Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I wanted to re-emphasise the significance of this report, Indigenous art—securing the future. It is predominantly a unanimous report of the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee, of which I am deputy chair. As I often do with Senate committee reports, I urge the relevant government minister to respond to it promptly. It is a continuing problem that Senate committees do a lot of work based on a lot of work by other people out in the wider community, pulling together substantial, very important and valuable reports with significant recommendations, and then we hear nothing from the government by way of formal response, sometimes for years. That is not good enough. It is not only insulting to the Senate and the committee; it is even more insulting to the many people in the wider community who put in the effort to make submissions or give evidence at public hearings. So I take the opportunity to urge the relevant minister, who in this case I think is Senator Brandis, to respond to this promptly. The report was only tabled in June, so he is not in trouble yet for being too slow to respond, but it is an area that does need action.

I will reflect on a few of the key recommendations, including that the Commonwealth establish a new infrastructure fund to assist Indigenous visual arts and craft, to complement existing national arts and crafts industry support funding, of around $25 million over a period of five years. It is not a significant amount of money in the scheme of things, but it would be very valuable. The committee also recommended expanding funding under the existing NACIS scheme and revising guidelines to confine its use to non-infrastructure projects. Some of the other key recommendations include ensuring that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission can increase its scrutiny of the Indigenous art industry, including conducting educational campaigns for consumers as well as information activities with the goal of increasing successful prosecutions of illegal practices in the industry.

There is a lot of debate at the moment, of course, about situations in Indigenous communities, and part of any solution has to include viable economic opportunities for people living in those regions. One of the real values of Indigenous art, of course, is that it combines economic opportunities with strengthening, celebrating and respecting Indigenous cultures. It provides a clear pathway and one of those bridges which are so difficult to find in many cases for many Indigenous people who seek to maintain connection with and strength and continuing development of their cultures with wider mainstream Australia. So this is important in a wider sense and, in my view, important for the wider future of Australia beyond the immediacy of the opportunities it presents to Indigenous artists.

There are a range of other recommendations contained within the report—29 in total. Another key recommendation is that, as a matter of priority, the government introduce revised legislation of Indigenous communal moral rights. This is a longstanding government pledge and one that the Democrats strongly support. Indeed, a former Democrat senator, Aden Ridgeway, was one who pushed this area quite significantly. It is not acceptable that there still has not been progress in this area. Certainly it is one area where the Democrats strongly believe—and its recommendations suggest that the committee as a whole also strongly believes—that this is something that should be acted on by government quite early.

There are other recommendations. In the interests of time and allowing some space for others to speak on other documents, I will not go into them here, but I urge people who are interested in this area of Indigenous art to consider this report because it is quite detailed and valuable. I would note the very valuable contributions of a number of the people who gave evidence both in person and through written submissions to this inquiry, because they did significantly inform the committee—and I should emphasise that many other senators had far greater involvement in this inquiry than I did. Due to time constraints I was not able to be as fully involved as I would have liked, but I certainly endorse the report and the importance of the area.

We should take the opportunity during this increased focus on Indigenous issues at the moment—I certainly welcome it, even if I do not welcome some of the government measures that are accompanying that increased focus—to look at some other areas where we need to do more, and this is certainly one of them. As any of us who have been to some of the many Indigenous communities as well as the many other centres around the country would know, there is some extraordinary and amazing art out there and many communities are now starting to tap into the potential through the internet for sales via that means.

It really does provide lots of positive opportunities for Indigenous people. But I do not think we should underestimate the benefits—and not just the economic benefits—to Australia as a whole. There is a lot of talk in other contexts about Australian values, Australian history and Australian culture. We as a nation have done very poorly at celebrating and recognising Indigenous cultures and really taking that onboard as part of what being Australian is all about. The more we can have a vibrant, effective and non-exploitative visual arts and crafts sector for Indigenous Australians, the greater the benefit would be, in my view, to how Australians perceive themselves, to Australia and to how we are perceived around the world as a whole. It is important beyond just the immediate confines of what opportunities it provides to Indigenous people. As I said, it is predominantly a unanimous report with a few minor variances in a couple of areas—important though they may be—one of which is the permit system in the Northern Territory, which we can talk about next week. It is predominantly unanimous, and that is all the more reason why it should be promptly and comprehensively adopted by the government.