BY DYLAN HENDERSON
On this week’s episode of Q&A, Tony Jones directed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to the crux of a question asked by Katie Noonan: “Would you consider shifting that funding [$73 million] back to where it was originally in the Australia Council?”.
Turnbull gave the following response:
Well, it is…Tony the issue hasn’t arisen…you’ve raised it here, I understand the Australia Council…ah…ah…wants…would prefer to have more discretionary spending in its own hands but I think the…look I’m not…I don’t have…it is something we inherited from my predecessor’s administration and Mitch inherited from George, but all I can tell you is that the money that has been spent through the Catalyst program has gone to regional arts companies.
The moment afforded the prime minister the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the kind of decisive leadership that has been lacking throughout his entire tenure.
He bungled it.
Seeking exoneration for the absence of an arts policy by deflecting blame, Turnbull effectively asked voters to believe that his government is incapable of abolishing the policies of his predecessors, and therefore could not be held responsible for the outcomes it now delivers. From a prime minister who promised to “respect the intelligence of the Australian people”, his purposely evasive response did the polar opposite. It was symptomatic of a government that, through amnesia or myopia, had almost consistently turned a blind eye to the overwhelming outcry from the arts sector since the announcement of the federal budget in May 2015, a date which marked the beginning of a period which can only be described as Australia’s cultural and artistic nadir.
As we inch inexorably closer toward the July 2 federal election, it is worth pausing to reflect on where this period of cultural evisceration began. Just over a year ago, then Arts Minister George Brandis siphoned $104.7 million from Australia’s peak arts body the Australia Council for the Arts into a new National Program for Excellence in the Arts (NPEA) – a fund the minister could directly control. The announcement blindsided the entire arts sector, including the Australia Council itself, as emails from top executives to Brandis’ office subsequently revealed. The new NPEA was unanimously deplored and described as a “ministerial slush fund”. Protests were staged across the country under the banner: ‘Free the Arts’, and a senate enquiry into the arts budget attracted a total of 2,719 submissions from individuals, companies, and major peak bodies in an unprecedented display of solidarity within the sector.
In September 2015, the nation breathed a sigh of relief when Malcolm Turnbull deposed Tony Abbott as prime minister and shrewdly altered the pervasively negative rhetoric of his predecessor, proclaiming: “There has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian”. The reshuffling of Turnbull’s frontbench saw George Brandis replaced as arts minister by Victorian Senator Mitch Fifield, who rebranded the NPEA as the Catalyst fund which, following the recommendations of the senate enquiry, returned $32 million of the $104.7 million to the Australia Council, leaving $73 million for the Catalyst fund. The ramifications of this modest restoration of funding only became clear last May 13, a day that has come to be known by the artistic community as ‘Black Friday’. Whilst 128 arts organisations were successful, 62 unfortunate applicants, many from the small to medium scale, were informed that they would no longer receive the multi-year funding that is so crucial to their administrative and operational overhead costs. Among the list of defunded organisations were Sydney-based dance company Force Majeure, physical theatre company Legs on the Wall, Synergy Percussion, Adelaide’s Slingsby Theatre Company, and the Melbourne literary journal Meanjin, which has been publishing some of the country’s most respected writing since 1940.
Less than two weeks before Turnbull’s appearance on Q&A, a similar chance for reconciliation with the arts sector presented itself to the Coalition. Like many Australians, I felt a mixture of emotions whilst watching the livestream of ArtsPeak’s National Arts Debate on June 8, held at the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas in Melbourne. Optimism, frustration, pity, and even a hint of catharsis conflicted in my consciousness as representatives of the major political parties (the Coalition, Labor, and the Greens) outlined their visions and policies (or lack thereof) for the nation’s future. For Labor and the Greens, spokespersons Mark Dreyfus and Adam Bandt simply reaffirmed commitments to policies announced earlier in the campaign. However, in the absence of a policy announcement from the Coalition, many were hoping that Arts Minister Mitch Fifield would offer not only words of contrition and empathy, but a policy that might attempt to redress the calamitous results of the Abbott-Turnbull years of ministerial interference and financial mismanagement. Unsurprisingly, there was disappointment on all counts: Senator Fifield was unable to offer any concrete policies, costings or commitments to assuage the outcries from the sector, nor any assurances of any kind of real change.
