The whole picture – an arts and cultural policy for everyone and everything

After a hiatus of ten long years Australia finally has a new national cultural policy that maps out what the current Albanese Government plans to do in support of Australian culture and creativity. At first glance the new policy appears to be an arts policy, rather than a broader cultural policy, but on closer scrutiny it is connected to far wider initiatives. Part of a series of three articles that consider different aspects of the cultural policy, this second one is about the connection between the policy and broader social and economic features, such as the cultural economy and First Nations economic development. The first one looks at the policy generally and outlines some of the major components it will deliver. The third article looks at the boost to the national collecting institutions which collect and safeguard Australia's cultural heritage.

The new national cultural policy is big, but is it big enough to encompass all those parts of Australian society and economy that are connected to and influenced by creativity and culture? It is crucial for the success of the policy that it stretches far beyond the arts sector. Burke has stressed the broader remit of the policy. Before the policy was released he made a profound point – even if it should be obvious, but usually isn’t. Stressing the importance of the policy, he said: ‘This is not just an arts policy. Cultural policy, when you get it right, affects how you run your health policy. It affects how you run your veterans affairs policy, it affects your industrial relations policy, it affects how you conduct your trade and your foreign affairs.’ 

 Joining the cultural economy dots: wedding dress and underskirt worn by Miranda Tapsell in the film Top End Wedding, exhibited in the Piinpi touring exhibition at the National Museum of Australia (originally curated by Bendigo Art Gallery). The piece is a collaboration between print designer Bede Tungutalum, joint founder of Tiwi Design, designer Heather Wallace and costume maker Robyn Trott.

Missed opportunity
When Burke was Shadow Minister for Arts and also Multicultural Affairs I noted repeatedly that he was in the ideal position to connect the innovative power of cultural diversity to the Opposition’s promised new cultural policy. Unfortunately this new policy misses an important opportunity to highlight this crucial feature of contemporary Australian society and culture and its implications for economic resilience and innovation. However, in this Government Burke now has another role, that of Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and he is doing with that position exactly what I had hoped he would do with Multicultural Affairs – connect the dots, as Simon Crean used to say repeatedly.

Understanding the economy of the future ­– innovation and its place in the knowledge economy, creative economy, creative industries and cultural economy

When we start to think about the economy of the future - and the clean and clever jobs that make it up - we encounter a confusing array of ideas and terms. Innovation, the knowledge economy, the creative economy, creative industries and the cultural economy are all used, often interchangeably. Over the years my own thinking about them has changed and I thought it would be useful to try to clarify how they are all related.

The clean and clever economy of the future - knowledge economy, creative economy, creative industries and cultural economy
Increasingly the new industries in the knowledge economy of the future, with its core of creative industries and its links to our cultural landscape are both clever and clean. They are mainly service industries that make up the knowledge economy, based on intellectual inquiry and research and exhibiting both innovative services or products and often also new and innovative ways of doing business. At their heart are the developing creative industries which are based on the power of creativity and are a critical part of Australia’s future, in most cases centred on small business and closely linked to the profile of Australia as a clever country, both domestically and internationally.

Where the cultural economy (and to a lesser degree, creative industries) differ completely from other knowledge economy sectors is that, because they are based on content, they draw on, intersect with and contribute to Australia’s national and local culture and are a central part of projecting Australia’s story to ourselves and to the world ­– they help channel those who write the stories, paint the pictures and dance the dances that tell our story. In that sense they have a strategic importance that other sectors of the knowledge economy do not. As part of Australia's culture sector and the cultural economy that derives from it, they share the critical function of managing the meaning of Australia and what being Australian means, which distinguishes this sector from other parts of the knowledge economy.

Artists, the arts and culture sector and the cultural economy
The cultural economy is underpinned by the arts and culture sector and the artists and arts and cultural organisations, mainly small, that make it up and create the content which often feeds into and inspires other sectors of the creative economy. 

The cultural sector (including the arts sector and much of the heritage sector) can't be reduced to economics, in fact the cultural economy may well be one of the less important aspects of the cultural sector and its role. However, the reality is that the cultural sector does have an associated cultural economy, which is an important part of the creative economy and overlaps with the creative industries. This interconnected economy also happens to be my main area of interest.

