David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that, the:

(a) Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) fund was an effective and targeted arts funding initiative supporting 541 projects in over 4,000 locations, creating over 195,000 job opportunities and experiences reaching more than 55 million Australians;

(b) Arts Sustainability Fund was key to supporting systemically significant arts companies to survive through the COVID-19 pandemic with recipients including, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Theatre Company, Brandenburg Ensemble, Queensland Ballet, Opera Australia, Design Tasmania, the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Melbourne Theatre Company, The Australian Ballet, Belvoir Theatre, Circa Contemporary Circus Limited, and Malthouse Theatre; and

(c) highest level of Commonwealth arts funding ever achieved was under the previous Government in 2021-2022 when the funding exceeded $1 billion; and

(2) expresses its regret at the adverse effect on the arts sector of politically motivated arts policy decisions since May 2022 including, the:

(a) grave mishandling of the additional $20 million of funding for RISE which was provided in the March 2022 budget, with the Government delaying action for many months before cancelling this funding in October;

(b) announcement in September that the Government would establish a Live Performance Support Fund with no guidelines, eligibility conditions or other details provided at that time and still not provided two months later; and

(c) abrupt and discourteous disbanding of the Creative Economy Taskforce which comprised a distinguished group of arts leaders doing outstanding work in advising on the Government arts policy.

This is an important motion, because it appears that the current government has forgotten the amazing support that the coalition delivered when we were last in government to support the creative economy during the COVID pandemic. As you know, the creative economy needs venues, needs people and needs crowds, and it was not forgotten during the COVID lockdown period.

The Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand, RISE, fund was a considerable fund—$200 million in total. There were seven rounds of funding to a wide variety of creative projects across the country. Some examples that I've looked up include the Sound Station Music & Arts Festival in Newcastle; the development and tour of a new physical theatre production, Air Time; and various tours, like the Empire Touring theatre series, the Hidethe Dog tour, and the production, regional tour and mentorship program done by Riverside's National Theatre of Parramatta. Across the country, these are some of the things that we funded to keep people enjoying the arts and to make all these creative industries, which employ hundreds of thousands of people, viable during the COVID lockdowns and periods when crowds were not possible.

We also announced the Arts Sustainability Fund, which systemically supported many large arts companies to survive, because, while they do get government funding, they rely on income from exhibitions and from visitors to their performances. Some of these peak entities were nationally renowned and internationally known. We were faced with the prospect that all the skills that had been collected would have fizzled away and vanished. That's people like the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Theatre Company, the Brandenburg ensemble, the Queensland Ballet, Opera Australia, Design Tasmania and the National Institute of Dramatic Art, NIDA, where my brother spent time as a young teenager—it's internationally renowned; all the Australian actors and actresses who have reached international heights seem to have gone through NIDA or similar dramatic arts institutes. It's people like the Melbourne Theatre Company, the internationally renowned Australian Ballet—imagine if that had folded because they couldn't perform and earn income and keep the troupes together—Circa Contemporary Circus Ltd and the Malthouse Theatre. In total, all the other things amounted to $1 billion, which is an amazing portfolio assembled for the Commonwealth government to support the creative arts and art funding.

In the budget in March 2022, an extra $20 million was allocated to the RISE Fund. It was deployed in the March 2022 budget, but it appears to have gone missing in action. There was a faux reannouncement as though it was new money. The same $20 million appeared in an announcement by the current government for a Live Performance Support Fund, but nothing has ever come out of it. Talk about moving the chestnuts around the table and trying to confuse people!

The motion refers to the 'abrupt and discourteous disbanding of the Creative Economy Taskforce which comprised a distinguished group' of eminent arts leaders who'd been doing outstanding work. To summarily disband it is counterproductive. I know every government wants to make its mark, but, when there are good things that have been established and are delivering long-term benefit, a wise government looks at what's there and makes a dispassionate decision. I can't imagine they would assemble a better group of people. The RISE Fund was critical. As the motion says, it was 'supporting 541 projects in over 4,000 locations, creating over 195,000 job opportunities and experiences reaching more than 55 million Australians'. That's an amazing achievement in the space of three years.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for creating this opportunity to talk about the arts, as I am always really proud to talk in this place about the arts and particularly the vibrant and active arts community in the ACT, who I've been proud to advocate for throughout the pandemic. The arts were so critical. The arts are so central to all aspects of Australian life. They tell our stories. They inspire us, and the pandemic really brought this to the fore, as it was to the arts that we looked for comfort and entertainment. But it was also the arts that suffered the most, as people were unable to gather together at live performances or in galleries, and the jobs in those sectors were obviously some of the first to be hit and were the worst hit by the economic impacts of the pandemic.

