Victoria’s new Creative Industries Minister, the Hon Vicki Ward MP, urgently needs to reverse the funding cuts to arts organisations recently instituted by Premier Jacinta Allan and the previous Creative Industries Minister Colin Brooks.
At a time when Victoria’s creative industries are confronting significant structural pressures, including workforce reductions at major institutions like Museums Victoria and significant funding cuts to Creative Victoria, the sector is facing an increasingly uncertain and constrained operating environment.
Victoria needs a Creative Industries Minister who understands the significance of the arts, both for the state’s cultural identity and its economy. Yet Ward has no prior experience within the creative industries sector.
Ward’s previous portfolios, including as Minister for Emergency Services and Minister for Natural Disaster Recovery, bear no relation to the arts or cultural sector, raising further question about the depth of sector-specific expertise informing decisions at the highest levels of government.
Creative industries cuts – quick links
The damage to Victoria’s cultural sector
Allan’s government has taken a ruthless approach to arts funding in Victoria. Long funded, established arts organisations have been completely stripped of their funding, doing immense damage to our arts and creative sector.
This is a sector that defines Victoria’s cultural identity, and contributes more than $40 billion annually to the Victorian economy.
The list of organisations whose funding has been slashed to zero continues to grow, at least eight organisations having already been fully defunded, with many more facing reduced funding outcomes.
The Public Galleries Association, a critical body supporting our public galleries with training and specialist knowledge, is among those defunded entirely.
In addition, six public galleries that once received four-year funding from the Creative Enterprises Program have had their funding slashed to two years. This includes Castlemaine Art Museum, East Gippsland Gallery, Jewish Museum of Australia, Linden New Art, McCelland Sculpture Park and Gallery and Shepparton Art Museum.
ArtsHub: Defunded Victorian arts organisations address Creative Industries Minister
You will think it’s passing strange to see funding cuts to the Shepparton Arts Museum after the taxpayer has spent $50 million redeveloping the gallery.
Even the Footscray based Snuff Puppets have had their modest $112,000 annual support snuffed out.
Victorians want action
These are not just minor cuts but massive blows to arts institutions that have defined Victoria’s creative identity.
A petition opposing the cuts to Writers Victoria’s funding has now been signed by 11,000 Victorians and will trigger a debate in the Legislative Council.
The cuts have even reached the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic a long established body dating back to 1853 and which receives no direct government money, but had favourable lease support at the Drill Hall in A’Beckett Street in Melbourne. They have now been forced out of the building by Labor.
My office has submitted an FOI to get to the bottom of Labor’s decision-making around the RMP, and after a five month wait, without documents, VCAT held a first hearing. The government is supposed to be a model litigant but is dragging its feet on the release of what are apparently embarrassing documents. We are still awaiting the documents ahead of a compulsory conference.
Are more cuts coming?
Allan has ordered two ’reviews’ which appear designed to clear the way for further attacks on the sector: a general review of funding under the Regional Partnerships Program, and a review of Industry Service Organisations. Both these reviews are occurring after the cuts to funding.
In the case of the Industry Service Organisations review, funding for organisations under the Creative Enterprises Program has been structured so the bodies have two years of funding, instead of the previous four, effectively cutting budgets in half. This will damage our arts organisations’ long-term sustainability. Any further funding is contingent on the outcome of this review.
These two reviews are being conducted by Creative Victoria, which reports directly to the Victorian Minister for Creative Industries, raising concerns about the impartiality of the reviews.
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The task ahead
The new Creative Industries Minister must begin her tenure by explaining the basis for these cuts.
The Allan Government’s failure to manage the state’s finances and its lack of basic cost control across construction industry projects has seen cost overruns surge past $50 billion, and the state debt climbing towards $200 billion.
In recent months, it has become clear from testimony to the Queensland Royal Commission by Geoffrey Watson SC that corrupt payments on ‘big build’ sites may well total between $15 and $30 billion.
The Victorian Government’s failure to tackle this corruption and its ballooning debt have not been without consequences, with service delivery in health, education and the creative industries paying the price for Labor’s failure to control costs and corruption.
Arts organisations with small funding commitments are now seen by Labor as expendable.
The Opposition has also submitted a FOI to Creative Victoria to interrogate some of these inexplicable arts funding decisions. So far, Creative Victoria has refused to provide us with these documents, and we have referred the matter to VCAT. We are currently awaiting a directions hearing.
What process did the Allan Government go through to arrive at these savage and gratuitous cuts?
The Opposition has strongly opposed these cuts. A Jess Wilson Government recognises the importance of the arts and creative industries, both for the soul of our state and for our economy. Short-sighted cuts that leave our state poorer, in every sense, need to be strongly resisted.
We now call on the new Creative Industries Minister to reverse them before further cultural and economic damage is done.
Ward has her work cut out for her and must stand up for the arts and creative industries inside the Allan Government.