The work I did on creative industries, including while I was in the Research, Statistics and Technology Branch of the Department of Communications, established the parameters of my subsequent interest. Even though I went on to manage various aspects of the Indigenous cultural programs of the Commonwealth for almost six and a half years, I have always seen my primary area of interest as being creative industries (and their links to the cultural economy) and even my continuing interest in First Nations culture and languages has largely been from this perspective.

Creative and cultural futures – understanding the creative and cultural economy

Survival in the creative sector in a post-COVID will require enhanced literacy in the opportunities of the new industries of the future, the clean and clever knowledge economy which is altering our world on a daily basis. Now a new short course delivered completely online in the new digital universe we are all increasingly inhabiting will look closely at the broader impacts of creativity and culture, both economic and social. It will outline the role of the creative sector in managing meaning and explain how telling Australian stories puts us on the international stage in an increasingly globalised world.

Survival in the rapidly changing and reshaping world of work in the creative sector post-COVID-19 will require enhanced literacy in the opportunities of the new industries of the future, the clean and clever knowledge economy which is altering our world on a daily basis. Over the last couple of years I have developed and presented a post-graduate course at the University of Canberra called ‘Impact and Enterprise’, which looks at the creative and cultural economy and its broader impacts. What is unique about the course is that it doesn’t cover only the economic impacts but also the social impacts, threading the two together.

Wheat silos with stories - the interrelationship of creativity and culture with society, community and the economy is complex and dynamic.

Economic relevance and community connection
Both economic relevance and a sense of being embedded with community are complementary aspects of contemporary creativity and culture that make it so strong a force. It links up my interest in both the economic role of culture and creativity and in their community role of building resilience, well-being, social inclusion and liveable cities. What they have in common is that both spring from the reality that culture and creativity are integral to everyday life and the essential activities that make it up

Making a living – building careers in creative and cultural futures

Making a living in the developing creative economy is no easy task. For a viable career, flexibility and creativity are crucial. For this a strategic outlook and a grasp of the major long-term forces shaping Australian creativity and culture is essential. To help foster this amongst emerging cultural sector practitioners, a new flagship course, a Master of Arts in Creative and Cultural Futures, was launched at the University of Canberra in 2019, building on earlier experiments in aligning research and analysis with real world cultural sector experience.

A vast transformation of contemporary culture not seen since the breakdown of traditional arts and crafts in the industrial revolution is under way due to the impact of the digital and online environment. Not only artists, but also culture managers and cultural specialists today are confronted with radically different challenges and opportunities to those they faced in the 20th Century.

Dior exhibition, Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2019.

In parallel with the traditional focus on the arts and arts funding, there has been growing interest in the broader area of the creative or cultural economy and the related, more commercial, creative industries. While the arts and culture sector cannot be reduced simply to economics, it would be a mistake if, for that reason, we ignored the fact that it plays an important economic role. The economic role parallels the broader social role it plays. What the two roles have in common is that both spring from the reality that creativity and culture are integral to everyday life and the essential activities that make it up.

See also – indefinite articles in a definite world

I was losing track of the articles I have published to my 'indefinite article' blog over the last few years. For easy access, this is a summary of all 146 articles, broken down into categories. They range from the national cultural landscape to popular culture, from artists and arts organisations to cultural institutions, cultural policy and arts funding, creative industries, First Nations culture, cultural diversity, cities and regions, Australia society, government, Canberra and international issues – the whole range of contemporary Australian arts and culture.

1. Cultural landscape
2. Artists and arts organisations
3. Cultural institutions
4. Cultural policy
5. Arts funding
6. Cultural economy and creative industries
7. First Nations culture
8. Cultural diversity
9. Australian society
10. Cities and regions
11. Government
12. International
13. Canberra
14. Popular culture

15. About my blogs
16. Parallel universe

1. CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
Better than sport? The tricky business of valuing Australia’s arts and culture 
‘Understanding, assessing and communicating the broad value of arts and culture is a major and ongoing task. There has been an immense amount of work already carried out. The challenge is to understand some of the pitfalls of research and the mechanisms and motivations that underpin it. Research and evaluation is invaluable for all organisations but it is particularly important for Government. The experience of researching arts and culture in Government is of much broader relevance, as the arts and culture sector navigates the tricky task of building a comprehensive understanding in each locality of the broader benefits of arts and culture. The latest Arts restructure makes this even more urgent.’, Better than sport? The tricky business of valuing Australia’s arts and culture.

