Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start by thanking the committee members—and, of course, the member for Lyne, the former chair of the Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts—for the way that we work together and for the work that we've done on this report and its 22 recommendations, all of which are very important for sculpting the future of the arts and its place in our society. I can't outline all of them, so hopefully some of my colleagues here in the Federation Chamber will highlight some of ones that I don't touch on. I wish to thank those who took the time to make submissions to the committee for this inquiry, and I especially mention HOTA, the Home of the Arts, in my electorate for their contribution.

My City Heart Taskforce executive member for the arts is the chair of the Home of the Arts, Emeritus Professor Ned Pankhurst, and I thank him for his vision for arts and culture on the Gold Coast as the soul of our city. I also thank Criena Gehrke, the CEO at HOTA, for her submission to the inquiry, which coloured a number of the recommendations in the final report. Firstly, they mentioned in their submission that much of the non-economic benefits of the creative industries remains anecdotal and that there is a pressing need to better understand the reach and impact of creative industries on wellbeing. In recommendations 15 and 16 of the report tabled yesterday, the committee recommended:

… the Commonwealth Government provide additional funding to the Australian Bureau of Statistics to produce the Cultural and Creative Satellite Accounts annually, gather and publish data on levels and type of employment, trends, revenue, geographic trends across the creative and cultural industries—

and—

… the Australian Bureau of Statistics add questions to the Census which better account for the professions of those working in gig economies, and across the creative and cultural industries with recognition of paid and unpaid work.

This will go a long way to understanding the true value of the arts to society and give us a better understanding of the benefits flowing from creative industries so that we have the best information to develop a national cultural plan to assess the medium- and long-term needs of the sector, which, of course, is recommendation 1 in the report.

The Home of the Arts also stated that the industry probably doesn't need government help to innovate—no surprise there—but that what it does need is a more stable resource base from which to operate that platform of innovation. And there were so many other submissions that supported that. The committee's response to that was in recommendation 18, which recommends:

… the Office for the Arts investigate the delivery of an 'Art Starter' portal—

just that sort of platform—

containing information for artists, and those engaged in the creative economy, at all stages of their careers to enable Australia's arts industry to continue to grow and reach new audiences. The portal should include information on—

very importantly—

It's well known in this place, and beyond, that before coming here I was a professional musician for some 30 years—and I still play, mainly in my office—and also a published author and a songwriter. So it is a great privilege to stand in this chamber and speak to this report, and, indeed, to be a member of the government on this committee. My own experience as a young person with a craft was that it took a long time to develop the business acumen needed to commercialise my skills and my income as a creative artist. It is complex and it's everything from registering your business so that you can access an ABN to claiming expenses on your tax and collecting GST monthly, and paying it monthly or quarterly. In the case of COVID, having an ABN actually meant you were eligible to receive JobKeeper payments. Not only that, but it took a long time to develop in other areas, such as protecting your own original song or manuscript, or indeed paintings or Indigenous artworks. This is expanded on in this recommendation, and further outlined in recommendation No. 3.

The arts are one of the greatest levellers. What I mean by that is the arts level the playing field for all players. Not just those with the means to access private tuition or private schooling, but those who have a raw talent and who, through it, can make something of themselves. We see that in sport. This government already supports opportunities within sport, through the Local Sporting Champions grant program. One of the most satisfying things that I get to do as a local member is to write letters to young people and their parents to deliver the news that they've been a successful recipient of that program, which will allow them to attend state championships or a national championship. I'd love to be able to do exactly the same thing for young artists, as would my colleagues on both sides of the House. These are not large amounts of money, but they make all the difference to those families who have multiple children or a special child who has the gift of a talent and who wants to work hard. And that is essentially my own story.

I was extended an opportunity that was affordable for my family. I think it was $20 a term to hire an instrument from my high school in the 1980s. I worked hard and practised for 10,000 hours, and my work was rewarded with an international scholarship. That sent me abroad, and opened up the world to me as a young 17-year-old girl. It allowed me to study my craft at university, to join a band—many bands, actually; meet many brilliant role models, including the late Don Burrows; perform and travel the world; and, ultimately, it was the gift of music that led me to stand here in this place today.

I feel very strongly about these next recommendations, because they are what I believe in, and that is reward for effort and equality of opportunity—the greatest of all Liberal and National values. That's why I'm so excited about recommendation Nos 20 and 21. Recommendation 20 says:

… that the Office for the Arts, in collaboration with the Australia Council for the Arts, establish a new 'Local Artistic Champions Program' (akin to the existing Local Sporting Champions Program) to enable emerging Australian student artists, musicians, authors, playwrights, filmmakers, digital artists and game developers to apply for grants to support attendance at competitions, exhibitions, skills development courses relevant to their craft.

