Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This budget is an unfair attack on the independence and integrity of the Australia Council. Arts funding decisions at arm's length from government and free of political interference have been fundamental to arts policy since the establishment of the Australia Council 40 years ago. Senator Brandis has now trashed that important principle. Following last year's savage cuts to the arts, Senator Brandis has now cut another $104.7 million from the independent Australia Council and transferred it to his own department. Senator Brandis has long wanted to exercise greater control over arts funding, and he has now achieved that aim.

Senator Brandis has also launched an outrageous attack on the judgement and integrity of the Australia Council. He says that transferring funds from the council to his department, effectively to his personal control, will ensure:

… that government support is available for a broader range of arts and cultural activities.

He says:

Arts funding has until now been limited almost exclusively to projects favoured by the Australia Council.

That is his word. Apparently, in George Brandis's opinion, the Australia Council exercising its proper function of peer review and merit based assessment is merely a matter of favours.

There is a pattern here. Last year Tony Abbott took $6 million from the Australia Council to fund a new National Book Council, duplicating the Australia Council's functions. There is another pattern here as well. George Brandis spends taxpayers' money on his private library. Now he will spend taxpayers' money building his own personal arts empire.