So, throughout that time, I and others in the then opposition were very proud to stand up and fight for the arts in this place, as they were neglected by the previous government throughout that. For the first hundred days of the pandemic, nothing was said by the previous coalition government about the arts. Arts workers were largely left out of the JobKeeper scheme due to the nature of their employment, and there was no specific support for them for a very long time. It was as if people in the arts were not seen as real workers—as if the jobs of creatives and people in creative industries were not equal to other jobs. We also saw that in the university sector and with casuals, and I could go on. But I will focus today on the arts sector. The then Liberal-National government really were dragged kicking and screaming to support the arts sector during the pandemic at all, while artists desperately needed our help.

I also want to note that it's the arts community who are often the first to step up and support the broader community when disaster hits. The bushfires were a perfect example of that. The arts community made donations and ran performances to raise money for affected communities. But, when they were hit, their government was missing in action.

The then minister Paul Fletcher misled people about how much support was going to the arts sector during the COVID pandemic. He claimed that up to $10 billion in support was going to arts sector workers through the JobKeeper scheme, but included in that were workers in non-arts sectors like clothing and footwear wholesaling and retailing, clothing manufacturing, jewellery wholesaling and retailing sectors—so not really arts at all.

The belated response, establishing the RISE Fund, had no vision and no strategy. The Liberals and Nationals came under fire, as we know, for granting $1.35 million to a Guns N' Roses tour while our Australian performers and artists were really struggling and the neediest parts of the sector were left with nothing. This was heavily criticised by Australian artists and by Labor.

Australia has had two landmark cultural policies and those were both delivered by Labor: Creative Nation, under Paul Keating, and Creative Australia, under Simon Crean. We will honour that legacy by delivering a national cultural policy. The Liberals, in fact, scrapped the last national cultural policy in 2013 and they replaced it with nothing. So we are very proud, now in government again, to have this well underway in our first six months. It will be announced by the end of the year. Minister Tony Burke has been travelling the country talking with artists, creatives and the sector around the development of that policy, and I was really pleased to attend his town hall in Canberra with our arts community—notably at the Gorman Arts Centre, to which federal Labor will contribute $5 million for its much-needed renovations. We are working hard on our commitment to launch the National Cultural Policy and change the trajectory of the sector after this decade of neglect. This will put arts back at the centre of all aspects of life and policy in Australia, where it belongs, and I am very proud to be part of a government that is going to stand up for our arts sector, the jobs involved and the intrinsic importance of arts to Australian life.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Reputations are often hard-won. But this newly minted government that has now spent six months in charge has earned a reputation for itself very quickly—the reputation that this is a government that says one thing before an election and one very different thing after the election. Picking up something the member for Canberra just said, it's a government that's pretty heavy on the yap—the talk. You would think that those opposite hadn't spent nine years in opposition preparing for their time in the sun, but they did. I don't know what they did while they were in opposition, but they certainly didn't develop a suite of policies in this space or in others.

Let's go back to the issue of saying one thing before an election and another thing after the election, because, as it relates to this bill, I sat in the House day after day after day in the middle of a pandemic, no less, when we were accused of doing nothing for the creative sector and when it was said that we had left artists, actors and musicians behind. Nothing could be further from the truth. We established emergency measures, including RISE, which supported 541 projects over 4,000 locations, with 195,000 direct jobs. You would think those that were so vociferous with their objection would have a plan ready to go on day one, but we just heard from the member for Canberra that they're actively engaging in consultation right now about what their policy should be. If you're an artist, just keep waiting, because what they've done is cancel the very successful RISE program, and in response they'd like you to turn up to a roundtable and tell them what they should be doing.

