The names and profiles of two artists, Martin ‘Marty’ Hirst and Paul Moreland, in the annual Banyule Open Studios (BOS) weekend (11-13 October) have been removed at the request of Banyule City Council due to the artists’ candidacy in the upcoming local election.
Hirst (Victorian Socialists candidate) and Moreland (Greens candidate) are local practising artists and regular participants in BOS. Hirst, who is also the secretary of BOS, reached out to ArtsHub with the concern that the Council has overstepped its responsibility in maintaining election integrity.
Banyule City Council funds BOS and the Council has justified this requirement to remove the two artists’ profiles as a precaution in the election caretaker period (17 September to 26 October).
A letter addressed to BOS President Felicity Gordon from Banyule City Council Arts and Culture Coordinator Hannes Berger, at the beginning of the caretaker period, stated five protocols to ensure that candidates do not take advantage of Council supported events for campaign purposes. This includes “no political or campaign signage or material is permitted to be displayed or distributed at Council supported events” and “Council’s logo must be removed from all promotional and marketing material for the event”.
The request to remove Hirst’s and Moreland’s names was a later addition, with neither Hirst nor Moreland consulted or given the opportunity to discuss the concern. ArtsHub understands that neither artist profile included any information on their candidacy and neither artist intended to distribute electoral material at the BOS event.
Hirst tells ArtsHub, “My reading of the Council’s own policy is that the Governance team is acting beyond what is reasonable in terms of their own rules.”
Hirst says it’s a “knee-jerk” response from the Council that he believes may have resulted from an undisclosed complaint.
He continues, “It is unreasonable to think that somehow Paul or I would gain any electoral advantage from participating in BOS weekend activities and it is an over-reaction to insist that we be effectively erased from history and turned into ‘non-persons’ in some reprise of Big Brother in [George Orwell’s] 1984.”
Hirst has since sent Banyule City Council representatives two emails on 22 September and 23 September requesting further clarification on the decision. They were met with much of the same rhetoric around maintaining election integrity.
The BOS committee voted against the motion to have Hirst’s and Moreland’s names reinstated on the website at the committee meeting on 24 September.
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In a response to ArtsHub’s request for comment on 1 October, a Council spokesperson said, “During a local government election period, which occurs once every four years, councils must not be seen to promote or provide an advantage to any candidate. For this reason, Banyule Council requested that the profiles of two artists who are also election candidates be taken down from the website promoting the upcoming Open Studios event. The artists are able to participate in the event as individuals, but cannot use the event or be seen to use the event as a promotional opportunity for their candidacy.”
In Hirst’s view, “It’s a very unreasonable conclusion to draw that being on the Open Studios [website] is going to somehow benefit us as candidates.”
He explains, “Thousands of people vote in each ward, and we’re lucky if we get 30 to 50 people through our studio – that’s been the average over the last two years.”
With artists’ incomes already volatile, Hirst adds, “Not being on the website does disadvantage us because it means fewer people will see our profiles and therefore this may result in fewer visitors on the day – we could be disadvantaged by missing out on potential sales of our work.”
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Further, Hirst believes that the Council’s actions towards maintaining election integrity are not consistent across different contexts. He says other community events that utilise Council resources with candidates involved have not experienced the same issues.
When this question was posed to the Council spokesperson, they responded, “Council has provided similar advice for other proposed and planned community and sporting events and projects where Council is a partner, custodian or funding body.”
They continued, “Banyule City Council has proudly supported Banyule Open Studios over the last three years through the provision of funding, marketing support, advice and event spaces to the group. Banyule Council also provided funds to help deliver this year’s Open Studios weekend event.”
The spokesperson pointed out that, while the two artists have now been removed from the BOS website, previously distributed promotional material (before 17 September) such as print collateral and the online event map, still contain their information. The BOS weekend 2024 is also listed on the Banyule City Council website under ‘What’s on’.
“We acknowledge that having artist profiles on the Banyule Open Studios website is just one way for artists and their studios to be promoted,” they said.
Setting a prickly precedent?
Apart from this whole ordeal with Banyule City Council, Hirst is worried that the BOS committee’s decision to side with the Council will set a dangerous precedent.
“Now they’ve accepted a precedent that Council can dictate who is an acceptable artist to participate in BOS, which is a bad situation… I asked my fellow committee members what they would say the next time Council demands that an artist be removed from an exhibition. Nobody was game enough to give me an answer.”
Hirst adds that the Council’s decision is “potentially a breach of Victoria’s human rights legislation in that it denies our freedom of expression, it denies our freedom of association and it denies us an opportunity to participate in community life”.
Hirst has contacted the Local Government Inspectorate with his concerns, at the suggestion of Banyule City Council, Manager Government & Integrity, Kristen Forte, and Government and Integrity Coordinator, Linda Chapple, who stand firm in their position unless “required to review it by any oversight agency”. The complaint to the Inspectorate has been treated as a public interest disclosure and referred to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) for ruling.
BOS President Felicity Gordon has declined ArtsHub’s invitation for comment.