Crossing boundaries – the unlimited landscape of creativity
‘When I was visiting Paris last year, there was one thing I wanted to do before I returned home – visit the renowned French bakery that had trained a Melbourne woman who had abandoned the high stakes of Formula One racing to become a top croissant maker. She had decided that being an engineer in the world of elite car racing was not for her, but rather that her future lay in the malleable universe of pastry. Crossing boundaries of many kinds and traversing the borders of differing countries and cultures, she built a radically different future to the one she first envisaged’, Crossing boundaries – the unlimited landscape of creativity.

Creativity and culture in change: Change in creativity and culture 
‘A vast transformation of contemporary culture not seen since the breakdown of traditional arts and crafts in the industrial revolution is under way due to the impact of the digital and online environment. Artists, culture managers and cultural specialists today are confronted with radically different challenges and opportunities to those they faced in the 20th Century. There are a number of strategic forces which we need to take account of in career planning and in working in or running cultural organisations’, Presentation at ‘Creative and Cultural Futures: Leadership and Change’ – a symposium exploring the critical issues driving change in the creative and cultural sector, University of Canberra, October 2018, Creativity and culture in change: Change in creativity and culture.

Taking part – Arts involvement in a divided Australia
‘The arts and culture sector has long suffered from a shortage of high quality, useable research and statistics. This makes what is available doubly important as we argue the case for the central relevance of arts and culture and the broader social and economic impact of involvement. New research demonstrates the positive scale of involvement, views on importance and trends in participation in Australia’s arts and cultural life, especially hands on involvement. It also shows a worrying decline in engagement and recognition in recent years and points to the need for a more strategic view by government’, Taking part – Arts involvement in a divided Australia.

Putting culture on the main agenda – the power of policy

With the ongoing malaise due to the absence of national arts and cultural policy in Australia, it's worth reminding ourselves what beneficial impact good policy can have. To understand the power of policy to make an impact in the world, it’s worthwhile contrasting two recent major Australian Government cultural policies – the National Cultural Policy and the National Indigenous Languages Policy. This helps illuminate how cultural policy can promote the long view, innovation, breadth and leadership. Both policies showed that more important than funding or specific initiatives was the overall strategic vision and the way in which it attempted to place culture not just on the main agenda, but somewhere near the centre of the main agenda.

Government can do some very important things, but usually doesn’t. Sometimes in despair at the shortcomings of government, I’ve been forced to comment that it’s better if government is ineffective, so it does less damage.

The power of policy to connect - in an increasingly interconnected world it's crucial not to miss the boat.

However, when it works, even if it only moves the world one centimeter, because it is able to move everything that one centimeter, it can change the world. When I worked as Membership Manager for the iconic Powerhouse Museum in Sydney I was able to achieve some very useful things but they were mainly only of value to the Museum and its supporters.

'Government can do some very important things, but usually doesn’t'

In contrast when I worked for twelve years in the arts and culture agency of the Australian Government – under the various names and in the assorted departments through which it travelled – the policies and program I was involved with developing had an impact across a whole country.

Design Canberra: clever and clean – the knowledge economy of the future

See main article, 'Designs on the future'

This is part of the article, 'Designs on the future – how Australia's designed city has global plans', about the annual Design Canberra festival and the plans for its future. The ultimate vision of Craft ACT for Canberra is to add another major annual event to Floriade, Enlighten and the Multicultural Festival, filling a gap between them and complementing them all.

Increasingly the new industries in the knowledge economy of the future, with its core of creative industries and its links to our cultural landscape are both clever and clean. They are mainly service industries that make up the knowledge economy, based on intellectual enquiry and research and exhibiting both innovative services or products and also new and innovative ways of doing business.

At their heart are the developing creative industries which are based on the power of creativity and are a critical part of Australia’s future, in most cases centred on small business and closely linked to the profile of Australia as a clever country, both domestically and internationally.

