Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

FLETCHER (—) (): I rise to speak on behalf of the coalition on the Creative Australia Bill 2023 and the Creative Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023. By all who believe that what the Australian arts sector needs is more Commonwealth arts officials, this bill will be greeted with delight. The coalition by contrast believes that arts funding should as much as possible go to support artists, performers and arts workers, backstage crew, ushers, front of house—all of the people who work to deliver a great show for those who are there to see it. Whether it's performing arts, visual arts, literature or whatever art form, getting the money to the front line is a good principle and a principle which is almost entirely absent from this bill.

These two bills are part of this government's legislative agenda to implement decisions announced as part of its national cultural policy. This government seems very keen on imposing priorities, principles and values upon artistic and cultural activity. Whether that will actually produce better artistic content is highly doubtful. The lessons of history are not encouraging. If programming and curatorial choices are driven by political priorities, you end up with pretty dreadful art. Stalinist Russia with its turgid dramas and operas celebrating heroic workers exceeding their tractor production quotas is but one of many examples. A much better approach might be to leave it to the artists and performers, rather than putting our faith in having many more arts bureaucrats. But these bills, give effect to a rather different set of priorities.

So far, we've seen legislation passed which changed the name of the Australia Council to 'Creative Australia'. The Creative Australia Bill 2023 before the House today is the next piece of this legislative agenda. The government tells us that the new Creative Australia entity will have expanded functions and responsibility and a new governance structure as the Creative Australia body replaces the Australia Council body. The associated bill—the Creative Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill—will repeal the legislation as it relates to the Australia Council, essentially dissolving the entity of the Australia Council under law. Does this mean the old Australia Council is abolished and replaced by Creative Australia? Apparently it's not quite that simple, because we are also told that Creative Australia will be overseen by a board of people who will now be known as the Australia Council Board. Unlike the old Australia Council, which had 12 people serving on it, this body will have 14. Apparently the reason for this convoluted arrangement is to the honour the Whitlam government which originally established the Australia Council. This does raise the rather obvious question: why not just keep calling the whole thing 'the Australia Council'?

We are told that the new body will oversee support for contemporary music and safe and respectful workplaces for artists and arts workers. The bill outlines responsibilities for Music Australia and Creative Workplaces, the two entities which will be established within—or underneath or subject to—Creative Australia, and those two entities will be subject to the internal procedures and rules of Creative Australia. Further, the Creative Australia board—which, as we know, is going to be called 'the Australia Council Board'—may give direction to these two entities. All crystal clear, I think you'll agree, Deputy Speaker Vasta!

Several aspects of these new arrangements are troubling. The first is that we are seeing a re-weighting of spending towards more Commonwealth arts officials at the expense of genuine frontline arts activity. According to the budget papers, average staffing levels for the Australia Council will increase by 32 per cent, from an estimated 108 in 2022-23 to 143 in 2023-24. The government has announced funding of $199 million over four years for the new body. At least some of this has been redirected from a number of places, with the current government having cancelled several programs funded under the previous coalition government, including the temporary support fund and the balance of the Location Incentive program. The simple fact is that every dollar which goes to fund more bureaucrats is a dollar that cannot go to artists, performers and all those in the arts and creative sector who deliver actual arts and creative activities that Australians can be informed, entertained, stimulated, provoked and fascinated by.

This kind of game playing with arts budgets is an increasingly familiar feature of Burkian arts administration. Consider the perplexing appearance and subsequent disappearance of the minister's Live Performance Support Fund. Announced in the October budget as part of a $38.6 million supporting the arts program, it was supposedly going to deliver funding for plays, concerts and festivals from November 2022 through to February 2023. But then nothing more was heard of it until the recent budget confirmed the unfortunate demise of this program, without a dollar being spent.

There is a clear difference in focus between the two parties when it comes to what we want to fund in the arts. The coalition's focus was unapologetically, unashamedly, on stimulating as many new shows, events, festivals and productions as possible and getting them attended by as many Australians as possible all across the 7.7 million square kilometres of this great southern continent—across regional and remote Australia and throughout our suburbs, as well as in the CBDs that are more usually the territory that is familiar to arts ministers. In fact, 541 shows and events all around Australia were funded under our $200 million Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand, or RISE, Fund. We even allocated a further $20 million towards this program in the March 2022 budget.