It sounds a lot like a commitment to a $275 reduction in your energy bill which, of course, was a commitment that was made time and time and time and time again before the election, but there was not a mention of it after. I think the 'Big Daddy' of all the examples of saying one thing before an election and doing something very different after the election was the commitment that the then opposition made via the now Treasurer to indicate that their platform would not involve pattern-bargaining of any shape or form going forward. And, of course, what do we have now? We have an industrial relations bill, a suite of measures, much of which is—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I'm speaking to the motion and to the tendency to say one thing before the election, for the member opposite, and one very different thing afterwards. I'm just speaking of the propensity, unlimited as it is, for those opposite to say one thing before the election and one very different thing after the election.

The single most important creative cultural event that takes place in my electorate is Generations in Jazz. This is an event that brings 6,000 school students to a tent in the middle of a paddock. You can appreciate that that wasn't a very COVID-safe environment and, as a result, over a number of years that event was cancelled. It was on its knees, and, at the very time that those opposite were accusing us of turning our backs on the creative industries and the creative sector, I secured a grant of $350,000 for that event. That allowed that event to put on a gala performance, with much of that funding going towards artists who were having a very difficult time during COVID. More importantly, it meant that that event survived. It meant that there was a chance of that event taking place in my community again—6,000 school students travelling to regional South Australia for the ultimate band camp. For those opposite, criticism is one thing, and throwing stones from opposition is very easy. I tell you what's hard: governing. The behaviour of those opposite on this is an indication that they're not up to government.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The modern Australian Labor Party is a proud supporter of the Australian arts industry. From Gough Whitlam to Paul Keating's Creative Nation or Julia Gillard's Creative Australia, Labor has a vision for the arts. You don't have to go back far to see what the Liberals and Nationals actually think of the arts portfolio. The Morrison government was so obsessed with culture wars it even removed the word 'arts' from the names of government departments. That was not an Orwellian metaphor; it was a blunt-trauma blow to a major sector of our economy. Under the coalition, the arts endured nearly a decade of cuts and, even worse, interference.

Don't be fooled. The Luddites opposite—with respect to those actually sitting opposite me, the coalition—would talk about the so-called record investment in 2021-22, but there are a few caveats that people should understand. Firstly, when the COVID pandemic first hit, the arts minister, Paul Fletcher, went missing for the first 100 days. As COVID was hitting the arts sector hardest, with mass cancellations of live performances and shows, their minister went into hiding. The Morrison government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to support the arts sector during the pandemic, right when artists desperately needed help.

Of course, when they did finally provide some support, they didn't tell the truth. Minister Fletcher claimed that the arts sector received up to $10 billion in support, which included JobKeeper. What he failed to say was that part of the record funding didn't just go to the arts sector. But, then again, if you don't see the arts as a priority, why would you know the difference? It also went to clothing and footwear wholesaling and retailing, clothing manufacturing, and the jewellery wholesaling and retailing sectors. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think someone working at the local sports store would be classed as an artist.

Those opposite crow about their RISE funding and how great it was for the arts. We heard the member for Barker say that. It was certainly good for William Rose—listeners might actually know him as Axl Rose—because Paul Fletcher provided $1.35 million across two grants for a Guns N' Roses tour. I'm more of a 'Spring Rain' rather than a 'November Rain' sort of guy. But, with Guns N' Roses' back catalogue, they surely didn't require the assistance of Australian taxpayers, especially when many local artists didn't have extensive and lucrative career earnings to fall back on while their local gigs were being cancelled and their incomes disappeared. It's that famous Leppington Triangle style of judgement on show yet again.

The coalition's funding program had no vision, no strategy and no long-term impacts for the arts industry. It's almost as if they're ashamed of Australian stories and Australian storytellers. That's the difference between Labor and the Liberals and Nationals. Compare the arts legacies of Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard to the forelock tuggers opposite—to their knights and dames and false nationalism and divisive culture wars. Because they don't know who they are or what they believe in, all they do is attack Labor's hopeful vision for this nation.

Labor, under Tony Burke, is passionate about the arts. Labor wants to assist the sector and leave a proud national legacy. Only last week, right in this building, the Minister for the Arts spoke of his support for our local TV and film industry. I also note that Thelma Plum, who went to Yeronga State High School in my electorate, wanted him to introduce her at every gig after his stellar effort when she was here to promote the ARIAs. What a difference that is to the apathetic approach the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments had to the arts. Labor is currently working on delivering the National Cultural Policy to change the trajectory of this sector after this decade of neglect.