When the arts minister outlined the Coalition’s commitment to the arts if re-elected, he stated that the “government believes in art for art’s sake” and that the arts are “core to who we are as individuals”. Fifield concluded:
I do think there is incredible scope, as I say, that we can bring the arts and the creative industries to the heart of our innovation agenda. I look forward to working with you. I am a minister who is open to being shaped by the people in this room and the people beyond this room so that together we can insure that our arts enjoy the good support from government that they deserve so that the nation can benefit from the imagination, the talent, and the wonder that those in this sector share with each other and share with the nation.
It all sounded rather convivial, and yet the details of a policy remained conspicuously absent from Fifield’s address. No mention was made of the 62 organisations defunded. Where did they sit on this “innovation agenda”? One can only assume at the bottom of that list, pending the announcement of a policy that stipulates otherwise. The dichotomy between words and action could hardly have been clearer. Far from announcing any real promises, all the minister seemed able to affirm was that a vote for the Coalition would ensure that the 62 defunded arts organisations would continue to be left out in the cold.
As Alison Croggon noted in The Monthly: “In a country where we’re seeing a $28 million advertising campaign for the ‘Ideas Boom’ that supposedly promotes our ‘creativity and innovation’, the ironies are black indeed”.
Throughout the debate, the atmosphere was heavy with hostility to Fifield. You had to pity the man. There were scoffs and sporadic outbursts of laughter. The audience wasn’t buying it. Labor’s spokesperson Mark Dreyfus capitalised on the moment: “[The Coalition] went to the last election without an arts policy. They’re still here. Senator Fifield is still here before you without a policy, two years and nine months into the life of this government. I find that extraordinary”.
The shadow minister for the arts makes a compelling point. But it is not only bad strategy to turn up to an arts debate without a policy – it is a dereliction of duty.
The senator attempted to appease the animosity in the sector by offering the consolation that it now speaks “with a more common voice than it has in the past”, and that it “built bridges amongst itself”. Unable to offer any additional funding, Fifield retreated to the Coalition’s insipid “jobs and growth” mantra:
I think one of the really important things that government can do is make sure that we have an economy that is strong and growing because an economy that’s strong and growing means that there will be individuals and corporates, and philanthropists who are in a better position to purchase artworks to support individual artists. The stronger the economy is the better it is, not just for the nation as a whole, but for the arts but, also, individual artists, too.
Dreyfus hit the nail on the head, retorting: “The answer of the current arts minister to specific questions about what is the arts policy of this government is to start talking in vague generalities about economic growth”.
By contrast, Labor’s policy for the arts, announced by Bill Shorten and Mark Dreyfus at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne on June 4, sounds nostalgically Whitlamesque. They pledged to boost arts funding by $161 million, abolishing the controversial Catalyst funding program, thereby returning full control of funding decisions back to the independent Australia Council. In addition to providing the peak body with $20 million a year in new funding over four years from 2017, an extra $60 million would be delivered to the ABC for the production of local drama. School music programs such as Musica Viva in Schools, Music: Count Us In and the Song Room would be expanded by $2 million a year, while the Regional Arts Fund would receive an increase of $8 million over four years.
“To confirm as we did on Saturday [June 4] something that I made clear last November – we do not support the creation of a ministerial slush fund, whatever it is called, and we will return whatever is unspent from the fund that is presently called ‘Catalyst’ and shut it down,” Dreyfus said.
The policy espoused by the Greens is even more ambitious. For a sector gradually resigning itself to the inevitability of savage cuts, it seems almost utopian. Like Labor, the Greens pledged to restore the full amount of funding cut from the Australia Council, but went further, calling for a $270.2 million investment into the arts. This entails the provision of $20 million over four years to pay artists when their work is publicly displayed, $1 million for the creation of an artist-in-residence program at Parliament House and an additional $1 million to establish a National Arts Week. Perhaps most striking is the proposal of a living wage, which would allow artists who are currently unemployed and perfecting their craft to be eligible for Centrelink mutual obligation requirements. Greens spokesperson for the arts Adam Bandt went on:
I’m a big believer in STEM – science, technology, engineering, and math. As a science spokesperson, I’m a big believer in that. I’d like us to expand STEM to STEAM and to understand the role of arts in innovation.
The proposal to expand STEM to STEAM, and the creation of a National Arts Week, had already been circulated in the policy announced by the Arts Party in March, which also pledged for the full return of the funding removed from the Australia Council by the Abbott-Turnbull administration. The party called for a tripling in the arts budget – $124 million in additional funding distributed through grants to artists and small- to medium-sized arts organisations. It also proposed $100 million a year for the establishment of a major seed fund to develop original Australian work, and the placement of an artist-in-residence in primary and secondary schools.