Managing meaning
The creative industries are underpinned by the arts and culture sector and the artists and arts and cultural organisations, mainly small, that make it up and create the content which feeds into and inspires other sectors.

Design Canberra: a whole world out there – building global connection through the UNESCO Creative Cities Network

See main article, 'Designs on the future'

This is part of the article, 'Designs on the future – how Australia's designed city has global plans', about the annual Design Canberra festival and the plans for its future. The ultimate vision of Craft ACT for Canberra is to add another major annual event to Floriade, Enlighten and the Multicultural Festival, filling a gap between them and complementing them all.

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network was created in 2004 to promote cooperation between cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. The 116 cities which currently make up this network work together towards the common objective of placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperating actively at the international level. The Network covers seven creative fields: Crafts and Folk Arts; Media Arts; Film; Design; Gastronomy; Literature; and Music.

Creativity at work – economic engine for our cities

Increasingly two critical things will help shape our economic future. The first is the central role of cities in generating wealth. The second is the knowledge economy of the future and, more particularly, the creative industries that sit at its heart. In Sydney, Australia’s largest city, both of these come together in a scattering of evolving creative clusters, a development is part of a national and world-wide trend which has profound implications.

It is becoming abundantly clear that in our contemporary world two critical things will help shape the way we make a living – and our economy overall. The first is the central role of cities in generating wealth. The second is the knowledge economy of the future and, more particularly, the creative industries that sit at its heart.

Creative clusters connect disparate small business and creative individuals to mutual advantage - the way bridges bring separate parts of a city into contact.

In Sydney, Australia’s largest city, both of these come together in a scattering of evolving creative clusters – concentrations of creative individuals and small businesses, clumped together in geographic proximity. A recent important article by Anne Davies in ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’ outlines this development and some of its profound implications.

Arts and culture part of everyday life and on the main agenda

There’s an election in the air and I was thinking about what would be a good list of positive improvements that would benefit Australia’s arts and culture, so I jotted down some ideas. They are about recognising arts and culture as a central part of everyday life and an essential component of the big agenda for Australia. They are about where the knowledge economy, creative industries and arts and culture fit, how arts and culture explain what it means to be Australian and how they are a valuable means of addressing pressing social challenges

There’s an election in the air, and an early one as well – as if we need any more of them, given some of the disastrous outcomes of past ones. I was thinking about what would be a good list of positive improvements that would benefit Australia’s arts and culture, so I jotted down some ideas.

Australian arts and culture part of everyday life and on the main agenda - let's burn that bridge when we come to it.

Central to everyday life and the main national agenda

1. We want to see arts and culture recognised for the essential central role it plays in Australia’s social and economic life, with it included on the main national agenda, recognising its integral relationship with major economic and social factors such as economic development, education, innovation, community resilience, social and community identity and health and wellbeing.

Research, including extensive case studies, make this broader benefit clear. As far back as 2004, ‘Art and wellbeing’ an Australia Council publication by Deborah Mills and Paul Brown, examined this in detail. Tenacious social problems flourish when morale is virtually non-existent – and morale depends on a positive sense of self and community which involvement in arts and culture provides. It’s no exaggeration to say that in many cases it changes lives. The experience of many years of the Indigenous culture programs of the Australian Government was that involvement in arts and cultural activity often has powerful flow on social and economic effects. This is true of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. By building self-esteem and generating a sense of achievement, by developing a stronger sense of community, by increasing skills and capabilities through involvement in engaging activities relevant to modern jobs and thereby increasing employability, and by helping to generate income streams, however small, cultural activity can have profound long-term effects.

2. The focus on the economic role of arts and culture is similar to the focus on its community role – both spring from recognition that arts and culture are integral to everyday life and the essential activities that make it up.

The virtual world – research and commentary on Australian arts and culture

When I established my blog ‘indefinite article’, a couple of years back, it was because I wanted to research and comment on Australian arts and culture. This is my main blog that gets most views. It seems to have taken off. I’d always thought that, given the specialist subject matter – after all it’s not a popular culture blog like a cooking one – that it would grow steadily but no more, which all along is what I had wanted. The rate of growth has surprised me. Now, I’m starting to focus on the other blogs that have played second fiddle – about short humour, gardening and cooking and creative writing.

