Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I like the member for Macquarie, but sometimes I think Labor members come into this place and want to read a shopping list of faults that came under the coalition's watch. It is not the truth. In the spirit of bipartisanship, here we go, I'm going to praise the Labor candidate who ran against me in 2013 and 2016. Thankfully he didn't win, and that's why I'm here. But Tim Kurylowicz is the executive director at Eastern Riverina Arts, and you know what? He's doing a good job. He stood beside me at the new arts precinct in Temora, federally funded by, wait for it, the coalition government. We were proud to open that facility because we know, as does the member for Macquarie, just how important regional arts funding is. I am happy to work alongside Tim to make sure arts gets its appropriate funding across the eastern Riverina, across the electorate, into places such as Temora, into large cities such as Wagga Wagga but the smaller towns and villages as well. As I said, he is doing a good job.

This motion needs to also recognise and acknowledge that funding for the arts reached record levels under the coalition government. In fact it was not only printed in the budget papers but delivered in galleries right across the nation on the ground, and I know how important it was for the member for Bradfield, whose speaking spot I have taken—he has other things on at the moment—when COVID hit to make sure we got the funding out to events right across regional Australia in particular and right across the nation but also to the sorts of things we could keep going during those difficult and dark days. I know how important it was for him and for us as a coalition government and as an opposition now that funding should be as much as possible going to support artists, performers, arts workers, backstage crew, ushers, front of house—all of the people who work to deliver the arts and cultural activities that are so important to all Australians.

That's what we did in government, and that's what we will keep this government to account for in opposition. Annual Commonwealth arts funding reached a record level of $1 billion in 2021-22 under the coalition. Labor has not surpassed that. Labor members come in here and get their talking points from the dirt unit or the talking point department, wherever they get them from. They all do it. They all come in—it doesn't matter what motion we're talking about—they stand here and they just read every line as though it were the truth. Just because it's on the piece of paper, just because you've been told to say that, doesn't mean you have to blindly go along with it. We did put money into the arts. We did put money into artists, particularly during COVID. It was so tough and so difficult for all those artists during COVID. I think we all acknowledge that, and we all recognise the role they played in trying to lift spirits as best they could with the funding made available to them by the coalition government, by the nation, to help them during that very difficult period.

I appreciate that this is about artists, but it's also about show societies right throughout regional Australia—particularly for infrastructure upgrades. Some might say, 'What do show societies have to do with artists?' They actually employ a lot of artists. That's where, sometimes, the nation's budding artists have their first works displayed. The schoolchildren of the Riverina and central west, right throughout the regions, at the Sydney royal and elsewhere—that's where they get their first opportunity to display their talents, and that is why we provided so much money. In fact, 541 shows and events all around Australia were funded under our $200 million fund Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand—cleverly named 'RISE'. That was during COVID. We will continue to make sure arts and culture play an important part in this nation because they're important to the nation and they're important to our future.

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