Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today on behalf of the Australian Greens to support Tax Laws Amendment (2011 Measures No. 2) Bill 2011. I want to make some comments in particular in relation to schedule 2, which allows regulations to be made setting the rules for self-managed super funds investing in personal assets and collectibles, including art. The Australian Greens believe that artworks and other collectibles must continue to be legitimate investments for self-managed superannuation funds.

We were particularly distressed when the Cooper review into the superannuation system made a recommendation that self-managed superannuation funds no longer be allowed to invest in personal assets and collectibles, including art. The art industry in Australia was rightly concerned that such a blanket ban would adversely affect the art market in Australia. The Cooper review's recommendations would have had a considerable negative impact on the art market and would have been particularly detrimental for Indigenous artists. Super­annuation investments are worth almost $100 million per year to the art industry according to the Save Super Art campaign, and the recommendation by the Cooper review to dispose of currently owned art and the cessation of future investments means that the art industry would potentially face considerable instability and the income opportunities for artists would have been put at risk. The Indigenous art market, as I indicated, would have been greatly impacted by the Cooper review recommendations because, as we are all aware, there is a significant global market for Indigenous art, making it attractive to self-managed super­annuation funds and therefore creating an incentive for buyers with around 60 per cent of Indigenous art being bought through the self-managed superannuation funds.

This is a really critical issue. It is well-known in Australia that we value the arts, but we fail to support them. We support them in fairly small ways, with government grants, but being an artist in Australia is not a lucrative profession for most. We are all aware of how artists are supported in other countries. While I was in Copenhagen for the climate talks, I went to an artist village in the city. It had been built after the Second World War. Basically they built an area for artists to live where they were provided with low-rent accommodation providing they were engaged full-time in creating art. There was recognition that the Danish people value the contribution to the community and to the culture by the artists involved. Now it is quite a fantastic little area of the city because artists, over time, have contributed to it by creating sculptures and by painting various murals around. It really is a beautiful part of the city. I thought what a great contribution, what foresight the government had to build this village to support artists in this way because we know so many artists struggle to make a living from their art.

The same thing goes in this country. Most of us would agree that the capacity that Indigenous communities now have to make money from their artwork has been one very significant step forward for Indigenous people to be able to get income into communities where that previously had not occurred. The Greens in particular are cognisant of how important the art community is in Australia in reflecting to ourselves who we really are as a nation. We get told all the time how important the economy is, but it is the health of the society which we as a community ought to be concerned about and it is artists who pose the hard questions. You only have to go down and have a look at the new Indigenous art galleries at the National Gallery—they are quite fantastic; for those of you who have not been, I thoroughly recommend going—to see there are a number of confronting pieces in that exhibition which really challenge all of us to think about the way we have engaged with Indigenous communities and which challenge us to think about how serious we are about reconciliation and so on. It is incredibly important when thinking about something like changing the regulations for these self-managed superannuation funds that, in a desire to enforce the absolute test that the purpose of the investment is for superannuation income, we do not under­mine the income of the arts community around the country. There is a very strong recognition that the ban on investing in art will ultimately have resulted in harm to artists around the country because it would have eliminated the incentive to buy artworks and therefore decrease the market and therefore the returns to our visual artists in particular.

During the election campaign the Australian Greens joined with the Save Super Art campaign, calling on the government to reject the recommendation of the Cooper review and allow superannuation funds to continue to invest in art. The Save Super Art campaign was supported by numerous organisations, including the Australian Artists Association, the National Association for the Visual Arts and numerous art galleries. To the government's credit, it listened to the concerns of the campaign, it listened to the concerns of artists around the country. You can imagine what would have happened if the Cooper review recommendation had been taken up that the current owners had to dispose of their art straight away and cease any future investment. There would have been a complete collapse in the value of a lot of the works that would have been forced onto the market all in one burst. I am glad the government listened to those concerns and announced, again during the election campaign, that the government would not implement a ban on investing in art and other collectables but would move to clarify the rules surrounding such investments. The Greens do appreciate the need for investments by superannuation funds to comply with the sole purpose test under­pinning the superannuation investment regime. We do understand that the govern­ment is currently consulting on the draft regulations that will be made under the changes that will occur when this bill passes the parliament.

We do not want to presume the outcome of those consultations going on in the community at the moment, but we do know that there remain concerns about the restrictions that are being imposed on collecting art and other personal assets. One of the concerns raised by the Australian Artists Association includes the additional costs associated with storing art off the premises of parties related to the super fund, and the restrictions on leasing art, even when that art is leased at commercial rates to related parties. Again the issue here is to make sure it is a genuine superannuation investment. If you have made that investment and then you cannot have the enjoyment of that for yourself because it is regulated that you need to have it off premises or whatever, or if you lease it to a related party at a commercial rate, I understand that is still going to be a matter of grave concern to people in the arts community. I think that that might well constitute a disincentive on the part of self-managed superannuation funds to invest in art. I think artwork is different from other personal assets. We continue to talk these issues through with the government to make sure that the integrity of the superannuation system is maintained but also to ensure that art can continue to be a practical investment for superannuation funds and that such investments can continue to support our art industry. I want it very clearly on the record that that is the perspective of the Greens.

We must do everything we can to support artists out there now—artists who are relying on the fact that self-managed superannuation funds can collect art—to maintain the art market and provide an income. As I indicated before, Indigenous communities in particular are reliant on this. We have worked hard on the resale royalty scheme to start generating income for communities. In that context, we have argued strongly that there needs to be government funding to assist community art centres—and Indigen­ous community art centres in par­ticular—to be able to build capacity to handle all of the administrative work that is going to have to be undertaken in terms of the resale royalty regime and so on.

We do not have a history or a culture of philanthropy in Australia when it comes to the arts. Unlike other countries, where you have wealthy benefactors who put huge amounts of money into the arts in all sorts of ways, we find symphony orchestras and leading artists struggling. We do not have the culture, which does exist in other places, that takes on, if you like, patronage to emerging artists, supports them and creates opportunities for them. In other countries too, governments take a much more prominent role in supporting the arts than we have in Australia.

Some people argue that perhaps the community sees this as elitist, but I would question that. When I go around Australia I see the numbers of people who go to local exhibitions and local theatre. When an orchestra or the Australian ballet, for example, come to regional communities, they are patronised with great enthusiasm. An example I would put on the record here is the Burnie Gallery, on the north-west coast of Tasmania. They are a fantastic regional gallery. They have a large number of events and exhibitions, which are widely patronised and highly valued in that part of Tasmania. We have a thriving arts community in the state of Tasmania. But we do not have a community that is particularly wealthy, so we do not want to put disincentives in the way of people who want to support local artists through self-managed superannuation funds. We do not want to put a disincentive in the way of Indigenous communities to have ongoing benefit from the artwork which has been a significant contributor to improved income in remote and regional communities throughout Australia.

With those remarks, I support the bill. I look forward to engaging with the govern­ment further as the regulations are developed in relation to covering personal assets and collectables under self-managed super­annuation funds.