That's providing the opportunity to dedicated young people, and that's why I stand in this place—to make sure that continues. In recommendation 21, the committee says:

… the Office for the Arts establish a Music Access Assistance Program to increase active participation of school students, particularly in low socio-economic, rural and regional areas, in musical endeavours.

And:

… The Music Access Assistance Program should provide affordable access to music education opportunities including instruments, music books and other musical equipment.

Just like my high school back in the eighties; $20 a term to hire a saxophone. Absolutely affordable and achievable for anybody going to a public or a private school. It's very, very important.

Further in the area of education is recommendation 9:

The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government consider working with tertiary education providers to develop a program of internships and cadetships which would see students and young people work in regional, small and/or community-focussed galleries, libraries, archives and museums.

The Commonwealth Government should request input from the Office for the Arts, Department of Education, Skills and Employment and Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications as well as regional arts and cultural organisations, to develop a pilot program.

In the report there are also two very symbolic recommendations, recommendation 4 and recommendation 12, which elevate the arts in terms of the contribution that the arts make to our society. The first is that the word 'arts' be added to the department's title, omitted in the title as I just read it out. The second is that the 'a' from 'arts' be added to the STEM acronym as an additional cross-curriculum priority, making it STEAM. These are both very important recommendations that, if implemented, the sector would welcome.

To finish, I'd like to outline just some of the key support measures that our government and the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts have put in place for this sector, which is so very close to my heart. Our creative and cultural sectors have benefited through more than $10 billion in wages and cash-flow support from our government during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to analysis released by the Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research. The analysis estimates that employees and businesses in cultural and creative sectors received $10.7 billion from the government to support their operations, including $8 billion in JobKeeper payments between April and December 2020 and $2.7 billion in boosting-cash-flow-for-employers payments in early February 2021.

Support Act are also mentioned in the report. They received an additional $20 million in funding. Additionally, in the 2021-22 budget year we are investing an additional $1 billion, including assistance in my electorate for various events across Moncrieff. Sculpting a national cultural plan: igniting a post-COVID economy for the arts is a very important report. (Time expired)

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to start by acknowledging the member for Moncrieff and the member for Higgins, who have been really important contributors to the work of this committee and were also important in shaping the report's title. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the outgoing chair, the member for Lyne, who made such an important contribution to this inquiry and made sure much of the work was concluded before ably handing over to the new chair, the member for Mallee.

This report recognises the role of the creative sector in Australian life and acknowledges the devastating impact that COVID-19 has had on the industry here in Australia—in communities across Australia, from big cities to regional towns and the bush. Over the past 18 months, many individuals and organisations have been forced to stop work or wind back—and some have closed for good—because of lockdown. Unfortunately, the support to the sector was, for some people, too late, and some were left out altogether.

We all know the important role that the arts play in all of our lives and in Australian society. I think many of us rediscovered the arts during lockdown; it was a bit of a silver lining to the experience. We escaped from the uncertainty all around us by listening to music or to a streaming service, watching the local news or reading a favourite book. Finding something creative to dive into was important for our mental health and wellbeing during this time. Unfortunately, so often, the artists who sit behind these works aren't properly recognised or remunerated in our society. Before the pandemic, many people in the arts sector were already struggling, particularly those in the performing arts.

The impacts of COVID-19 have been felt, as I said, all around Australia, including in regional communities like mine on the Central Coast of New South Wales. Theatres have been forced to close, sold-out shows have had to push back opening nights, and live music was brought to a halt altogether. Many of the local artists I spoke to had found themselves without a way to make a living. Being forced to rely on government support programs like JobKeeper or JobSeeker—while welcome—wasn't what they had hoped 2020 and 2021 would bring for them. Musicians and actors who rely on touring were left behind, and some people were ineligible for support altogether—people like Ben.

Ben is a musician studying a Bachelor of Music at the University of Newcastle. Before COVID, he supplemented his youth allowance with live performances. He told me: 'These lockdowns have made it extremely difficult for us to secure work and to keep ourselves financially stable, with limited government support available in our industry. When these lockdowns first came into force, our whole industry was essentially destroyed overnight. Gigs that were planned for several months down the track were all of a sudden cancelled. The effect these lockdowns have had on our industry will mean a slow recovery for the live music scene and will be felt for many years to come.'

I also heard from Josh. Josh is one of the founding members of Jopuka, the leading youth-arts body on the Central Coast. He said to me, 'The Central Coast region has suffered a significant loss to the arts and culture sector, with over 50 projects and events cancelled in this year alone.' He estimates that Jopuka has lost $170,000 in ticket sales since the beginning of the pandemic. Despite this, community arts workers and performers remain resilient and look forward to getting back on stage soon, and I think many others share Josh's optimism.

