Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Creative Australia Bill 2023 and the Creative Australia Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023. I believe that arts funding should as much as possible go to support artists, performers and arts workers, and the backstage crews, exhibition facilitators and all the people who work to deliver a great show, a poignant work of art or a piece of music or literature to enrich the soul. Whether it is performing arts, visual arts or literature, getting the money to the front line is a good principle, and a principle seemingly absent from these bills.

These two bills are part of the government's legislative agenda to implement decisions announced as part of its national cultural policy, but this government seems very keen on imposing priorities, principles and values upon artistic and cultural activity. Whether they will actually produce better artistic content is, I believe, highly doubtful. A much better approach would be to leave it in the hands of artists and performers, rather than putting our faith in having many more bureaucrats. But these bills give effect to a rather different agenda. So far we have seen legislation passed which changed the name from the Australia Council to Creative Australia. The bill before the House is the next piece of this legislative agenda. The government tells us that the new Creative Australia entity will have expanded functions, responsibility and new governance structures as the Creative Australia body replaces the Australia Council body.

The main bill is cognate with the Creative Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023, which will repeal the legislation as it relates to the Australia Council, essentially dissolving the entity of the Australia Council under law, which does raise the rather obvious question: why not just keep calling the whole thing the Australia Council?

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