Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier this year I reported to the House on some arts funding announcements for Queensland, and I noted the additional assistance this government is making to Opera Queensland: $2.3 million over three years following the recommendations of the National Opera Review. I also noted the additional funding for Queensland Ballet to maintain the Commonwealth's funding share at 20 per cent. Of course, Queensland's arts industry is not just defined by the four major performing arts companies, as important and as impressive as they are. In my first year as a member, I've been delighted to visit the big and the small, the collaborative and the independent, from traditional arts and Indigenous arts through to emerging fields like circus and cutting-edge digital offerings. I should say in passing how enjoyable it's been to interact with our arts sector in Brisbane and around Queensland. The variety and the opportunities for Brisbane's arts scene were firmly in my mind when I campaigned heavily against Labor's lockout laws, which would have the terrible impact of shutting down many of the live music and other creative spaces in our city and places like the valley.

Earlier this year, I raised some concerns about Queensland's share of national arts funding. Those concerns have been building in many of the discussions that I've had with local artists, companies, venues and other arts sector participants not just in Brisbane but right around Queensland. I want to inform the parliament tonight that other LNP members and senators in Queensland have similar concerns. Indeed, this issue is of such significance to my LNP colleagues around Queensland that we are acting together, united, to pursue this issue. Team Queensland—that is, all 26 LNP members and senators in Queensland—are pursuing this issue of arts funding with the same focus and unity that we've been dedicating to our defence industry and the Land 400 project we've been fighting to have based in the great state of Queensland.

My colleagues in the Queensland LNP and I have been troubled as we've uncovered more evidence that Queensland has traditionally been receiving less arts funding per capita than any other state or territory in the Commonwealth. When it comes to per capita funding for the arts, Queensland appears to be very last in the queue. That inequity is not a recent phenomenon; it appears to be an entrenched trend, the result of years of institutional inertia that we suspect becomes self-reinforcing if it has the effect of sending Queensland's artistic talent and management capabilities to other states. Queensland receiving a lower per capita share of national arts funding is doubly curious when you consider how, out of all of the states, Queensland has the largest proportion of people living outside its capital city. You'd therefore expect the costs of delivering arts to the whole community to be, on average, higher for our more regional population.

Here are the numbers. In the 2015-16 budget—that's the last year where we've been able to see exactly how the funding's been allocated between the states and territories—Queensland received just 12.9 per cent of the Australia Council's funding, despite being home to about 20 per cent of the nation's population—20 per cent of the population receiving just 13 per cent of the funding. That means Queenslanders are receiving about a third less than they should be on average when it comes to arts funding, and that's a far lower ratio than the residents of any other state or territory.

This is about jobs and it's about culture. Our defence industry focus has been about jobs—advanced manufacturing jobs and industry for Queensland—but the arts is also about jobs. It's a large and growing source of employment and an industry in and of itself. In terms of culture, I truly hope that that entrenched lower funding trend is not a result of any prevailing view in other states that Queensland is somehow a bogan state not interested in arts, because nothing could be further from the truth.

Irrespective of the debates about the total amount of arts funding or the delivery mechanisms for that funding, the fact is that Queensland should be getting more equitable funding, and we see absolutely no reason for Queensland to be getting less. All 26 Queensland LNP members and senators have signed a letter which we've just sent to the Australia Council, asking serious questions about arts funding; the proportion received by Queensland, and regional Queensland in particular; and exactly what is being done about it. I'll continue to work hard, along with every single one of my colleagues—every other LNP member and senator from Queensland—to get a better outcome for Queensland's arts industry.