George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Fifield, be silent. Mr President, I am delighted that for the first time, I suspect, ever the first question in question time is about arts funding. The Abbott government has such a wonderful story to tell about arts funding. We of course live in straightened fiscal circumstances, there is no doubt about that, as a result of the legacy of Australia's worst ever finance minister. Nevertheless, in this year's budget, once again, arts funding was protected. The same amount of funding that was available has been continued into the same year. Not a dollar has been taken away, not a dollar. But what we have done is that we have moved some 13 per cent of the funding that was paid for the arts through the Australia Council into a new program, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts. The reason for that is that there are some—