Image: www.australiacouncil.gov.au
Labor’s arts spokesperson Mark Dreyfus has launched a stinging attack on arts and cultural policy under George Brandis.
In a strongly worded response to the Australia Council restructure announced last month, Dreyfus attacks the new strategy as ‘a narrow and superficial document.’
The Australia Council’s new strategic plan involves big changes to peer review and funding procedures, simplifying application red tape but also canceling existing funding agreements with community arts organisations. The major performing arts sector is protected, while small-to-medium companies that miss out on next year’s six-year funding round will not be able to apply for organisational funding until 2021.
In his first formal response to the new direction under the Abbott government’s Arts Minister George Brandis, Labor’s Dreyfus takes aim at the new plan.
‘It is a remarkable document,’ Dreyfus told ArtsHub, ‘not for what it says, but for what it does not say.
‘A plan with no funding is meaningless. There is no dollar figure mentioned in the plan.
‘It does not tell us how the various art forms will be reviewed, assessed and funded.’
Pointing out the document makes no mention of Labor’s Creative Australia policy, Dreyfus argues that ‘this re-emphasises the fact that this government has no national cultural policy’.
‘Creative Australia is not mentioned – apparently the government wants us to believe that not only is it dead, it never happened.
‘The Plan’s emphasis on international activity betrays a deep insecurity about Australia’s place in the world and a craving for international recognition.’
Dreyfus also casts doubt on whether the Abbott government will cut cultural funding further. ‘Our national and state opera companies are concerned about an impending review and possible threats to their funding,’ he wrote.
‘The Council told Senate Estimates hearings that the Budget cuts will mainly affect programs for individual artists, groups of artists, and audience and market development,’ Dreyfus continued. ‘In 2014-15 grants in this area will be reduced by $9 million.
‘In the light of these hard facts, the grand statements of the Council’s Strategic Plan sound increasingly hollow.’
Dreyfus also took aim at Minister Brandis for meddling with the Australia Council’s statutory independence, claiming Brandis has ‘form’ when it comes to eroding the funding body’s arms-length status.
‘The present Minister said in launching the plan that the Australia Council has been adopting and reflecting the priorities of the Abbott government,’ he told us.
‘This threatens the Council’s independence from government.
‘In opposition, [George Brandis] attempted to amend the 2013 Australia Council Bill, to give the Minister for the Arts power to override directions by the Board of the Council,’ Dreyfus wrote. ‘The Minister is now clearly directing the Council through the imposition of this plan.’
Concern about the status of cultural policy under the Abbott government is mounting. Today in The Conversation, respected University of Melbourne cultural policy researcher Jo Caust draws parallels to the savage funding cuts imposed on smaller arts organisations in Queensland.
‘If arts organisations are ejected from Australia Council ongoing support after 2016, what do they do?’ Caust asks. ‘Already several arts organisations in Queensland have had to close because of withdrawal of state funding support.’
Caust also raises concerns about the way in which peer funding arrangements will work under the new blueprint. ‘The selection then of suitable peers or the “Pool of Peers” has been made by an internal committee of the Council chaired by the Deputy Chair of the Council, Robyn Archer,’ Caust writes.
‘This approach would seem to show a lack of transparency about who is deemed suitable and who is not, and on what criteria decisions are made about suitability. In addition it seems artists and arts organisations will not necessarily know who their assessing peers are.’
Labor’s Dreyfus concludes that the new plan will merely create ‘continuing uncertainty in the cultural sector, still shocked by the savagery of the Abbott Government’s Budget cuts.’
ArtsHub approached Minister Brandis for a response to Mr Dreyfus’ remarks. A spokesperson in his office referred us back to the speech he made at the launch of the Strategic Plan.
