Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The arts are important to me, and I think they're important to all of us here. They're important to my community, in my electorate of Wills. Firstly, this is because there are so many talented local artists in my community. In fact, the suburb of Brunswick, in my electorate, has one of the highest concentrations of artists in all of Australia. But I think that the arts are more than just economic or a concentration of workers who work in the arts. A thriving arts sector is important because the arts are really the heart and soul of any society. They're the central core of any society. They play a fundamental role in our community. The creativity that comes through the arts and the artists has the power to light up our cities, light up our suburbs. The arts can really take us out of our own time and space, in some respects, so that we can reflect on other worlds, other perspectives, other human experiences and connections that are fundamental to being human. That's why the arts are so important.

Art reaches the heart and the soul, but I think it also can reach the mind. Look at the arts in Australia and the telling of Australian stories, for example. I worked at SBS before politics, and it was so important when we had NITV join SBS to be able to tell Indigenous stories so that Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians could see those stories being told on the screen. When we tell Australian stories we can see ourselves reflected back towards us, and those unique Australian stories are so special to us.

All of these benefits I've just outlined can't really be measured in traditional economic terms because there are no known metrics that can measure these intangibles—and they are intangibles and they're immeasurable in many respects. But that doesn't mean they're not important. In fact, it actually means the sense that we have and we know that the benefits—whether they be social, economic, cultural—are invaluable to us as a society. That's why the arts matter. You can't measure it in economic terms, but we actually know deep down that the impact it has on our lives and our society is invaluable. A society without the arts would not be a society; it would be something else that is alien to us. Throughout human history it has been part of who we are as human beings.

In my local electorate, I recently met with the co-CEO of Outer Urban Projects, Kate Gillick, and the general manager is David Ralph. Outer Urban Projects is an impressive arts company in the Australian community. They do arts and cultural development in the performing arts sector. They work on a platform called Unheard Voices, which tells the stories and shows the arts of communities in the north of Melbourne. As part of their work they engage culturally diverse young people from low socio-economic backgrounds within the performing arts. They also offer free workshops to people who are newly arrived and disengaged educationally and/or socially.

They told me about a production called The Audition which shares powerful stories centred around what it means to be an asylum seeker. It was inspired by two artists who were asylum seekers themselves who developed and created the work. The final shows were held last week as part of Refugee Week. This production is just one example of the way in which the arts can also be an important platform for people in our community to have their voices heard. Whether they be asylum seekers, refugees or socio-economically disadvantaged, they're able to share their thoughts, emotions and experiences in a more profound way. In a sense, through the art itself, they share what are elemental human experiences with us to connect but also to open up perspectives and see the world in different ways.

I've said the arts have always had an important place in my electorate of Wills and we saw the impact that music and the arts had in keeping us somewhat united during COVID. What would it have been like during that COVID period of lockdowns—especially with the kids around and all the rest of it—if we hadn't had some of the go-to arts and performances to keep us sane and help with our mental health but also to keep us connected as human beings? It was a very difficult period. When I said earlier that the arts are the heart and soul of any society—that came to the fore during that COVID period. It enriched our hearts, souls and minds in a very difficult period that people were struggling with and challenged by. During that challenging period, even though we went to the actual production of arts and artists, the output dropped significantly. Some 40 per cent of artists had to find work in other areas just to survive. Half the sector were also concerned about whether they had a future at all given what had happened to them and the impact of it.

Even before the pandemic, artists have struggled financially. We know the cliche of poor artists who are sacrificing everything for their work and, in a stroke of genius, are able sell a painting and suddenly become rich. They're the Hollywood stereotypes. There are so many working artists who deserve, even in the best of times, to be paid a fair wage for the work that they do, given its significance and its impact on the community. A lot of them, unfortunately, have to take multiple jobs just to make ends meet.

We saw that the coalition government for a decade sat on the Treasury benches there and consistently slashed funding for the arts. I know those opposite who might support the arts might not want to hear this, but it's true. The arts community were neglected by the previous government. They scrapped Creative Australia after they came to power in 2013 and replaced it with nothing. For many years artists had no supports in place. Our artists, who contribute so much richness to our nation, for far too long simply have not been respected. That's just a fact. This is why the Labor Party in opposition, with the shadow minister at the time and now the Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke, had and has a significant commitment and passion to arts and to artists. We value and elevate the contribution of the creative industries to Australia's social, cultural and economic life. They're too important to be ignored. They're too important to be neglected. As I said, their invaluable contribution to our nation cannot be dismissed. That's their importance.