When I first established my blog ‘indefinite article’, a couple of years back, it was because I wanted to research and comment on Australian arts and culture, something I know something about from working for over 35 years in the arts and culture sector. I could have written about other subjects but that would just be me expressing my opinions like every other man, woman and their dog (and cat) on social media. ‘Who cares?’ I thought. ‘indefinite article’ is irreverent articles about contemporary Australian society, popular culture, the creative economy and the digital and online world – life in the trenches and on the beaches of the information age. This is my main blog and it’s the one that gets most views.

Ages ago I used the phrase on this image, thinking that I had very cleverly been the first person to think of. Recently I saw the same phrase, virtually word for word, on an Internet meme. Whether my words just drifted around on their own and were picked up and reused or whether, more likely, it's just a case of a good idea appearing at the same time in many different widely separated places, is hard to tell. There are no secrets or possessions on the Internet. Here's my illustrated take on the meme.

On the morning of 25 February it passed 8,000 views and is now just over 100 views short of the next milestone of 9,000 views. It seems only a short time ago that I was celebrating having passed 7,000 views. That amount represented the total views from when I effectively started the blog, when I left the public service in late February 2014, to 25 February this year, a period of just under two years. My most recent jump of 1,000 views, from 7,000 to 8,000, took just 5.5 weeks. Three days later I was already a quarter of the way to my next thousand, 9,000 views. I seem to have settled around 1,000 views a month.

The immense potential of creative industries for regional revival

Across Australia, local communities facing major economic and social challenges have become interested in the joint potential of regional arts and local creative industries to contribute to or often lead regional revival. This has paralleled the increasing importance of our major cities as economic hubs and centres of innovation.

There has long been an interest in the potential of regional arts activity to revitalise regional communities. In parallel the economic potential of regional creative industries has also interested many communities. In fact regional communities seem to fall somewhere between two camps – those, like Bendigo, that see a role for arts and culture and creative industries and have been boosted by the engagement, and those that don’t and have languished accordingly. That list is long.

The closing event for DESIGN Canberra 2014 at the National Museum of Australia.

Regional arts and regional creative industries
The challenge is achieving a broad recognition of the important potential of arts, culture and creative industries and consolidating and expanding the link between local arts and culture and the local creative industries in the region.

Big Australian cities – can’t live there, can’t give there

In a strange turn of events, the very success of big Australian cities is likely to become a drag on the innovation they are noted for, as they become more and more expensive to live in and the cost of housing acts to limit the cultural diversity which underpins innovation.

In a recent article on the urbanisation of Australia and the problems this poses for the cost of urban housing costs, Matt Wade, writing in ‘The Sun Herald’ gets straight to the point, ‘Sydney and Melbourne are among the world's most successful cities. Together they generate more than 40 per cent of Australia's economic output and both consistently rate among the most liveable cities on the planet. But their sheer magnetism has contributed to a pressing national challenge: the high cost of housing.’

Sydney skyline near base of Centrepoint Tower

Latest population figures from the Bureau of Statistics show 9.3 million people live in Sydney and Melbourne – four in every 10 Australians. It is extremely rare for two cities alone to account for such a large proportion of a national population.

The clever business of creativity: the experience of supporting Australia's industries of the future

‘The swan song of the Creative Industries Innovation Centre, ‘Creative Business in Australia’, outlines the experience of five years supporting Australia’s creative industries. Case studies and wide-ranging analysis explain the critical importance of these industries to Australia’s future. The knowledge economy of the future, with its core of creative industries and its links to our cultural landscape is both clever and clean. Where the creative industries differ completely from other knowledge economy sectors is that, because they are based on content, they draw on, intersect with and contribute to Australia’s national and local culture'.

Art critic and cultural writer, John Berger, in one of his less well-known articles, tells a story about the French-Russian sculptor Zadkine. At the very beginning of his career Zadkine was trying to establish himself as an artist in England but was not known and spoke little English. An old craftsman to whom he was briefly apprenticed to learn wood carving suggested he carve a wooden rose – but such a beautiful rose that whenever he showed it to prospective but sceptical employers they would always understand what he was capable of and give him the job. Zadkine took the advice and it laid the basis for his later success as an artist.