The lack of cultural policy over the past 10 years has contributed to damage, neglect and policy drift in the sector, leaving it even more vulnerable to the cuts of the coalition. The National Cultural Policy will be a broad and comprehensive roadmap for Australia's arts and culture, touching on all areas of government from cultural diplomacy in foreign affairs through to health and education.

I know that Minister Burke and the Special Envoy for the Arts, Susan Templeman, attended town hall meetings and received more than 1,300 submissions as part of the consultation process. Some of Australia's finest artistic and creative minds have been a part of this process. They've helped guide the development of the Cultural Policy, and have identified key themes and issues raised in submissions. That is what good governments do: they talk to stakeholders; they listen to what people are saying and they work with people to deliver outcomes. Australia needs a coherent, industry-led and supported policy to guide and support the arts sector for today and into the future.

The previous government scrapped Creative Australia and replaced it with nothing, reduced funding of around $11 million to the Australia Council and created a task force to advise on an arts policy when they didn't even have an arts policy. Unlike the coalition, Labor support our arts sectors and I'm excited to see what comes from our National Cultural Policy when it is launched.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Arts, culture and entertainment tell our stories back to us. They share familiar and unique perspectives; they shape our dreams and imagination; and they affect our wellbeing, our social cohesion, our health, our sense of place, our sense of pride. On the eve of the launch of Australia's first National Cultural Policy in almost a decade, I rise today to share some small stories of the arts from my electorate—the celebrations, the struggles and the opportunities. And I would like to acknowledge in the chamber today the member for Macquarie, who travelled the country consulting on this very policy. This included the border region that I represent, and I thank her for that.

On a rainy Friday night a few weeks ago I attended the King Valley art show. It was a gala night in Whitfield. This was the triumphant return of a mainstay event of the local cultural scene that was so strong before COVID. I joined over 200 people on that opening night in a tin shed in Whitfield, and I was honoured to meet gala prize winner Jacqueline Macleish, whose painting of the iconic Northo Hotel in Wangaratta won the top gong. There were over 300 artworks displayed illustrating the depth of talent in our community.

In celebrating moments like this I will never forget how tough the last few years were for the arts, and I am sad to say the former government dithered in supporting artists when lockdowns first occurred. Many arts workers were excluded from JobKeeper. They've never forgotten it. By the time the former government finally acted, many arts, arts workers and artists had already given up. They left the sector altogether for their own survival and many, sadly, have not returned. So I must say I find it rather rich for a coalition MP to move this motion criticising the last six months after their shameful record of the last decade of arts sabotage, where funding has dwindled or stagnated at a huge cost to our cultural and economic fabric.

Arts and culture sectors don't exist in a vacuum. In regional Victoria they drive tourism, and it has flow-on benefits to our hospitality and accommodation sectors. In Indi, these sectors employ almost 1,000 people. These are the people who teach our kids to play the piano, who teach them to dance. They're the bands that perform in local pubs. They're the artists who perform at the wonderful HotHouse Theatre in Wodonga.

I was fortunate to meet with Regional Arts Victoria last week, the peak body for regional artists and arts organisations. It backs artists and communities across regional Victoria to make, participate in and experience creative work. It made a submission to the National Cultural Policy, which I hope the government has considered. One of the issues their member bodies are grappling with are workforce shortages. Even the smallest production requires a team of skilled professionals to pull it off. During COVID there was an exodus of arts workers to other sectors. There aren't enough theatre technicians, and there isn't a training pathway for this highly in demand skill set, particularly in regional areas. So I think we should be considering a skills package to grow our regional arts and culture workforce. There is scope for our TAFE sector to step in and fill this gap. This could explore apprenticeships or subsidised traineeships at local providers. And we need our schools, our careers counsellors and our community leaders to promote the idea locally of having a career in the arts.

Last month I secured an amendment to require the newly established Jobs and Skills Australia to provide advice to the minister in relation to skills and training and workforce needs in regional, rural and remote Australia. Our arts and culture workforce needs this focus, and I would urge Jobs and Skills Australia to start their work right there, in the arts.