Thankfully, New South Wales is now emerging from lockdown, but, as Ben said, the effects of the pandemic will be felt for many years to come, and for some artists more than others. The Hunter Creative Alliance, which is based just north of my electorate on the Central Coast, surveyed local artists in April this year, when the regions weren't in lockdown, and found that 11 per cent of respondents were without work at the time. As we know, that is twice the unemployment rate of elsewhere in the region. The report also found that 80 per cent of young artists, aged 18 to 35, expressed an increase in stress, anxiety or depression as a result of COVID-19, which we've seen across Australia but especially in industries which have been most impacted by COVID. These findings are alarming but I suppose not surprising, and I have no doubt that artists across the Central Coast—and across Australia—have experienced something very similar. People in the arts feel that they've been overlooked during the pandemic, even though their industries have been some of the hardest hit, and they need proper support to get back on their feet, as Ben and Josh have said. They're optimistic about getting back on their feet, but they need the proper support to be able to do that.

In conclusion, while this report has bipartisan support and was a very constructive and productive process, there are a few more things that we think need to be done to protect and elevate the arts, as the member for Moncrieff has said. We need a restored department of the arts to properly elevate it to the standing that it has in Australian society and to make the representations for future wage subsidies, job creation and protection for people within the industry. An insurance fund for live events would also provide certainty to performers in case of future cancellations and lockdowns. We need to fully fund the ABC, particularly in regional and remote Australia and the bush, to properly support people living in those communities to get the information and advice they need. These are all vital creative and communication services in our community, and they need our help. The government has overlooked too many people in the arts sector, particularly those living outside of big cities. In communities like mine on the Central Coast, we need to see proper support for the arts and for the creative industries across Australia.

Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to highlight the importance of the Australian arts sector to our economy, our community and our national identity. I thank the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts for their report, entitled Sculpting a national cultural plan: igniting a post-COVID economy for the arts. I extend a special thanks to the member for Mallee, for her work this year in chairing this inquiry, and to the member for Lyne, for his work over the two years prior. I'd like to acknowledge the member for Moncrieff, for her extraordinary contribution because of her personal and professional experience in the arts, alongside the secretariat, who have enthusiastically supported us and overseen the development of informed and specific recommendations to help the arts sector and its success.

Support for the arts is not only a cultural imperative; it's an economic one. Australia's artistic output gives enormous value to our society, enriching our lives and creating an economic boost from domestic and international spending. The arts is a broad industry with a range of skills and talents, making up a rich landscape of creative artists and workers.

Engaging with Australia's creative and cultural industries and institutions has proven benefits for mental health and physical health, social cohesion and community building, creative thinking, problem-solving skills, and more. The benefits which flow from a healthy arts industry have never been needed more keenly than right now, as Australia emerges from living with the COVID public health emergency. Astonishingly, the creative and cultural sector contributed $112 billion—that's 6.4 per cent of GDP—to Australia's economy in the 2016-17 financial year. But the value of the arts cannot be reduced to a dollar figure. It is the quality and significance of the creative work that is of importance. The arts weave into our lives each and every day, almost without our knowing it, whether it's a moving film, a beautifully designed building or simply an elegant teacup. The arts stimulate our mind and our imagination. The arts provide everyday lives with moments of beauty.

These last two years have resulted in a great impost on the arts. The restrictions imposed by COVID have been incredibly painful, and all this at a time when we've needed the arts more than ever to help us through the crisis. In my electorate of Higgins, museums, festivals and libraries have all closed. Clubs and pubs—the thriving venues for bands, comedians and other performers—remain shut. Theatres are empty. This all leaves a big gap in the lives and hearts of our community and has a major impact on the bottom line of those businesses. Those local businesses have told me how grateful they have been for JobKeeper for the local employees but also for the significant investment by the Morrison government in the creative and cultural industries to help them through COVID.

Last year, I had the opportunity to meet with A New Approach—a new independent think tank advocating for the Australian arts and culture sector. Chair of A New Approach's reference group, Mr Rupert Myer AO, together with program director, Kate Fielding, highlighted the unique challenges facing the arts sector, particularly in light of the emerging COVID crisis. Following our meeting, as a member of the Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts, I advocated for the need for an inquiry into the impacts of COVID-19 on the arts and how we, as a government, may ensure that our cultural identity not only thrives but prospers. Announced in August last year, the standing committee commenced a parliamentary inquiry into Australia's creative and cultural industries and institutions—including, but not limited to, Indigenous, regional, rural and community-based organisations. The inquiry wanted to make sure that front and centre were the grassroots organisations that feed our creative and cultural industries.