I thought of this old story about an old artist when I was reading the newly released publication Creative Business in Australia, the swansong of the recently departed and much missed Creative Industries Innovation Centre. In the same way as Zadkine’s rose, the example of the Centre is something that can be held in your hand and pointed at to show what is possible. It demonstrates some important ways that we can support our newly emerging creative industries – if only we have the imagination and foresight to understand their potential and their unique and distinctive place in the broader knowledge economy. Those associated with the Centre in its all-too-brief but productive life can point to the publication and say ‘This is what we did in such a short time. This is what is possible.’ It is proof of concept writ smaller than it needed to be.

'Creative Business in Australia' - getting serious, but not serious enough about one of the values of creativity

I use the old-fashioned example of an artist deliberately because while the creative industries are first and foremost about running businesses, they are businesses of a very particular kind.

Increasingly the new industries in the knowledge economy of the future, with its core of creative industries and its links to our cultural landscape are both clever and clean. They are mainly service industries that make up the knowledge economy, based on intellectual enquiry and research and exhibiting both innovative services or products and also often new and innovative ways of doing business (though to what degree is a matter this publication considers closely).

Full circle – where next for Australian national arts and culture support in the 21st Century?

With a Coalition Government which now stands a far better chance of being re-elected for a second term, the transfer of the Commonwealth’s Arts Ministry to Communications helps get arts and culture back onto larger and more contemporary agendas. This move reflects that fact that the new industries in the knowledge economy of the future, with its core of creative industries and its links to our cultural landscape, are both clever and clean. Where they differ completely from other knowledge economy sectors is that, because they are based on content, they draw on, intersect with and contribute to Australia’s national and local culture and are a central part of projecting Australia’s story to ourselves and to the world. In that sense they have a strategic importance that other sectors do not.

I used to joke that in my almost 15 years working in the Commonwealth Arts Ministry, without ever deliberately changing jobs, I managed to move around the national public service like a comet roaming the far reaches of space. Just as comets reappear at regular extended intervals to terrify the inhabitants on the planet below, the Arts Ministry has reappeared in the sky above the Department of Communications to re-establish Communications and the Arts after nearly eight years of absence.

Leadership challenge over breakfast with 'The Age'

I started with Arts in the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts in late 2000 and then, with the election of the Rudd Labor Government in 2007, began a series of moves to four different departments over the next six years. Arts traveled from Communications to Environment, then to Prime Minister and Cabinet, on to Regional and finally to Attorney-General's. Now, Arts has returned to where I first started.

My nephew just got a job with Weta – the long road of the interconnected world

My nephew just got a job in Wellington New Zealand with Weta Digital, which makes the digital effects for Peter Jackson’s epics. Expertise, specialist skills and industry pockets can occur just about anywhere, as long as you have connectivity, talent and a framework of support that makes it possible. This is part of the new knowledge economy of the future, with its core of creative industries and its links to our cultural landscape. Increasingly the industries of the future are both clever and clean. At their heart are the developing creative industries which are based on the power of creativity and are a critical part of Australia’s future – innovative, in most cases centred on small business and closely linked to the profile of Australia as a clever country, both domestically and internationally. This is transforming the political landscape of Australia, challenging old political franchises and upping the stakes in the offerings department.

A while back, when my nephew connected with me on Linked In, I said, ‘this will give me far more street cred than it will ever give you.’ He’s a visual effects artist, one of the new internationally sought after labour aristocracy of the digital universe. He’s currently head of Visual Effects at Resin in Adelaide and has worked for Image Engine Design in Vancouver.

‘In the new digital industries of the future, work is international and workers travel the world looking for opportunities to develop their skills and expand their experience’

I don’t even understand exactly what he does but I know he’s described himself as a character rigger, someone who ensures that the figures in digital animations actually move as though they are real. He’s worked on Hollywood blockbusters like ‘Elysium’, the remake of ‘The Thing’ and ‘Battleship’. I’ve never seen any of them but ‘Elysium’ was made by the South African director of the quirky ‘District 9’, produced by Peter Jackson, which I haven’t seen either but it sounds cool.

Australia, the largest island, is just the start of the island kingdom of the Greater Pacific. Compared to the tiny isles further East, New Zealand rises from the ocean like a large lost world.