Now, you would think that any incoming arts minister consumed with a passion to stimulate as much arts activity possible would gratefully seize upon $20 million of allocated but unexpended funding towards additional arts activities and would move with alacrity to spread that money across the nation, stimulating yet more shows, festivals, productions and events and giving yet more Australians the opportunity to see outstanding performances and shows and to read outstanding literature. All of that would have been open to the incoming minister, having regard to the availability of that $20 million that was just sitting there, ready to be used. What did this great champion of the arts do? He cancelled it—killed it, chopped it. That was $20 million which could have been put to work as early as May or June last year towards stimulating more arts activities. But, for reasons which remain mysterious—another of the enduring mysteries of Burkian arts administration—that money was never used, never deployed, never take advantage of.

I have spoken of the coalition's preferred approach, which is getting money out to frontline arts workers, performers and backstage crews to put on shows and enable more Australians to see them all across our country. The current government has a very different approach. They prefer to spend more money on bureaucrats, more money on Commonwealth arts officials. It may be that the minister's experience as he walks around Australia, as he goes through airports and goes to events, is that constantly approached by people saying, 'Minister, what we need are more Commonwealth arts officials.' It is possible that he has discerned this sentiment is widely held across our land by Australians of all kinds. It is possible.

I have to say, in my own time as arts minister, I never discerned such a sentiment. I can confidently say that in three years never once was I approached by any Australian saying to me, 'Minister, do you know what we need? We need more Commonwealth arts officials.' But it may be—I will readily concede this—that I was simply not listening as carefully as the current minister; that is possible. It may also be that the two parties have a very different philosophy when it comes to how arts funding should be deployed. One party is much more interested in getting the money to the front line—more shows, more events, more productions, more artistic and cultural activity—and the other party is much more interested in more bureaucrats. I think the facts speak for themselves.

I want to turn to one other aspect of what is before the House today, the complicated arrangements which have been introduced by the minister. There are on the body previously known as the Australia Council 12 members, quite a few of whom were appointed in the last few months of the previous government. I predict that we will see at least some of those members, particularly those perceived as being ideologically tainted because they are perceived to have some kind of association with the coalition, dumped by this minister. And I predict that that decision will occur regardless of whether the people who are dumped, in fact, have proven subject matter expertise when it comes to arts administration. It is true that when he came into government the now Prime Minister claimed he wouldn't play politics. He offered to govern in a fair and consultative way, but I predict we will see that promise broken when it comes to the Australia Council, particularly when it comes to certain members of that body appointed by the previous government. It is a grubby way to operate but, sadly, all too typical of this government.

I conclude by observing that, although the coalition will not be opposing these bills, the case has not been made for the changes contained within them, and they are not in the main things we would choose to do, as I think I have made clear. Our funding priorities are quite different—more activity in the front line. We think, frankly, that Australia is already richly served by its current complement of arts bureaucrats. We do not detect that they need more. I conclude by pointing to the historical record, because we hear a lot of misleading rhetoric from the current minister. The simple fact is record arts funding from the Commonwealth government in this nation was achieved in the 2021-22 financial year, when Commonwealth government funding for the arts reached $1 billion. I make the point that that occurred under a Liberal-National government. Record arts funding in this country was delivered under a Liberal-National government and, despite the never-ending rhetoric from the current minister, that fact has not changed. The coalition has always had a clear focus on an appropriate balance between public and private sector spending when it comes to arts and cultural activity. We have also had a clear focus on the economic importance of the arts. I make the point that this is not necessarily a political divide. Indeed, the portfolio under the Victorian government has been known as the creative economy for some time. But the simple fact is that, while the previous government's focus was on stimulating more arts activity, the present government has a different focus—more arts officials is the solution to all our problems! The two bills before the House are reflective of the very different philosophy and very different focus of the current government as compared to the previous government when it comes to how to approach funding for the arts.

Debate adjourned.