The inquiry considered the direct and indirect economic benefits and employment opportunities of the creative industries as well as the non-economic benefits of enhanced community social wellbeing and national identity. Moreover, the inquiry encouraged innovation to increase access and opportunities within the sector and, particularly, cooperation between the layers of government. We heard how the state and territory governments, local councils and the federal government all provide funding but that sometimes it can be difficult for people in the sector to navigate who funds what, when and where.

I'd like to thank so many local arts organisations that provided feedback to me during the inquiry about how COVID had affected them and their vision for the future of the arts. In particular, I'd like to thank the CEO of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Simon Abrahams; the director of the Duldig Studio and its founder, Eva Duldig; Todd Patrick from Patrick School of the Arts; Mike and Nathan Harrison-Lamond from Firehouse Theatre; and Alan Jin from Muso, which is a fantastic new company that has initiated the rise of the pub gig, aimed at revitalising the gig industry with over 100 venues that are going to put on more than 500 gigs in the post-COVID recovery. I'd like to thank all the other artists and cultural organisations who approached me and thank them for their support and the very important information they provided.

The committee made numerous recommendations towards ensuring that the post-COVID economy for the arts will be strong and vibrant. These 22 recommendations serve to ensure that the arts sector is held in the highest esteem and is front and centre for a strong economic recovery as a future key industry within Australia. I would like to highlight a number of these recommendations. The first one is recommendation 1, which is the development of a national cultural plan to assess the medium- and long-term requirements of the sector in light of the short- and long-term impacts of COVID-19. I believe that this is akin to what has happened for the sports sector, with Sport 2030 providing a national plan that brings together the different sectors and provides strategic intent. We know that participants in arts sector work very well together, but I would like to see better cooperation across the different levels of funding—federal, states and territories and local government—and I would like to see better coordination between regional sectors, grassroots community sectors and other city based major institutions.

Recommendation 2 supports this by suggesting liaison between all levels of government together to develop and administer strategies to grow cultural and creative industries, moreover encouraging the Commonwealth government to work with the Productivity Commission to remove red tape barring all levels of government from enacting artistic programs. Recommendation 3 is a very important recommendation because it seeks to create a national centre of Indigenous culture and arts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to ensure that Indigenous communities and bodies are represented in this way. I'd also like to mention the creation of an app that contains information regarding current artistic and cultural events in consultation with peak tourism and government bodies. We all know how helpful it can be for people to have an easy entry point to find this information. In fact, there's a plethora of these sort of app, which are flourishing. They're making it much easier for people to access information, and I really encourage pursuing this recommendation.

There are two more I particularly like and would like to note in our set of recommendations. The first one is a local artistic champions program that will see young and up-and-coming artists, musicians, authors, filmmakers and more have access to grants to support the development of their artistic abilities, whether by attending competitions or by undertaking further courses. Such a program would be akin to the existing and highly successful Local Sporting Champions program, which I know every member of parliament in this place knows, supports and cherishes. Another of the very useful and practical recommendations is the establishment of a musical access assistance program that will help students in low socio-economic, rural, and regional areas to get greater access to musical studies. I have certainly been supporting local grants in my electorate of Higgins to support musical studies.

Lastly, I'd like to note that the recommendations include that we think that 'the arts' should again be included in the title of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. That's where it belongs, and I think this sector would be happy to see it reinstated. I also note that we believe the government should provide a progress report, to be delivered by December 2022, on our recommendations. In closing I would like to say that the benefit from the creative thinking and physical activity we experience when we engage with the arts is more important now than ever.

Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The north side of Brisbane and the broader Brisbane community are lucky to be home to a huge array of talented young local musicians. We've produced some massive groups like Ball Park Music and Cub Sport, from Stafford. We are home to some great up-and-coming artists like Mackenzie Grace, Dublin Rose and Tabitha Lee. Last Saturday the north side's best local artists hit the Einbunpin Lagoon stage for the Sandgate Youth Festival. Congratulations to Duck Egg Blue, who took out the top prize, and to Councillor Jared Cassidy and his tireless team for another successful community event. The past two years have been particularly tough for Aussie artists and event organisers, with COVID forcing a lot of local gigs to be cancelled. Many people watched six months work disappear in six seconds. Unfortunately, we have heard a lot of rhetoric from the Morrison government over the last two years about how COVID has impacted the workforce, but there has been little to no regard of how COVID has impacted the jobs of our artists, our entertainers and the people that support them.

The patchwork policies artists were presented with were slow, ill-designed and ill-fit for purpose. Many artists were excluded entirely from JobKeeper because of the transient nature of their work. Over 150 days after Labor first called for a real package that would actually help local artists, small artists, the Morrison government finally announced a suite of grants and loans programs. I know that many artists felt like an afterthought, and, for many, it was too little too late. Our artists and entertainers are the people who chronicle the Australian story. They deserve our thanks, our respect and our support.