Nowadays he’s like so many of us, someone who manages other people to help them do better what he used to do and would still probably really like to do himself.

The neighbouring world of Weta Digital
Now he has got himself a job at Weta Digital. You may ask what Weta Digital is but when I heard the news, my response was ‘wow’. Weta Digital is part of a stable of companies, including Weta Workshop, and makes the digital effects for Peter Jackson’s epics. If you’ve seen ‘Lord of the Rings’ or the remake of ‘King Kong’ you’ve been watching Weta at work. It’s named after a New Zealand insect, supposedly one of the largest on the planet, reflecting I presume Peter Jackson’s fascination with all things insect – so strangely evident in ‘King Kong’.

Look after pedestrians and the economy will look after itself

There is a big preoccupation with roads as a way of gettig around large cities. But even more important can be the ability to walk around them. The increased and increasing importance of companies based on knowledge, has made the ability to walk around business centres even more important than before. Exchanging of information at the most basic and, at a higher level, of ideas is central to the productivity of knowledge industries.

Since July last year I’ve been fascinated by a series of articles by ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ journalists Ross Gittins and, more recently, Matt Wade, about the central role cities play in the modern economy. The articles draw on a range of recent research including that of the Grattan Institute.

In this most recent article Matt Wade comments on the importance of navigating the city easily for economic productivity. ‘Politicians are forever talking about new roads and, sometimes, new railway lines. But what about footpaths? Walking is by far the most important mode of transport in our most valuable economic locations – especially the CBDs of Sydney and Melbourne. But not nearly enough attention is given to how efficiently pedestrians can make their way around these key business hubs.'

Pedestrians cross Rushcutters Bay Park, Sydney

Changes in the nature of the economy, particularly the increased and increasing importance of companies based on knowledge, has made the ability to walk around business centres even more important than before. Exchanging of information at the most basic and, at a higher level, of ideas is central to the productivity of knowledge industries.

Our capital cities are growing and produce most of our income

In an article from early 2015, economist Ross Gittins picks up a theme he has been following about the growing importance of cities and urban life. It's clear from his comments that we ignore our cities at our peril.

As he notes succinctly ‘We are a nation of city-dwellers. Australia is one of the most urbanised countries in the world. Our capital cities are growing and most of our income is being generated in them, notwithstanding the big expansion in mining, which is more about additional structures and capital equipment than workers.’

Sydney skyline - largest city in Australia

He continues ‘For at least the past 40 years, all the net increase in employment has been in the services sector, and the services sector exists mainly in cities. The arrival of the knowledge economy will only heighten this trend.’

Sydney - Australia's most valuable location but public transport its greatest weakness

Economist Ross Gittins has been reporting on the way in which cities are critical to modern economies, particularly to the knowledge economy with it’s emphasis on interconnectedness, networking and innovative business relationships and processes.

A pair of articles by Matt Wade in ‘The Sydney Morning Herald in April 2015 looks at how this is playing out in Australia’s largest city, Sydney.

In the first article, he lays out what has been happening to this mega-city, as different sub-regions in the city develop their own distinct economic strengths and paths. ‘The CBD is slowly becoming less important to Sydney. The city's economic centre of gravity – the point around which all economic output is evenly balanced – is at Concord, nine kilometres west of the CBD. And it has been drifting north-west for more than a decade. That's because emerging economic hubs such as Macquarie Park, Sydney Olympic Park and Parramatta have been dragging the city's economic centre of gravity away from the CBD.’

Sydney skyline - base of Centrepoint Tower with tower crane

What this means is all too apparent. ‘The upshot? The influence of Sydney's alternative business centres is rising and the city needs much better transport connections between them if it is to thrive.’

Education - what does free mean?

At Whitlam’s memorial there was much mention, particularly by Cate Blanchett, of what his reforms to tertiary education had meant – for her personally but for Australia overall as well.

This was timely given the current attempts to make education far more expensive and to push the cost back onto individuals rather than Australia as a whole.

Broad-based access to education is critical to building  a highway to the future

It is sometimes argued that the reforms of the Whitlam Government benefited only middle class children, making free an education that their parents would otherwise have paid for, with the cost picked up by the taxpayer instead.