We also need investment in our local arts infrastructure. The HotHouse Theatre redevelopment in Wodonga would give new life to one of the region's key cultural tourism assets. HotHouse has a rich and celebrated history of commissioning, producing, nurturing and presenting new contemporary Australian theatre right there in regional Australia, and they could do so much more with better facilities. Then there's the Benalla Art Gallery phase 2, the expansion of the gallery space to improve the interface and activities between the gallery, Lake Benalla, the CBD and the magnificent heritage botanical gardens. It's a jewel in our crown, but it's lost its sparkle and it needs investment. I thank directors Karla Conway, from HotHouse, and Eric Nash, from Benalla Art Gallery, for their dogged advocacy on behalf of their communities. These are the resources, these are the people, that will transform and safeguard our local arts and cultural centre to be sustainable and vibrant into the future and position rural and regional Australia as a shining light in arts and culture.

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

I want to thank the member for Indi, and the member for Moreton before her, for acknowledging my work as Special Envoy for the Arts in the consultation on our National Cultural Policy and, importantly, for their passionate endorsement of the arts sector, which we know is about much more than going and seeing a show; it's about who we are as Australians and the stories that we tell.

The Arts portfolio spans a very wide range of activities and programs that enrich and shape people's lives. I'm very much looking forward to the release of the National Cultural Policy, but I want to talk about the work of one lesser-known area of the Arts portfolio, and this is the area that carries out repatriations of ancestral remains from around the world. This falls under the Arts portfolio. I'm proud to be standing in this place wearing two special pins. One is the symbol of the Australian government's Indigenous repatriation program, and I wear it very proudly, having taken part in a repatriation this month in Leipzig, Germany, from where the ancestral remains of six Aboriginal men and women were returned to the safekeeping of community representatives. I accompanied the representatives of the Gadigal, Awabakal, Warrimay and Mutti Mutti people who had been given the responsibility by their communities to bring their old people home.

Australia cannot truly be at peace with itself as a nation while the journey of reconciliation is incomplete. As the delegation and I travelled to the other side of the world together, they shared with me their hope that we were taking a step closer to reconciliation. There are many injustices that have been perpetrated against Australia's First Nations people that we must acknowledge and strive to put right. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the remains of many First Nations Australians were separated from their country and traded, ultimately ending up in museums around the world. This caused profound and ongoing grief to First Nations people. It should never have happened. These ancestors should never have been taken away from their country. Several community representatives in the delegation told me that repatriation of ancestors is a crucial part of the process of healing, truth-telling and reconciliation. Because of this repatriation, these ancestors can return to country where they belong.

The government has supported the repatriation of ancestors from overseas for more than 30 years, and, yes, it happens through the department of the arts. Since 1990 more than 1,600 ancestors have been returned to Australia. I pay tribute to the state of Saxony, the State Ethnographic Collections of Saxony and the Grassi museum for this repatriation, particularly Leontine Meijer-van Mensch, director; Birgit Scheps-Bretschneider, curator of the Australian and South Pacific collections; and Juliane Heinze, all of whom made it possible for these ancestors to come home.

The German museums are doing nothing wrong right now. They are trying to right a wrong that occurred in the past. I thank them for the respect that they've shown to First Nations community representatives who are there to collect the remains that have ended up in their institutions. The repatriation sets an example that other institutions should look to. Many of the museums who've agreed to repatriations have found that the process has opened a new chapter in their histories. In many instances, it has led to constructive and positive relationships between the museums and Indigenous people in which knowledge can be shared and important new dialogues opened.

I want to acknowledge the representatives who travelled with me as part of the delegation: Rowena Welsh, Kaleana Reyland, David Feeney and Kumarah Kelly, who were joined by Nathan Moran, Jennah Dungay, Lindsay Munro and Jacqueline Gibbs, as well as Worimi man Jamie Tarrant. That brings me to the second special pin, which he asked me to wear in this place. It represents the Worimi Conservation Lands that he cares for around Nelson Bay, and I'm very proud to wear it. Thank you all for including me on your journey and letting me see your strength, your vulnerability, your generosity and your dignity.

I also want to acknowledge the staff of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts for their diligent work in negotiating the repatriation of these ancestors and for the sensitivity they've shown in doing so—director David Doble and assistant director Amanda Morley and the team. Without David's commitment and Amanda's determination we would not have had ancestral remains being returned. They have much work to do, and I look forward to our government supporting even more work in this area to bring people home.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.