The policies proposed by Labor, the Greens and the Arts Party offer a wealth of initiatives that Australian artists and art organisations seem to be embracing with open arms. All the Coalition has been able to promise thus far is to “keep the dialogue open over the sector”, with Senator Fifield suggesting that the sector should “drive the vision”.
What the senator seemed unable to acknowledge was that the sector is driving the vision, and that vision could not be more clear: the funds should be returned to the Australia Council.
After a year of consultation, the Victorian government unveiled a new cultural policy in April that pledged a $115 million investment over four years for arts and culture initiatives, with Victoria’s Creative Industries Minister Martin Foley appointing an advisory panel of arts experts to determine what is worthy of funding – a direct response against the now defunct NPEA. The announcement received overwhelming support, but the federal government appears not to have taken any notice. Fifield dug his own political grave when he said he was “a little wary about government dictating from on high the direction that arts should go”, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the Abbott-Turnbull government is the only administration that has ever sought to undermine the independence of the Australia Council.
Katie Noonan prefaced her question to the prime minister on Q&A with the following statement:
In Australia, the music industry alone employs 65,000 people. In the last three years, the Coalition has cut an estimated $300 million dollars from artists and art organisations.
It is not hard to understand why the arts community are looking askance at the government. At the National Arts Debate, Mitch Fifield attempted to dismiss Labor’s assertion that Catalyst was a “ministerial slush fund”:
Thirty-seven per cent of Catalyst grants have gone to regional areas and just picking up on Mark’s point on Catalyst supposedly being a ministerial slush fund, I should point out that they’re a panel of assessors who make recommendations in relation to which application.
The senator claimed “no ministerial discretion has been exercised”, stating that 52 per cent of Catalyst grants had gone to Labor seats, while 32 per cent had gone to Coalition seats, and 10 per cent had gone to seats held by the Greens. And yet, as Sasha Grishin pointed out in The Age, Fifield had previously announced that Catalyst “will invest $12 million each year in innovative projects and initiatives”; however, a wave of grants were pushed through on the Friday before the election was called, boosting the total committed to $23,317,301 – almost double the $12 million previously allotted for this year. Something is indeed amiss.
In the wake of the ‘Black Friday’ announcements, people took to social media to express their outrage. The current Sydney Festival Artistic Director Wesley Enoch articulated the sentiments of a grieving sector: “The ideological arrogance that has dismissed expert advice and precedent has brought us to a moment where the artistic community is personally demoralised, professionally dismissed and collectively in mourning”. In a gesture of generosity and support, Sydney’s City Recital Hall offered to stage a fundraising concert for the defunded percussion ensembles Synergy Percussion and Taikoz, along with the youth choral organisation Gondwana Choirs. The concert, held on June 13, was a resounding success, raising nearly $40,000 in ticket sales.
The Theatre Network of NSW announced on June 16 that it will campaign to its audiences directly at the end of each performance. The network includes the Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir Theatre, Bell Shakespeare, Hot House, Shopfront, Urban Theatre Projects and The Ensemble Theatre. The initiative attracted the support of some of Australia’s biggest names in theatre, including actor Hugo Weaving. Social media campaigns were launched across the nation, with people expressing support for the arts with the hashtags #IStandWithTheArts and #AusVoteArts, while a national ‘day of action’ was called for June 17.
Had Malcolm Turnbull or one of his staff bothered to look out the window of his Edgecliff office in NSW that morning before appearing on Q&A three days later, he might have noticed the protesters gathering outside. But then again, according to our prime minister, “the issue hasn’t arisen”.
You can compare in more detail the policies of the parties discussed in this essay here.
This feature is part of CutCommon Young Writers’ Month. About the author:
Pianist and writer Dylan Henderson completed his Bachelor of Music in Perth at the University of Western Australia in 2014, where he was the winner of the Waveney Wansbrough Memorial Prize for Music in 2013, and the Flora Bunning Memorial Prize for Chamber Music in 2014. In 2016, Dylan participated in the Words About Music program at the Australian Youth Orchestra’s National Music Camp, and has since gone on to contribute to Limelight Magazine, and write program notes for Recitals Australia. He now resides in Adelaide, where he studies with Anna Goldsworthy and esteemed Russian pedagogue Eleonora Sivan.
Featured image Johnny Jet via Flickr CC2.0.