As we head towards 80 per cent vaccination rates in Queensland and our lives start to get back to normal, I have two simple asks for northsiders. Firstly, please get vaccinated so that you can go to live shows and safely support our local artists. Secondly, once you're vaccinated, get on the group chat and start making plans. We have Harvest Rain in Stafford putting on some fantastic upcoming musicals and Artrageous in Sandgate with beautiful displays and exhibits, and, only three kilometres from Lilley's southern boundary at Kedron Brook, we have the Valley, with live gigs every weekend. Hopefully, soon, we will have live shows again at the Boondall Entertainment Centre, rather than it being a max vaccination hub. If you're keen for a night in rather than all of that, get on Netflix and watch Romance on the Menu, which was proudly made in our very own Shorncliffe. Whatever your preferred choice of entertainment, now is the time to celebrate our COVID recovery success and get back to supporting our vital local artists as they re-establish themselves in such an important industry. I thank the House.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I feel a bit exasperated rising to speak on this topic, and it's not because the committee hasn't done terrific work in pulling together this report. But it does echo the recommendations that this government has received over many years about things that could be done to make a big difference to the arts sector. I fear that this is yet another report that they will largely ignore, cherry-picking only one or two recommendations for political expediency. I say this as a past member of this committee. And I see many parallels in this report and the one that we wrote from our 2017 inquiry into the sustainability of the film and television sector and then the 2018 inquiry into the music industry.

It is well known that I am a very mediocre violinist, married to a former musician, with an actor daughter and a musician son, so I am very heavily invested in the arts sector, personally, as is my community. The hills and plains of the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury are alive with the sound of music and dance. There are filmmakers, writers, performers, painters, sculptors—creators of all types, plus the people who make the final product a reality— producers, set makers, lighting experts, framers, the whole ecosystem that gets a creative idea out of someone's head and inspires and moves somebody else. And every dad who drops his son or daughter to ballet, every child who says, 'Mum, come and see me on the stage' and she goes, every family who listens to saxophone practice, who reads Possum Magic to their grandchild, who watches Bluey, who goes to the Hawkesbury Flood Relief Concert or a gig in Katoomba, who tosses a coin to the busker or at the Richmond food market, who puts an Australian painting on their wall is doing a terrific thing. You're doing it for yourselves, but you're also supporting the arts.

This report outlines a number of recommendations. I'm going to touch on a few of them. One of them is, of course, that we would like to see the name 'arts' in the department's name. This is a government that claims to put some sort of value in the arts, but it's removed that name from the department. I think it's a very sensible recommendation, and something that I have called for previously, to reinsert the word 'arts' into the name of the department. I know that it will make it even lengthier, but it will give acknowledgement not just to the sector per se but to the individuals whose work contributes to the local economy. It is an economic contributor. It isn't a drain on our society. They actually generate income that flows through economies, whether it's at a national level or in, say, the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury, at a local level. So I absolutely would support that recommendation.

What's also parallels the inquiries I've done and the reports that the committee I was part of wrote is the need for a greater emphasis on music in schools. Again, I have a personal connection. My mum was a high school music teacher. My son, the musician son, is about to start studying teaching—not that I think my mother would want him to inflict upon himself music teaching in high school; that's something she says is one of the hardest things you can do. However, those music teachers have inspired my son to want to go back and be part of the education system, where we should be seeing more music. Music isn't just something that makes you feel good—although, hey, that is pretty important. But we know it is also great from a brain development perspective. The research on it shows enormous benefits to health and wellbeing as well as to development. So seeing a greater emphasis on music in schools recommended in this report is very welcome.

There's also a recommendation that we mirror the program we have to encourage kids to be high achievers in sports and to make it possible for their families to fund those things, and that's the Local Sporting Champions program, which I know all of us would value very highly. I know it has certainly seen many of my amazing athletes and equestrians and rollerbladers go and achieve terrific things. Well, as this committee report recommends, it would be fantastic to see something that parallels that, for our creative kids—the kids for whom perhaps dancing on a stage is going to give a greater sense of achievement than running a marathon. So I also really encourage the government to take up that initiative.

I welcome the focus on Indigenous culture and art. We have the oldest living culture in the world, and the more we can do to really showcase the incredible depth of that work the better.

I also want to turn to some of the really practical things, like additional funding to digitise and preserve the National Archives. These are incredibly important things. It's important to preserve what we have. But we have a National Gallery where buckets have to go out to catch the drips from the ceiling when it rains, because the roof has leaks. Now, our institutions deserve to be funded so that they don't have to rely on buckets to capture rainwater.

