Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee, Indigenous Art: securing the future. Australia’s Indigenous visual arts and craft sector, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the document be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to have my tabling statement incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

The indigenous arts industry has grown from very small beginnings to now involve some estimated 6000 artists producing work valued at more than $500 million per year, the uniqueness and quality of which is recognised around the world.

Even though about 70% of Australia's indigenous people live in the big cities and larger regional towns of Eastern Australia and in the southwest of WA most of the artists working in what is regarded as the indigenous arts sector live and work in the more remote parts of Australia in the Northern Territory, Queensland, the Kimberley and the Pilbara in Western Australia

As I said, indigenous art has now become renowned around the world as a very special and unique art form representing the life and stories of the indigenous people of the more remote parts of Australia.

Unfortunately while the industry has now become quite large there have been concerns expressed about exploitation of indigenous artists by unscrupulous people and of the need to provide improved resources and assistance to the indigenous communities from which the artists come to ensure that the artists are able to conduct their work more effectively. Also there has been a growing view that there should be a system providing authentication of indigenous art so that purchasers can be confident that works of art they purchased are genuinely the work of the artists who it is claimed produced them.

In view of these concerns the previous Minister to the Arts, Senator the Hon Rod Kemp, in August 2006 had the Senate refer to this committee an inquiry into the indigenous visual arts and crafts sector with particular reference to:—

• the current size and scale of Australia's indigenous visual arts and crafts sector
• the economic social and cultural benefits of the sector
• the overall financial cultural and arts artistic sustainability of the sector
• the current and likely future priority infrastructure needs of the sector
• opportunities to strategies and mechanisms that the sector could adopt to improve its practices capacity and sustainability including to deal with unscrupulous or unethical conduct
• opportunities for existing government support programs to indigenous visual arts and crafts to be in to be more effectively targeted to improve the sector's capacity and future sustainability and
• future opportunities for further growth of Australia's indigenous visual arts and crafts sector including through development of international markets

Over the 10 months since then the committee has visited art centres in the Kimberley, Darwin, Alice Springs and in Sydney, held seven hearings in Canberra, Kununurra, Darwin, Alice Springs and Sydney and received submissions from 89 different individuals and organisations.

As it is said in the introduction to the report the committee is extremely grateful to the many artists and workers in the sector who took the time to show the committee the industry and to talk about it and about the issues confronting the industry.

The committee was honoured by the opportunity to meet with and in some cases hear from artists in their communities and to receive evidence from a wide variety of people whose commitment to the cause of indigenous art was plain for all to see and very impressive.

The committee made 29 recommendations the most important of which in my view at the least were:

Firstly, that $25 million be provided by the Commonwealth to establish an infrastructure fund to assist indigenous visual arts and craft. The $25 million was to be made available over a period of five years and the fund should be administered by the Department of Communications Information Technology and the Arts.

Secondly, the committee recommended that as a matter of priority the ACCC be funded to increase its scrutiny of the Indigenous art industry, including conducting educational programs for consumers as well as investigation activities, with a goal of increasing successful prosecutions of illegal practices in the industry.

Thirdly, the committee recommended that the Commonwealth introduce appropriate legislation to provide for the protection of indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights.

Fourthly, the committee recommends that, once the Indigenous Art Commercial Code of Conduct has been developed, the Commonwealth undertake a project examining and making recommendations regarding further initiatives to enhance the integrity of the Indigenous art market. This work could include, but need not be confined to considering:

• what role governments might play in giving effect to an industry code of conduct; and
• whether further steps should be taken toward a system of dealer accreditation.

The committee recommended that further consideration be given to whether a label or trademark for indigenous art and craft should be introduced, drawing on lessons learned within the industry and from the schemes in Canada and New Zealand.

It drew attention to the role of art collections in providing leadership in the indigenous art market through acquisition and display policies.

The committee also made recommendations concerning improving the running of Art Centres which were seen as playing a crucial role in fostering indigenous art especially in remote locations and in addition expressed the view that the needs of urban based indigenous artists should not be overlooked nor be excluded from eligibility to access funding programs.

This enquiry has been very interesting and satisfying to have been involved in and the committee hopes that it will as the title suggests help secure the future for indigenous visual art and craft in Australia.

I would like to thank the members of the committee for their assistance in this inquiry.

I like to thank all the witnesses and submitters who contributed to the inquiry and most importantly I would like to thank the Secretariat in particular the Secretary to the committee, Dr Ian Holland, for the enormous amount of work they together put in to this inquiry and in assisting in the writing of this report.