Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

Many institutions and organisations have their founding myths, and one of those is the Labor Party's myth that it is the only party that supports the arts, and that, whenever the coalition is in government, we have, by contrast—according to the Labor Party—a cultural desert. Like many myths, it is not based in fact.

Let me share some facts with you about the spending on the arts under the previous government. Our $200 million Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand Fund, RISE, has delivered some 541 shows, events, festivals and productions all around Australia. And indeed, it would have been $220 million because we put an extra $20 million into the March 2020 budget, but for some mysterious reason, the incoming arts minister killed that money off. Apparently, he didn't want to spend another $20 million on the arts. We provided $50 million for the Temporary Interruption Fund which was so key to keeping the Australian film and television sector going through the pandemic. There was $90 million in loans through the Show Starter Loan Scheme, and $50 million in our sustainability fund, which we provided to allow major systemically important companies to secure additional funding to get through the terrible challenges of COVID. And, of course, the combined effect of JobKeeper, the cash-flow relief provided to businesses and other measures meant that total funding going to the cultural and creative sector throughout COVID exceeded $10 billion. It was far and away the largest injection of funding into the arts ever.

We also announced the 30 per cent digital games tax offset to provide a huge boost to the digital games sector, where Australia is underweight right now compared to competitor nations like the UK and Canada. There's enormous potential for that sector. We provided very substantial funding for our national collecting institutions: $22 million for the new gallery at Bundanon in 2019; $20 million for lighting upgrades to the National Gallery in 2020; $28.6 million for capital works at the National Gallery in May 2021; nearly $30 million for Trove at the National Library between 2016 and 2023; and in 2021, $47 million for digitising and preservation of works held across eight national collecting institutions.

Similarly, we provided a transformational support to attract global screen productions to Australia: $540 million for the Location Incentive program which delivered an effective 30 per cent level of support for production budgets for these global screen productions. We attracted 32 international productions to Australia, attracted private investment of over $2.84 billion and generated more than 20,500 employment opportunities for local cast and crew.

When you put all this together, you see that the foundation myth of the Labor Party—that, somehow, when the coalition is in government, the arts doesn't get support—is entirely at odds with the facts. I'll tell you something else. Do you know which government was in power when Commonwealth arts funding reached a record level? I'll give you a clue: that record funding was some $1 billion of Commonwealth arts funding that occurred in 2021-22. It was under a coalition government. So the foundation myth that the Labor Party is once again peddling in this private member's motion today is entirely at odds with the facts.

Let's have a closer look at the minister's much hyped national cultural policy. When it was released, the Minister for the Arts claimed there was $286 million in additional funding over four years. But experienced observers of the current Minister for the Arts know that it's always wise to check the detail. When you check the detail, what you find is that, of that money, $45 million came from cancelling the coalition's very successful Temporary Interruption Fund, and, in total, the new funding came to only around $60 million a year—not to be sneezed at, of course, but not in the same league as the $1.1 billion in new arts funding announced by the coalition in the last term of government.

We've had a lot of effort by this government into putting more Commonwealth officials into employment. Every Australian who feels that we have a pressing need for more Commonwealth arts officials will no doubt be delighted by this budget. But the fact is, every dollar which goes to fund more bureaucrats is a dollar that cannot go to artists, performers and people in the arts sector who deliver actual arts activities that Australians can be informed and entertained by. Our focus in government was getting more money to the front line; this government wants to spend more money in Canberra.

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