targeted support to provide industry professionals, bands and artists with more opportunities to learn and to develop their skills. This is what Music Australia will do. Its work will be backed by a significant new investment of $69 million over four years. Music Australia will implement a number of the initiatives specified in Revive. It will develop new co-investment agreements with states, territories and industry to develop national sectorwide priorities. It will support industry professionals to learn business and management skills. It will provide ongoing support for Sounds Australia, Australia's export music market development initiative. It will deliver songwriting and recording initiatives in schools. It will be responsible for ensuring research and data collection around key issues, including festivals and venues. It will provide central coordination around access to live music venues for bands and artists, and it will create community music hubs in high-density living areas.

The council of Music Australia will draw on the broadest possible range of experience and skills. It will reflect the diversity of this sector. Council members will serve for four years at a time to ensure continuity of strategic leadership. However, it's important to note that Music Australia does not mark a return to the old 'Artform boards' of past years. The council of Music Australia will provide leadership and advice, but it will not make individual funding decisions. These will continue to be made by the continually refreshed assessment panels made up of musicians and music workers. Music Australia has been created in response to the sector's call. Its form has been shaped by the input of hundreds of individual musicians, music producers and industry organisations across the country. Thank you to every individual and organisation whose contribution has brought us to this point.

The other body is Creative Workplaces. This was another message that came through really clearly in the consultations for the national cultural policy. The message was that action must be taken on problems with workplace culture in many parts of the arts sector. For far too long, artists and arts workers have faced conditions that threaten their wellbeing and financial security. The Raising their voices report released in September 2022 shone a light on the sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination that has been rife within some parts of the sector for decades. Perpetrators have gone unpunished and victims have been silenced. Underpayment and exploitation of artists have been all too common. We will not allow this toxicity to become normalised. Arts jobs are real jobs. Artists are workers. They deserve to feel safe at work. They deserve good working conditions and fair pay.

Creative Workplaces will help set a higher standard. Its mission will be to instil a greater level of respect and decency for those in the creative workforce. We know that action is long overdue. We recognise that it will take time to bring about the kind of cultural change that we seek to make. But what's crucial is that we take these first steps and that we begin as we mean to continue. Creative Workplaces will provide advice on issues such as pay, safety and welfare in the arts and entertainment sector. It will refer matters to the relevant authorities such as Safe Work Australia, the Fair Work Commission and the Australian Human Rights Commission. It will hear complaints, and it will provide confidential advice to those who need it. It will develop codes of conduct and resources for the sector. It will make it a condition of funding that grant recipients adhere to the workplace standards required of them, and it will monitor their compliance with those standards. It will provide funding to Support Act, to provide mental health services for those working in the music industry.

Those opposite have dismissed the creation of Creative Workplaces as unnecessary spending on bureaucracy that will do little to improve the lives of Australian artists. Well, I wonder if the 1,600 music industry workers who contributed to the Raising their Voices report would agree with that. Seventy-four per cent of female respondents reported sexual harassment or sexual harm during their career in the music industry. Ninety-one per cent of women had experienced sexism. Seventy-six per cent of respondents had experienced bullying. I wonder just how many of these music industry workers would say that intervention is a waste of time and resources. Australia's artists cannot produce their best work while working in unsafe and unfair conditions. We can't expect artists to enrich our lives while their own are governed by fear, insecurity and exploitation.

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam once said: 'A society in which the arts flourish is a society in which every human value can flourish. A society where democracy is secure is a society where the arts are secure.' He was right, as he was about many things. Freedom of creative expression in the arts is one of the distinguishing characteristics of a democratic society. Indeed, freedom of creative expression is one of the preconditions of a healthy democracy. The arts must be free of political interference. Since the Australia Council's establishment by the Whitlam government in 1975, part of its mission has been to uphold and promote freedom of expression in the arts. That principle will always be at its heart and that principle is enshrined in this legislation. Over the past decade, the Australia Council has faced relentless undermining, sidelining and underfunding by the previous government, but through it all it has maintained the faith of the arts community because they see themselves reflected in the agency and they respect the integrity of its processes. It's important that Creative Australia is informed and guided by the expertise of the arts community and that it reflects their diversity. Across six decades, the great strength of the Australia Council has been that it is just as much part of the arts community as it is of government. That will continue to be its strength well into the future.

Independence is also key, and we believe that the role of the government is to support and empower Australia's artists, not to direct them. This government understands that the people best placed to make decisions on artistic merit are not ministers or government officials, but artists. Arm's-length decision-making and peer assessment of artistic merit should be the foundations for arts funding in a democratic society. These will continue to be the foundational principles for Creative Australia. For all its rhetoric, the previous government failed to uphold these principles. In 2015, arts minister George Brandis raided the Australia Council's budget to set up a fund to be spent according to his own preferences. When this happened, Australia's arts community were understandably horrified. Their concern was about more than just funding cuts; they understood what was at stake. The minister had broken the decades-long consensus that arts funding decisions should be made at arm's length from government. The editors of the literary journal Kill Your Darlings wrote that they had a great concern about:

The alarming cuts to the Australia Council for the Arts and the political erosion of arms-length funding … a healthy, wealthy democracy such as ours must support the arts community through apolitical funding bodies. Politics always has a place in the arts and artistic expression, but political mandates should never have a place in arts administration.

They were wise words.

When the previous government set-up the RISE Fund, funding decisions were not made independently of government. They were not made using the trusted peer-assessment method. They were not made with any guiding strategy. Our government has returned to the principles of arm's-length decision-making and peer assessment. After a decade without strategic leadership, we've introduced a national cultural policy and we've begun legislating the reforms that it prescribes.

Above the doors of the Art Gallery of New South Wales are inscribed the Latin words 'Ars Victrix', which means 'the arts victorious'. They're derived from the lines of a poem by Henry Austin Dobson:

All passes. Art alone

Enduring stays to us …

It's a reminder that art is not just how we communicate with each other; it's how we communicate with generations yet to be born, generations who will judge and seek to understand us by the art we leave behind.

The arts are too important to be treated like a personal fiefdom or a political plaything. They're too important to be abandoned to a policy vacuum. They're too important to be starved of the support that they need. We believe that these reforms and new investments will close one chapter and open a new one. A modernised, expanded and properly funded Australia Council will be better equipped to serve Australia's artists and allow them to make the contribution that we and future generations will value so profoundly. I commend the bill to the House.

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