Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition supports the Protection of Cultural Objects on Loan Bill 2012. The bill is intended to provide greater certainty and confidence in the minds of institutions, both internationally and domestically, when it comes to cultural objects borrowed from overseas for temporary exhibition in Australian libraries, museums and galleries. Let me say at the outset that there is no disagreement when it comes to the way that cultural objects, which include both works of art and cultural artefacts, can enrich the lives of all Australians. When these objects are borrowed from foreign sources there can be little doubt that they enrich the experience of Australians visiting our collecting institutions, museums, libraries and galleries. They also add to the viability, utility and economic success of the institutions.

This bill is intended to address an issue relating to the manner in which cultural objects are borrowed by Australian institutions from overseas sources, when such arrangements are for the purposes of temporary exhibition. The bill establishes a scheme which provides some protection to these cultural objects for the duration of their loan to institutions approved by the minister. The scheme, as the minister has already explained, augments the existing Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986 which gave effect in Australian law to the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. As I have said, we support the bill. We hope it has the effect over time of helping to build confidence, in the minds of the owners of cultural objects overseas, that Australia is a safe place for loan and exhibition of their works and pieces. We support and agree with the government when it comes to this bill and to the establishment of this particular scheme.

Having said that, it is regrettable that when it comes to borrowing, the government was not able to confine itself to bringing international works to Australian exhibitions. Instead, as we know, it is a government which is surviving very much on borrowed time. And it is a government which is surviving on borrowed money. When Australian galleries, libraries and museums borrow, the result is the enrichment of the cultural and artistic lives of all Australians; when the Labor government borrows, it digs all Australians deeper into debt and deficit.

As predictable as the Labor government borrowing money it can never repay is the minister taking every opportunity to talk about the national cultural policy.

In speaking to this bill the minister has this time tried to spruik how it will deepen our ties with Asia. Yet it remains a policy void—something that has long been said to exist, but something that no one has actually ever seen.

What is very real is the coalition's plan to deepen our ties with the region and to build cultural exchange. Just last week the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, addressed the National Press Club and talked about our policy to engage with our region through the new Colombo Plan. It is going to be a two-way arrangement between Australia and other countries in our region, exchanging our best and brightest, and part of that cultural exchange will be building and connecting our next generation of Australians with the world.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition and shadow foreign minister, Julie Bishop, told the APEC Study Centre in Melbourne a few weeks ago:

We want it to be the norm not the exception that Australian students spend part of their tertiary studies in a university in our region—a rite of passage. The opportunity for our students to learn from the culture, politics and society of Australia’s neighbours will be of enormous, incalculable benefit, both individually and to our country.

Under the coalition's policy, more young Australians would grow in an appreciation and understanding of the cultural, social and political differences and challenges of our world. That is our policy, and it is a real policy. But the minister's national cultural policy is not a policy, it is a fairytale; a fairytale that is carried along from one generation of Labor arts minister to the next generation of Labor arts minister. With an election having now been called for 14 September, no doubt many in the arts community will have by now concluded that the Gillard government could be finished before its national cultural policy is.

We support the objects of this bill. It is a sensible bill that will build the confidence of people overseas if they were going to loan objects and art to Australian institutions, and therefore it has the support of the opposition.

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