The privatisation of cultural support

New moves by governments in Australia to lay the groundwork to help broaden support for creativity and culture are important and need to be considered carefully and seriously. However, we also need to be cautious about reinforcing a trend for Government to withdraw from long term direct strategic support, as the underlying pressure of neo-liberalism, deregulation and privatisation moves us further and further away from the historically essential direct role of the Australian public sector in economic, social and cultural development.

I see that the NSW Government is responding to the crisis of survival being faced by artists and arts and cultural organisations of all kinds from ‘the burden of rising costs, rapidly shifting audience trends and waning philanthropic support’ by focusing on the promise of tax reform. This is after a long period of shocks to the creative sector that have threatened its viability.

 

Navigating the shifting currents of the NSW, Australian and global environment. 

‘There is a strong focus on tax reform for the cultural sector across State governments with engagement from the Australian Government, linked to a broader national focus on tax reform generally.’

A report in the Sydney Morning Herald, which you probably won’t be able to read because of its paywall, noted ‘Australia’s struggling culture sector could be handed much-needed extra funding under plans to use a radical shakeup of the nation’s tax system to alleviate the burden of rising costs, rapidly shifting audience trends and waning philanthropic support.’ Options being considered include ‘exempting prize money from GST, giving wealthy benefactors added incentives to donate, taxing vacant commercial spaces and allowing arts workers to claim new expenses.’

Absent without leave - ocean crossing in an (almost) post-pandemic world

I’ve been a little out of touch with what’s been happening in the world of Australian creativity and culture because for all of February and early March this year I was visiting Aotearoa New Zealand, on a journey that originally started in November 2016 and was then resumed over six years later. While I was away the Labor Government announced its new National Cultural Policy and soon after I arrived back I received bad news of a loss from the tight group of friends and colleagues who had helped form my cultural world-view so many decades earlier – when we spoke the language of community, the language of culture and the language of changing the world for the better.

All at sea in a floating library
I started my trip in a floating library, that is on a Viking cruise from Sydney to Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Viking ships are full of quiet corners crammed with books, a welcome way to pass time at sea – when not in a Scandinavian spa and sauna and pool unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. The cruise was originally a river cruise from Amsterdam up the Rhine to Basel in 2020, before the world went to shit. It was meant to follow my first ever cruise – from London to the furthest point North in Norway, way above the Arctic Circle, then down to beautiful Bergen. As the global pandemic rolled on, this follow up voyage was postponed several times and finally converted to a cruise to New Zealand when Viking started to operate in Southern waters. It was certainly a superb way to travel to New Zealand.

 

From the time when everyone played in a garage band and was famous amongst a few people they knew for all of five minutes. Of course we wrote our own songs. In our day jobs we were even more serious.

In an inspired move on the way to Melbourne I had booked the Alexander McQueen exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. I walked off the ship and headed into the city to see it. It was popular and packed and I wore my face mask throughout, but it was excellent and not-to-be-missed.

National Cultural Policy rises from dead to boost Australian arts, culture and creativity

A change in national Government means that much of the daily work of Government in keeping the country running continues as before, eased along by the continuity provided by the public service. However, there can also be drastic changes of direction and fresh starts and old and tested ideas reinvigorated. One area where this will certainly be the case is with Government support for Australian arts, culture and creativity, with consultation to update the policies in Creative Australia, the previous National Cultural Policy, getting underway without delay.

A change of Government, especially at a national level, can mark major changes in some areas and little in others. Most of the work Government does – essentially the everyday running of the country – often changes little from one Government to the next, no matter what the political flavour of the incoming Government. The long suffering public service continues to keep the ship afloat no matter how incompetent any particular Government may be.

Garma Festival 2008 East Arnhem Land

Promise and hope

However, left long enough incompetence can foil even the most diligent department and a change of Government can mark a fresh start in stagnant areas and energise a demoralised public service. There are likely to be many fresh starts in coming months, despite the hangover of debt and inertia inherited by the new Government. From my perspective, one of those areas of promise and hope is Government support for the arts, culture and creativity.

Labor election victory means renewed approach for Australian arts and culture support

Almost a decade of Coalition Government has ended, with a complex and ground-breaking result. During that long period the substantial and detailed work to develop a national cultural policy under the Rudd and then Gillard Labor Governments was sidelined. A strategic, comprehensive, long-term approach to support by national Government for Australian culture and creativity in its broadest sense was largely absent. Now we are likely to see a return – finally – to some of the central principles that underpinned ‘Creative Australia’, the blueprint that represented the Labor Government response to Australia’s creative sector.

Having been Director of the National Cultural Policy Task Force that coordinated the development of 'Creative Australia' under Crean and Gillard, I feel a great sense of deja vu this week - albeit looking back over almost ten years and a global pandemic. I can never say again that we don't live in interesting times – with all the consequences of that.

 A ground-shaking election means that there may be some important changes on the way for support for Australia’s arts and culture. I must admit that I had largely stopped commenting because at some point, you realise there is no more to be said about the same old, same old after almost a decade. Now we are likely to see a return to a revised blueprint that represented the Labor response to Australia’s creative sector ten years ago. Before the election, Shadow Arts Minister, Tony Burke, outlined what an incoming Labor Government would do for Australian arts and culture.

Election poster from New Zealand 2016

His most important comment was that ‘the first step is a comprehensive cultural policy.’ He went on to note that ‘a cultural policy isn’t simply an arts policy. Cultural policies have only been developed in Australia by Labor Governments. Paul Keating and his Arts Minister Michael Lee developed Creative Nation. Julia Gillard and her Arts Minister Simon Crean developed Creative Australia.’

Why Australia still needs a cultural policy – third time lucky?

It’s no longer the pre-election campaign we had to have. It’s become the election campaign we can’t avoid. We are spiralling inexorably towards election day and Ministers and members have been plummeting from the heights of the Coalition Government like crew abandoning a burning Zeppelin. We may wake on 19 May to find we have a national Labor Government. With Labor pledging to implement an updated version of the short-lived ‘Creative Australia’, its national cultural policy, first promised by the Rudd Government, it’s a good time to reconsider its importance.

National cultural policies come and go – but mainly go. If the relentlessly negative election campaign currently being waged by the Coalition doesn’t succeed, we may find on 19 May that we once again have a Labor Government.

The school student strike against climate change inaction in March 2019 highlighted this as a pressing issue for our political leaders - Australia's culture and its relevance to Australian society is less obvious and more easily overlooked.

It’s certainly strange for an incumbent Government seeking a third term to make absolutely no mention of any achievements in its political advertising – but perhaps there’s a good reason. Depending on how the day turns out, it seems we may be entering a moment in Australian history where once again consideration of the potential of a cultural policy becomes relevant. If so, it will be only the third national cultural policy in our history.