There's also a recommendation that we get our kids to read more Australian books—a minimum threshold of Australian books—as they go through school. What a great idea. When I was young, it wasn't always easy to find great Australian books; in the sixties, we relied on lots of overseas things. Fortunately, the work that was done through the sixties and seventies and into the eighties, and then with Paul Keating's real revolution in how we do the arts, means now our kids have access to so many more Australian-born-and-bred novels.

There's a couple of other issues I really would like to touch on, and one of those is to do with streaming. There's been a real boom for one sector of the arts, and that's the streaming giants, during COVID. While everybody else has suffered unknown and uncountable deprivation in their sector, the streamers have done well. It is quoted in this report that subscription rates are up by more than 45 per cent. Now, I think it's very reasonable that those streamers be asked to contribute a certain percentage of Australian content. This was also recommended in the previous report by this committee, where 10 per cent was recommended. I note this report backs 20 per cent. I think it is well overdue for the government to bite the bullet and make a serious assessment of this, in terms of the impact that it will have on our Australian sector.

The other very important gaps that I can see in this report, though, are around things to help this sector get back on its feet after COVID. The committee heard evidence that the overall arts labour-market impact was enormous, just last year, with employment falling by 872,000—and that's not accounting for what happened this year. What they don't yet have is an insurance scheme that would allow people who are putting on performances to have a back-up should something happen. We hope we're through the worst, but there is no accounting for what can come, going forward. A sensible insurance scheme that would mean directors and producers can go with confidence, can employ the people they need, can make the commitments they need and can book the space they need and, if something goes wrong, there's an insurance scheme that can help cover those costs. This government's done it for the film sector. I just don't see why it won't do it for the broader performing arts sector.

Of course no discussion about the arts is complete without a reminder that we need to see proper funding for the ABC, which is one of the core Australian institutions that really helps Australian culture flourish—things that start there that go global; I'm thinking of Bluey. There is not a program on the ABC that doesn't have some value to Australian culture, and that's what we should be continuing to allow them to do. I extend that to SBS as well.

The final thing I'd like to say is that the gaming sector needs to be given much more credence by this government than it has been. We have had nearly nine years of wasted time in supporting a gaming sector. We are beaten by Finland and a whole lot of other countries, such as Canada, who have grasped this. It's a key part of the film and television ecosystem to be supporting gaming, and I'd really urge the government to stop sitting on its laurels, to stop thinking, 'She'll be right,' because it'll only be right if you act or if Labor gets into government.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts, titled Sculpting a national cultural plan: igniting a post-COVID economy for the arts. The arts explain who we were, who we are and who we want to be. They facilitate the exploration of human imagination, emotion and creativity. They give our life meaning. It's important to understand what the arts are. They are a very wide range of human practices, of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass diverse and plural modes of thinking across extremely broad ranges of media, from painting to sculpture to music to literature to theatre—so many. The arts can refer to a common, popular or everyday practice, as well as sophisticated and systematic ones.

Most people just don't realise that the arts are part of their day-to-day life in so many ways, from their kids' music lessons to the music they listen to, to the TV they watch, to the books they read. The arts are, let's be frank, what got us through lockdown. More directly, as this report notes, the arts give a benefit to our mental and our physical health. They are our social cohesion, our community-building, creative thinking and problem solving. Our society is richer and deeper because of the arts.

The arts community in Warringah is strong and vibrant, but they have been devastated by COVID-19. Before COVID-19, the arts contributed nearly $112 billion to our economy. That is 6.4 per cent of GDP. More than 193,600 Australians were employed in this sector. It's disappointing that we don't always hear members of the coalition rail and fight for those jobs the way they do for the jobs in the industries they like. To put it in perspective, employment in the arts is more than in the finance industry, more than in construction and four times as many as in the coalmining sector. But we don't hear about specific packages for these jobs or about stopping our economy or our progress. For every million dollars in turnover, the arts sector produces nine jobs. This is a job-rich sector.

The impact of the pandemic on this sector has been arguably harder than on any other. The arts were the first to shut down and the last out of restrictions. In Warringah, 6,400 people were employed in the arts sector at the height of its employment. In January of this year, that was down to 4,800 people. That's a 23.6 per cent drop in Warringah alone. In April last year only 47 to 65 per cent of businesses were operating. That's a huge drop. They've adapted, they've pivoted, they've embraced online platforms, they've discovered and embraced novel delivery mechanisms—and the report points to all of this—but the truth is that the sector and the people who work in it have been profoundly impacted by the pandemic, the lockdown restrictions and, I would say, the lack of love from the current government.

