Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was exciting to join Minister for the Arts Tony Burke in Hobart, recently, for the first of a series of meetings across Australia to consult on a national cultural policy. The hundred or so people in the room were also excited, and not just for the opportunity to contribute to the policy. As I went around the room there was a strong voice that the arts sector now has a minister and a government that really understands their issues, a government that understands there is far more value in the arts than just its economic contribution. Arts also contributes to our social wellbeing, our cultural identity and how Australian stories are told to Australians.

The sector is breathing a collective sigh of relief because of the contrast of this government's attitude to the policy vacuum of the coalition. Over almost a decade, the little policy the previous government delivered was either focused purely on the financial returns from arts projects or on prosecuting cultural wars. I could hardly forget participating in hearings across Australia on a Senate inquiry into the government's, since abandoned, Catalyst slush fund. Hundreds of artists lined up to criticise the slush fund, which had been funded by massive cuts to the independent Australia Council.

This misguided policy spoke volumes about the attitude of those opposite to the arts. This was the same government that, when it came to office, tore up Labor's Creative Australia policy and replaced it with—nothing! They didn't replace it with anything. Australia's artists, arts organisations and national cultural institutions deserve much better than the cuts and chaos of the past decade. They deserve a government that values the arts not just for what it contributes to the nation's economy but also for what it contributes to the nation's soul, and that's what they will get under an Albanese Labor government.