This bill specifically looks to further deliver commitments made by the Albanese Labor government in the new national cultural policy, Revive. I think it's an appropriate word to use to describe the bill. This builds on the Albanese government's commitment to expand and modernise Creative Australia. As part of this, we're establishing four new bodies: Music Australia, Creative Workplaces, First Nations Arts and Writing Australia. Music Australia and Creative Workplaces were set up last year. The First Nations body will commence this year, in 2024, and Writing Australia will start in July next year.

The Albanese government respects the critical place of First Nations stories at the centre of our arts and our culture as well. That's why First Nations Arts is placed as the first pillar of our new cultural policy. Art has been an important part of Indigenous cultures for over 65,000 years, and it's essential to the wellbeing, culture and identity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. The First Nations body will support and promote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts practice. It will have its own board that will have autonomy over the allocation of funds for investment in First Nations art, because the government does believe that First Nations art should be First Nations led.

When I was working at SBS, as I mentioned, and NITV came on board, I remember going out to remote and regional parts of Australia and the cities of Australia to meet with Indigenous production companies and Indigenous artists who were working on film and television. That was important engagement because it was about making sure that the Indigenous stories that were being told through the platform of NITV were able to reach as many people as possible so that people could understand, be educated, value and enjoy Indigenous cultures and First Nations storytelling. I think that continues going from strength to strength today at NITV.

Writing Australia will be a new body that supports and promotes the Australian literature sector, helping to support authors, illustrators and publishers to create new works. Again, the point about telling Australian stories is of critical importance. That includes writers and illustrators being able to tell their uniquely Australian stories. Yes, there is great literature around the world, which we obviously can all access, but, when we're talking about the market and economics versus the invaluable contribution the arts makes, for me, the arts is not just an economic sector. It's too important to measure just by the economics. A lot of people say, 'We can make an argument that more people go to the NGV than the MCG.' That's great, but not all arts are commercially viable. That doesn't mean they're not important. Not all stories are going to sell millions of copies. That doesn't mean they are not important, unique and valuable or that they don't play a role in our society.

Frankly, as a social democrat, I believe that the government has a role to play not just in supporting but in creating the conditions of support for these stories to be told even if they're not commercially viable. The government plays a role in supporting artists in that respect, because otherwise some of those stories will not be told. They will disappear, and they're important for us as Australians. Writing Australia will enable investment in a network of organisations that allow the development of national industry initiatives that increase national and international markets for Australian stories as well as for writers. The government recognises that new technology is disrupting the environment for writers. We understand that. Government policy needs to be modernised to better support these artists, given this disruptive period.

The establishment of both Writing Australia and First Nations Arts are part of that larger plan when it comes to the arts. Since we launched Revive, the government has established Creative Australia to modernise arts funding and reverse what were known as the Brandis cuts at the time. I say this again: I know this is a partisan place, but the arts are not just some special plaything. It's not like the de Medicis here, where if you love ballet you can choose to only fund ballet. It doesn't work that way; it shouldn't work that way. It should work in a way where artists and performing artists and writers and visual artists and others are supported right across the board by government with independent sources of funding and not just favoured based on the particular interests of one particular political leader or the government itself.

Establishing Creative Workplaces to improve the standards and safety of workers in the arts is important. We've established Music Australia, as I said. We're sharing the national collection so that art is shared with regional and suburban galleries and gets out to the regions, which is important. We've extended lending rights so that Australian writers are better paid. Again, that goes back to those conditions and fair pay and work rights for artists as well. We've boosted funding for performing arts training organisations, and we've provided more support for games developers through Screen Australia as well. We've improved tax breaks for the video games industry as well, which is part of the creative industry.

We've increased funding to Sounds Australia to unlock international opportunities for our musicians, who are very, very successful. Tones and I was here the other day. She's had three billion hits on Spotify or whatever it was, which is a remarkable figure given that she started out in Frankston. I remember going out to Frankston. I was scared to go out to Frankston a lot of the time. It was a pretty rough neighbourhood. It's very nice now on the beach. It's a great success story—out of a tough socioeconomic area, you get this wonderful success of an Australian artist like Tones and I.

The government has a history of backing artists and backing the arts. The last two cultural policies were delivered under Labor governments. There was Creative Nation under Paul Keating and Creative Australia under Julia Gillard. Art has a powerful way of letting us experience the world around us through a different lens and different perspectives. Artists and their art give so much to our community and to who we are. We need to make sure that we give something back to the artists who are doing this work—this important creative work for our society. This bill outlines the Albanese government's commitment to improving the quality of investment into the arts. The bill is going to ensure that artists and art organisations have greater supports. The government is truly committed to bringing back respect and real tangible support to our artists and to the art sector.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

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