Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australian artists tell our nation's collective story. Albert Namatjira painted ghostly gums. AC/DC was a group of Fremantle boys who took the world by storm, singing about pubs along the Canning Highway in my electorate of Swan. And Bluey, Australia's favourite cartoon, which has a captive audience of both parents and children, has highlighted all things Australian. From the distinct architecture of the Queenslander to a script that has lifelong lessons for both children and adults, it captures in a unique Australian way our sense of who we are, our laidback attitude and our resilience, with good Australian humour.

There are talented Australian voices in Bluey, such as Leigh Sales, Bob Irwin and Anthony Field, the blue Wiggle. Bandit is voiced by David McCormack from the band Custard. The other thing that's beautiful about Bluey is the musical score. Each episode is a masterpiece of music, dialogue and art, weaving these multiple forms of art together. Another artist from my electorate of Swan is Jill Ansell, who was one of the finalists in the Archibald competition. Each are a source of national pride.

This government promotes and supports Australian artists because what they produce is more than a product. They give us a way we can learn more about different parts of ourselves and a way to project thousands of the beautiful intricacies of our national identity onto the international stage. The arts are also a part of Labor's identity. When the Dunstan Labor government in South Australia created the South Australian Film Corporation, it was when our film industry was floundering. It was an initiative that gave us Picnic at Hanging Rock, Storm Boy and Breaker Morant. The Whitlam government refined the process of providing funds to arts organisations through the Australia Council. Bob Hawke created Film Finance Corporation Australia, which we can thank for Muriel's Wedding, Strictly Ballroom and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Australia's last two cultural policies were delivered under Labor governments: Creative Nation under Paul Keating and Creative Australia under Julia Gillard.

Some people perceive that science and maths are the opposite of art, but, for me as a scientist, I see them as two sides of the same coin. We both learn about the classics. We experiment using different parameters. Some of the work we do is edgy and groundbreaking. Some feel uncomfortable about the new space. Sometimes we create a work of art, but sometimes we don't and we learn from it. But both are needed for the future of humanity. I would say that there is a bias towards STEM, and it's because of this perception about creating products, but the truth is that we need both. As I said, it's like two sides of the same coin.

Australian creatives are incredibly talented people, but the seriousness of their work should not be lost on those opposite. It's a $17 billion industry which employs an estimated 400,000 Australians. In my home electorate, there are about 2½ thousand people who work in the arts. On my campaign, I met Rebecca Thomson, a fantastic community campaigner. Bec and Izzy McDonald created Labor for the Arts in WA, and I want to take this opportunity to recognise their work in promoting the scale of the contribution that Australian artists make to our communities, as well as the work that they have done in engaging the Minister for the Arts in developing our national arts policy.

We know it hasn't been an easy time for those in our arts industry recently. The pandemic created different fortunes for the arts. The pandemic recreated the shared experience of watching TV series worldwide, which had been fading from our culture due to on-demand services. Many of us clicked on to streaming services and plugged into shows like Squid Game, Tiger King and Bluey, while also tuning into our premiers' daily COVID updates. For streaming services, podcasts and online content creators, this was a period that boomed and rapidly changed the way we interacted with the arts.

For our traditional in-person cultural mediums, the pandemic was a catastrophe, and many of those industries have yet to recover. Live music, theatre and even the mighty film industry suffered tremendously during this period. At the premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, Steven Spielberg was caught on camera saying to Tom Cruise: 'You might have saved the theatrical distribution. Seriously, Maverick might have saved the entire theatrical industry.' Such was the dire state of the industry with all its component feeder pieces. It was almost at the point of collapse. I know how badly live music and touring artists were smashed in this period. My husband's son loves electro ambient music so much that he DJ's on a community radio station called RTRFM and, occasionally, in venues around Perth. In the context of Australia and the world, WA was relatively unscathed by COVID, thanks to the policies of our outgoing Premier of WA and the then health minister Roger Cook. But, even the few lockdowns that did occur had major effects on the WA music industry that still cause ripples to this day. This has been seen through not only a reduced number of events but also the diversity of operators.

The loss of local theatre, live music and film diversity in Australia is a huge loss to the collective Australian identity. These mediums are how we tell our collective stories and how we define ourselves. This has never been more important to us as Australians. We live in an amazing age of connectivity to the world, but we need to be able to support artists to express themselves in telling our ever-evolving story as Australians or we risk losing this important part of our national history. These stories can be as simple as existential songs about friendship and the dangers of kangaroos when driving at twilight on country WA roads.

Methyl Ethel is a Western Australian band that has benefited greatly from the creation of Australian music's main cultural music incubator, Triple J. Gough Whitlam was the visionary who recognised that an evolving Australian nation needed more of its own art and culture and established Australian's first youth radio station in 1975. Eventually that evolved into Triple J, and the music economy around Triple J has been the primary means of developing and marketing new music to a mass Australian youth audience and has paid back its investment many times over. In an interview on Triple J in 1994, former Prime Minister Paul Keating noted:

… Triple J's big contribution has been in breaking in new Australian bands and not just the Coral Snakes today, but INXS, Yothu Yindi, Midnight Oil …

I am thrilled to speak on this legislation that defines a new arts policy for Australia. The Morrison government not only failed to support the arts industry during the pandemic but kicked them while they were hurting. We are restoring $200 million of cut funding to the sector. We are creating a new dedicated body, Music Australia, to support and invest in the Australian music industry. We know that an investment in Australian cultural industries comes back to us many times over in our cultural exports and a thriving local industry. We on our side of politics are lucky to have a Prime Minister and a Minister for the Arts who share a devotion to Australian music and culture and continuing a long Labor tradition of supporting the arts and cultural industries.

The Creative Australia Bill will establish Creative Australia as a modern entity with a new governance arrangement, including establishing Music Australia and Creative Workplaces. The arts aren't just a hobby. For thousands of Australians it's a workplace. It's how they pay for a roof over their head. Like any workplace, it has its own occupational hazards. Creative Workplaces will work with artists, industries and employers to raise and maintain safety standards for all art forms and ensure that matters are referred to relevant authorities as appropriate. Creative Workplaces will set minimum standards and rates of pay for the sector. Organisations seeking government funding will be expected to meet these standards and, as a government, we should be working to ensure that when we are allocating taxpayer funds through grants we are diligent in ensuring that the standard for the arts sector is what the community expects.

Former Minister for the Arts George Brandis created his own fund by taking money out of the Australia Council. He allocated it to major art companies through his own program. It was a slap in the face for smaller groups that make up part of the bigger cultural picture. This bill delivers on key elements of Revive, the government's national cultural policy, to establish Creative Australia and return the George Brandis cuts. The bill establishes a new board as the governing and accountable authority of Creative Australia, reconstituted with appointments made under this new legislation. Membership will be increased up to 14 members. It responds to the more than 1,200 submissions on the national cultural policy and the 14 town halls, attended by 800 stakeholders.

When we make policy, we should be listening to the communities, not talking to them from the top down. This is a lesson that we learned from the ongoing Voice debates. Following from this, I would like to commend this bill to the House because it's a policy that will set a new vision for our cultural landscape. We need this, but we need to do this with the support of the arts sector.

See this speech in context