Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I know we are all tired, so I will try not to get too frustrated about this. But, Minister, as you know—and I am sure many other people know—the rhetoric is all very well but there is in fact not the money to do that. It became plain through the Senate committee inquiry on arts and craft, which we have been talking about throughout this debate, that the arts centres provide many services beyond what would be classed as running as an arts centre. Essentially, they are multifunctional centres. They provide community support, they provide a broad range of training, they support artists—they do all sorts of things beyond just administering the arts centres. That is very well known. So it is all very well for the rhetoric to say that they should be moving on, but the fact is that the money is not there to do that at the moment.

I am using arts centres as an example. There are other services that communities provide based on CDEP as well, and you know as well as I do that it is all very well to say that they should be profitable et cetera, but the fact is that, at the moment, they are not and it is very difficult for them to get there. So communities are going to suffer when the CDEP money goes from those organisations if there is not something to help there. I am glad that the Commonwealth has identified those 2,000 jobs, and, while I am on my feet, I ask: are all the Commonwealth positions that are currently supported by CDEP going to be replaced by full-time positions?