This report sets out how Australia can have a healthy, sustainable industry that will allow Australia's industries and institutions to emerge from COVID-19 better than ever and to soar to new heights. There are a number of recommendations in the report, and there won't be time to go through all of them. I encourage everyone to go through the list, to actually look at these recommendations. Recommendation 8 is a standout. I've often spoken in this place of the need to support our screen production sector, particularly children's TV production. I'm fortunate that in the Warringah electorate we have several producers: Cheeky Little, Kapow Pictures and Stick Pictures. They're putting out award-winning content like Bluey and Kangaroo Beach. But these producers are under threat from regulatory change in response to structural changes in the industry caused by streaming and digitisation. The government, unfortunately, is cutting quotas and other support, and what that means is that there's no backstop. These changes will lead to major employment losses in this industry and could jeopardise some of the iconic content that we and other nations have enjoyed, some of the stories our children have grown up with.

The report recommends that the government introduce legislation to require streaming and video-on-demand services to allocate 20 per cent of their local revenue to Australian content. I strongly support that recommendation, as it will allow our producers to continue to produce high-quality content.

Recommendation 10 is that the National Film and Sound Archive be funded to deal with their issues. They protect our memories; they inform who we are today. With the advent of digitisation, there is much work that needs to be done, and they really need more assistance.

We also need more opportunity. In Warringah we've suffered from a lack of creative arts during the pandemic. Pubs have been empty, theatres have been empty—everything has shut down—so we need programs to reinvigorate the sector. So I strongly support recommendation 20, which is for the elevation and celebration of the arts through a new 'local artistic champions program, akin to the existing Local Sporting Champions Program'. I think this would be very good.

In Warringah we have some fantastic projects developing. We've got the Brookvale Arts District. It has been delayed several times due to COVID, but I'm excited about the transformation that is planned for this industrial area of Brookvale in Warringah. What they have planned is really exciting. It will bring so many opportunities for our local artistic community.

We also have the proposal to convert the Manly council chambers to a music hall. Following the amalgamations that led to Northern Beaches Council, the historic Manly council chambers are underutilised and surplus to requirements. A proposal has been put forward for a project to convert this beautiful building, which is in an ideal location, into a live music venue. I strongly support the idea. It is in a central location, it is adaptable in size—it is an ideal venue and something we are really lacking in Manly. It will expand possibilities for local artists and existing festivals, such as the Manly jazz festival, which, sadly, in the last two years was cancelled due to lockdown measures.

The report is important. It outlines the extent to which the arts were devastated by COVID-19; importantly, it also outlines how the sector responded and pivoted and was kept on life support with online platforms and delivery method; and it also contains these 22 very important recommendations for bringing the sector back to life and ensuring it really does reach the heights it should. These recommendations—in particular, recommendations 8, 10, and 22—are so important. They strongly support the arts; in particular, for Warringah and some of the industries we already have established. The two new concepts for the electorate show great promise and they have my support. We have to recognise that the arts are the lifeblood of community and culture, and we would do well to remember that and provide our support in this place.

Finally, we do need to talk about making sure we have a strong national broadcaster. I do strongly support that there needs to be a recognition of the role that the ABC and SBS play in making sure that there is a platform where our stories are told, that we are not Americanised and that our content is not just from overseas. We need to make sure we tell the Australian stories. We hear a lot about our history curriculum from the government and that we should be celebrating Australian history, yet the government fails to implement policies that will ensure our artistic industries actually can create the content and can tell the stories that celebrate Australian history and culture. So I think there is a hypocritical double standard—as there is on a number of topics—that is advocated by the coalition. So I urge the government to implement the recommendations of this report and to fund the ABC and SBS to ensure we have a strong national broadcaster so that we can tell Australian stories.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This report outlines a vision for Australia's arts sector. It was prepared in partnership with the artists of Australia. More than 300 artists and arts organisations contributed to this report. I want to thank the arts leaders and artists who spoke to us during a pandemic that had put their sector on pause. Many of them were speaking to us when they themselves had lost their jobs or had lost the ability to do what they loved, and they took the time to share with us those experiences, so that we never again leave artists on the scrapheap when we have global economic shocks.

I want to see an arts sector that is properly valued by the government during crises, during the good and during the bad, and where we don't treat arts workers as some lesser kind of worker. We can't let artists think that somehow their contribution to our economy is any less than the contribution of any other worker. What we heard from artists—as we went, virtually, around the country listening to the stories of artists—was people telling us just how tough it had been. One artist told us, 'Almost everyone I know who works in the arts has lost part or all of their work.' Another told us that 'the government did not see fit to recognise my freelance status as worthy of JobKeeper'. Something we knew from the thousands of survey responses we received throughout this inquiry is that a real concern for artists is that the government deliberately structured a wage subsidy scheme to prevent people who worked in the creative and arts sector—where people are often on short-term contracts—being able to access that scheme.

