Cool little capital - the ambition to make Canberra Australia's creative city

Arts policy in the ACT has been more miss than hit, even though intentions have been good and there have been some worthwhile achievements. Unfortunately often the achievements don’t seem to have sprung from an overall vision of a consolidated strategic policy, which has meant that their full value hasn’t been harnessed. There has been a history of consultation stalling and not producing fruitful results. However, the ambition is currently there and building on some of the previous work, there may finally be a policy that focuses support for the arts and links it to the broader landscape of culture and creativity - if only all the interlinked components can be recognised and implemented.

The history of arts policy – let alone any sort of broader policy about culture or creativity ­– has been an uneven one in the ACT. There’s been a succession of Arts Ministers, the last two of whom – Dr Chris Bourke and Gordon Ramsay – each made valuable contributions in their own way. Chris Bourke in particular established a long-running history of support by the ACT Government for ground-breaking DESIGN Canberra. Gordon Ramsay hinted at a vision by the ACT Government for a broader view of creativity and culture linked to creative industries just before the 2020 ACT election in which he lost his seat. Before them there was also an earlier consultation process to develop a new arts policy in 2015, which didn’t produce much in the way of new useful outcomes.

Craft ACT stall at DESIGN Canberra, it's major public initiative

Now Tara Cheyne, an energetic Arts Minister with strategic vision, has overseen the launch of a new, considerably improved policy, ‘Canberra: Australia’s Arts Capital – Arts, Culture and Creative Policy 2022–2026’. This means we currently have a national process underway to produce a National Cultural Policy to succeed the 2013 Creative Australia policy and complementing that at local level a recently-announced ACT arts policy. How the two policies might intersect will be an interesting question. It seems an ideal opportunity to revisit some of the critical elements that help ensure the success or otherwise of any policy aiming to foster creativity, culture or the arts.

Arts fightback – breaking out of the goldfish bowl

How can the broad arts and cultural sector become a better organised, effective voice for arts and culture and its wider importance for Australia? These current dire circumstances, where we face a national arts crisis the seriousness of which can’t be understated, may provide the opportunity we have needed to look seriously at this question. It’s time for the big picture and long view for Australian arts and culture and time to get ready for a long haul effort to win hearts and minds.

We face a national arts crisis the seriousness of which can’t be understated. Looking forward, though, a far more important issue than arts funding is the question of how the broad arts and cultural sector can become a better organised, effective voice for arts and culture and its wider importance for Australia. Changes like this happen because they are able to happen – because decision-makers think it’s not important enough and they can get away with it. The arts and culture sector and its supporters have to be influential enough that decision-makers think carefully about the importance and the standing of Australia’s arts and culture and weigh any decisions they make carefully in terms of the strategic needs of the sector. The current dire circumstances may provide the opportunity we have needed to look seriously at this question. It’s time for the big picture and long view for Australian arts and culture.

Election poster from an Auckland, New Zealand street, 2014

Bigger pictures to paint – no less than a fight for the soul of Australia

While there is an important campaign underway around arts funding we shouldn’t get lost in that alone. There are far more important issues affecting the future of arts and culture in Australia that underlie the question of funding. Many issues have been thrown up about which organisations were funded in the Australia Council four year operational funding round. Without getting lost in these, the real issue is how the overall arts and culture budget, except for brief moments, has always fallen short of a serious commitment. On top of this, that limited commitment has been steadily eroded. Even more crucially, Australian arts and culture itself is being threatened, with crucial institutions and traditions and long positive histories being trashed for short term greed and gain.