Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this week, in which the screen producers have their annual pilgrimage to the parliament, conducting a number of events, it is perhaps appropriate to make some comments in regard to arts funding. Before turning to the broader national picture, I would note the reality of Sydney. Western Sydney has a population of two million people and is the third largest economy in the country. The New South Wales government's arts section, on its site, says:

Western Sydney has an innovative arts and cultural sector, which is attracting new audiences and providing significant … opportunities.

Despite that reality, only five-and-a-half per cent of New South Wales arts funding, and a mere one per cent of Commonwealth arts funding, goes to Western Sydney—an area which has produced organisations such as Penrith Performing and Visual Arts, the Riverside Theatres at Parramatta, Campbelltown Arts Centre, and the Casula Powerhouse; the latter two of which are in my electorate.

The majority of the funding for these organisations, unfortunately, comes from local government. That funding so predominantly comes from local government is a total contrast to inner city arts institutions. Kiersten Fishburn, the Director of Community and Culture at Casula Powerhouse, said in February this year that there needed to be a substantial increase in arts funding for Western Sydney for artists in the area to get by and that the underfunding means fewer local artists get to participate, leading to a lack of diversity in the Australian arts scene.

Her institution holds the largest theatre in south-west Sydney but due to a lack of funding it has been unable to host a significant number of productions. While detractors say there is no audience for them, there are no resources for marketing, making it difficult to get word out. Riverside, of course, has in recent years played a major role in arts culture in the city as a whole—the Sydney Festival itself has events there—and has a significant number of operations that gain large crowds.

But I want to turn to the broader national front in which to look at this appalling funding of Western Sydney. While the current minister, the Attorney-General, sees himself as some modern-day Lorenzo de Medici, sponsoring contemporary Botticellis and Michelangelos and people to perhaps paint Sistine chapels, the reality is that he is very much a failure in regards to standing up for the arts sector. I constantly see unfavourable comparisons to the previous arts minister, Rod Kemp, who was beloved by the sector for actually accomplishing outcomes and standing by the sector. The current minister, despite his pretensions in the arts field, has belaboured a major cutback in funding.

In the 2014 budget he accomplished arts funding reductions of $100 million over a four-year period. The reshaped Australia Council was given a new directive with its 28 million share of cuts delivered with ministerial override that preserved funding for 28 major performing arts companies such as Opera Australia, the Australian Ballet, the capital city theatre companies and state orchestras. He essentially decided—this minister—that he was particularly favourable towards those institutions, and their funding would be preserved, while significant cutbacks occurred in the broader arts sector.

An additional one million was devoted to the Australian Ballet School. The largest single cut was 38 million from Screen Australia's funding. The government's cuts disproportionately hit filmmakers, visual artists, writers and small arts companies, maintaining or increasing funding for the traditional established arts. The minister told The Australian in June 2014, 'I'm more interested in funding arts companies that cater to the great audiences that want to see quality drama, music or dance, than I am in subsidising individual artists responsible only to themselves,' showing an elitist admiration for 'high culture'. The reality is that those people do indeed often require this state/taxpayer funded support to survive. He is essentially accomplishing a narrowing of options in Australian society and a narrowing of output and making political decisions that are in tune with his own preferences. This broad national attack on arts funding is far worse in regions such as Western Sydney that are deprived of their fair share under the current provisions.

However, he is not alone on the conservative side of politics in attacking the arts sector. The Queensland Newman government cut funding by 16 per cent from 2011-12 to 2012-13, with small and medium sized arts organisations bearing the brunt again. This takes into account a $300,000 grant to the Queensland Ballet. In New South Wales, despite the fact that their website says that Western Sydney has a vibrant, innovative arts sector and is doing so much, that, for some reason, did not stop them accomplishing a massive 29 per cent cut over the same period.

This year's budget saw the diversion of $104.7 million over four years from the Australia Council—approximately 15 per cent of its total budget—to fund his new brainchild, the National Programme for Excellence in the Arts, to be administered totally by the minister himself. This moves decisions about which cultural institutions do or do not receive funding from an independent body to the arts minister, bucking the long-term trend of arts funding being based on independence and peer review, which is where it should be decided. I might be very impressed to read in the social pages that he and Tim Walker were at the Opera in the Domain. I might be very impressed by his attendance at these events. But, quite frankly, the politicisation of this portfolio to basically prescribe which directions he personally would like to see things going is to be deplored when compared to an organisation where the peers in the industry—the people who actually have expertise, the people who go and see a broader range of events and who have got a background in it—were making these decisions.

I want to now turn to some of the outcomes of this performance. We saw that the MEAA called for George Brandis to reverse all of last year's cuts to the arts sector. That was signed by artists, writers, publishers, editors, theatre makers, actors, dancers and thinkers in this country. Some 10,000 signatories mobilised themselves, including Thomas Keneally, Peter Carey, Christos Tsiolkas, Robert Manne, JM Coetzee, Di Morrissey, Neil Armfield and Tim Winton—all internationally recognised people in support of Australian culture saying that they thought that these cuts were extremely worrisome. Cate Blanchett referred to the cuts as 'very short-sighted', adding:

It's not only a potent industry that feeds Australia at home but culture generally, for any nation, is a piece of soft diplomacy.

It's a way that we understand the way the mind of a country works.

Geordie Brookman, the artist director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia compared the Australian arts community to an ecology where damaging one section damages everything. He added that the independent and small to medium sectors of the arts were not merely a 'training ground' but essential to the arts community.

The previous government, which I heard the member for Banks deriding on other fronts, established funding of $20 million over three years for video game creators—a bit contemporary, a bit too radical, a bit out of the box for the current minister. This was cut by him by 50 per cent to just $10 million in the budget, deeply hurting a fledgling industry, and $25 million was cut from film and $2½ million was cut from online platforms. This is the future. These very sectors that the previous government sought to finance, to support and to nurture were those that he attacked in a very strenuous way. Likewise, Screen Australia had cuts of $2½ million from their online production platforms, together showing the government cutting two art sources that are most likely to attract and draw in young people. Screen Producers Australia has expressed concern that, given the effects of budget cuts to Screen Australia, the ABC and SBS, the government needs to secure and provide certainty of maintaining local content regulation.

In conclusion, we are in a country where Western Sydney, with 2 million people, gets only one per cent of the national budget for the arts. It is a reality where these institutions that he is making sure will get the preference are already highly financed. They are historic, they have the advantage of establishment and they have the advantage of professionalism. These are supported at the expense of new and innovative fields of the arts, these are supported at the expense of struggling companies in south-west and western Sydney and these are supported because they are the preference of this minister. The politicisation of arts in regards to funding this year is to be completely deplored. We do not need a person who is a self-styled expert in this field going beyond his training and beyond his real knowledge to basically politicise and control this area.