The theme of this report is pulling together the many threads to have a new national cultural plan—something to grow our nation's soul post COVID. Everywhere you look throughout this report, it's clear that there is not enough coordination, when it comes to the arts organisations and the way they interact with government and interact with venues, to truly support our arts sector or to get the most out of the very creative people we have here in Australia. What we also saw and what you see stated very clearly in this report is that there is a strong link between the arts and our economic outcomes as a country. We recognised in the report that 'cultural and creative activity is increasingly recognised as an important component to economic growth'. That was not lost on any member of the committee in putting together this report—recognising that having a strong arts sector also gives people the urge to go out and work harder so they can get to those shows, so they can experience that art and so they can support other artists.

The other piece that is seen throughout this entire report is a recognition that COVID has done long-term damage to the arts sector. It's not something we're going to snap back from. We will not bounce back and it will all be better next year. It did smash screen production. It smashed live music. COVID destroyed live performance across this country. We still don't have the ability for people to put together those world-class shows and put them on the road around this country. We know that even writers have found COVID a particularly difficult time. We know that most writers in Australia—and we have brilliant writers—support their work as writers and as artists by doing other paid work. We heard a lot about that as well: the amount that people give out of their own pocket and of their own time so they can continue to create the art and stories that we love so much. So my one request of the government with respect to this report is to take it seriously. I do feel the government did not take the arts sector seriously in 2020, and I haven't seen much evidence of improvement in 2021. But there is a strong road map in this report of how to get the arts sector back on its feet and make it a big, strong driving piece of our economy into the future.

The report recommends a national cultural plan to make sure that we integrate across local, state and federal governments, and across federal government agencies, to ensure that there is a clear series of supports for arts organisations, big and small. It recommends the investigation of the establishment of a national centre of Indigenous culture and arts. This is an idea that has been bubbling for a long time, recognising that we do not have enough institutions that tell parts of a story that is some 60,000 years and ongoing—not just the culture of the past, but also the culture of the present, the very rich Indigenous culture and arts that we see to this very day.

There is a recommendation about making sure that big international streaming companies actually make Australian content. It's not good enough for them to just take Australians' money. They need to put something back. In this report we recommend that legislation be brought forward by the government to require Netflix, Disney+, Amazon and all the rest to allocate at least 20 per cent of their local revenue on a new Australian content, telling more Australian stories—Australian drama, documentaries and children's content—and co-productions or acquisitions of Australian content. This will build the Australian screen industry, and it will mean that we capture more of our rich Australian culture on screen. I have no problem making these international streaming companies, who are incredibly profitable, fund the next Bluey, the next Neighbours, the next Homeand Away or indeed the next Wonder Gang, which is a great Western Australian production.

The report also recommends placing arts at the heart of education by adding a fourth cross-curriculum priority of 'the Arts'. It recommends that there be a minimum threshold of Australian-authored literary texts in the Australian curriculum, making sure that we have Australian texts throughout schooling, from the early years to years 11 and 12. We recommend making sure we have a proper compensation system for Australian writers. The report recommends the review of programs 'to ensure that authors are being appropriately compensated for income lost through free multiple use of their books in public and educational lending libraries.' That's about making sure that, when those books are popular in libraries, the artists and writers are paid for that popularity. We want to connect international visitors with our local arts through a tourism resource for artistic events across Australia. Another recommendation that won't cost the government a cent—it might cost a little bit of their pride—is to simply put 'Arts' back into the title of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications, recognising that the arts is an essential part of that department's work.

We've spoken a lot this week about the Productivity Commission and what the Deputy Prime Minister does with the Productivity Commission's reports. Nonetheless, we have recommended that the Commonwealth government direct the Productivity Commission to inquire into the legislative arrangements which govern the funding of artistic programs and activities. The other recommendation that I think is worth noting in this place is making sure that music is affordable for all Australian students—that the Office of the Arts establish a music access assistance program to make it easier for students from low-income backgrounds and regional backgrounds to pursue their musical talents.

In the minutes left to me I'll just say that Opposition members did note that we need to consult with the arts sector as part of any future wage subsidy design. We said that there needs to be an insurance scheme for the events sector. We noted that we need to properly and fully fund the ABC. We need to remove the efficiency dividend from the national collecting institutions, properly fund the Australia Council and support and help grow Australia's gaming sector.

I want to thank my fellow members of the committee, including the chairs, the member for Lyne and the member for Mallee; the deputy chairs, the member for Chifley and the member for Dobell; and my colleague the member for Macnamara, who is a strong supporter of the arts industry. I want to thank all of the arts organisations that gave evidence. We received 352 submissions. I particularly thank those who submitted from Western Australia: the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Cultural Centre, the Perth Festival, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, the City of Perth, Audio Technik, Barking Gecko Theatre, the Western Australian Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, the Chamber of Arts and Culture Western Australia, and Writing WA. With that, I commend the report to the House.

Debate adjourned.