Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the attack by Minister Brandis on arts funding in this country. Before turning to arts funding issues, I do need to comment briefly on the fast-moving humanitarian crisis facing the Middle East.

This is the worst refugee crisis since World War II, with more than four million Syrians now having fled their country. It demands an urgent and compassionate response, and Australia is better placed than many other countries to make a strong humanitarian contribution. The common feature of a human crisis on this overwhelming scale is that it tends to highlight both the best and the worst of human nature. We have seen the very best of human nature through the immense outpouring of compassion around Australia and the world, with millions of people yearning to support and resettle people suffering so deeply overseas. But sadly in the last 24 hours this crisis has also started flushing out the very worst and darkest of human nature in the form of prejudice, bigotry, discrimination and hatred.

A human life is a human life regardless of race, gender or religion. If a human being is suffering and desperately needs our help, their race or religion should be irrelevant. Yet in the last 24 hours we have seen a push in some sections of the Liberal and National parties to discriminate between different refugees and to value one human life over another based on a person's religion. While I do not particularly want to draw attention to the hateful and disgusting comments of the National Party member for Dawson, George Christensen, on social media this morning, I do feel the need to place on record my deep contempt and sadness upon reading them. Millions of people are dying, suffering and fleeing for their lives. To attack those people based on their religion or to seek to poison Australian hearts and minds against those refugees by painting them as potential job stealers or welfare leeches is both despicable and beyond comprehension. We should naturally prioritise those refugees the UNHCR considers to be most at risk and most in need. Many of those people may be Christian; others may be Muslim; others may have no religion at all. It makes no difference. So I implore the Abbott government, in increasing Australia's overall refugee intake, to do so in a way that is fair and that demonstrates universal human compassion over prejudice and discrimination.

I wish to use the remainder of my time to highlight community concerns about arts funding in Australia, particularly in my home state of Tasmania. I expected the recent arts inquiry hearing in Hobart to be compelling, but I did not expect it to become quite as emotional and poignant as it was. All day long, passionate and hardworking artists and administrators expressed their heartfelt fear, anger, despair and uncertainty about their industry's future.

Twenty-five witnesses appeared at the Hobart hearing. Their skills and stories were immensely varied, but their message to arts minister Senator George Brandis was completely united: immediately restore the $105 million you have ripped from the Australia Council to set up your own personal arts slush fund. For almost 50 years the Australia Council for the Arts has independently assessed projects and allocated federal arts funding. Those decisions are made by artistic experts at arm's length from government. While its limited budget has left many projects unfunded and some artists disappointed, the Australia Council is almost universally respected as an independent umpire of competence and integrity. None of that seemed to matter to the Liberal arts minister Senator George Brandis.

Senator Brandis used this year's federal budget to rip $105 million from the Australia Council, and that is 13 per cent of the council's annual budget. The sum of $28 million was cut the year before, putting the industry under immense pressure. Senator Brandis has then diverted that funding to set up his own separate funding body, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts, in which funding decisions will be made by the arts ministry and ultimately approved by him. That leaves far less Australia Council funding to be shared amongst groups and artists, which they rely on, creating massive uncertainty. It is bad enough that Senator Brandis is cutting the independent funding body to establish his own slush fund and hand-pick his own favourites. It is Liberal Party culture wars in the extreme. But there is a catch that makes Senator Brandis's vandalism of the system even worse. In fact, there are several nasty catches.

Firstly, small-to-medium arts operators, along with individual artists, appear to be excluded from applying for grants under Senator Brandis's NPEA program. Secondly, virtually every Tasmanian arts organisation is a small or medium operator, meaning the impact on our dynamic but financially fragile arts sector will be particularly destructive and felt the most. Thirdly, the NPEA's guidelines indicate that, unlike the Australia Council, some successful funding applicants chosen by the minister will not be publically announced. At worst, that opens the door for politically motivated funding decisions to slip through with little or no public scrutiny or accountability. At best, it creates a perception issue for Minister Brandis and the larger groups he chooses to fund. Where is the transparency and accountability in using taxpayers' money and then not even publically announcing where you are funding those projects?

There are 148 small-to-medium Australian arts companies and 28 major organisations currently funded by the Australia Council. Between 2010 and 2012 those small-to-medium companies produced 2,897 new Australian works, or 88 per cent of the body of work, while the majors produced 299 new works, which is 12 per cent of the overall body of work. Therefore, any attack on the viability of the small-to-medium sector is a fundamental attack on the engine room of Australian culture, creativity and innovation.

An example is Kickstart Arts, an arts company in my home state, which has touched the lives of tens of thousands of Tasmanians in recent years. At the Hobart inquiry, Jami Bladel spoke passionately about how its new mentoring program for 20 young artists as well as its Teaching Artist in Residence program engage more than 1,000 young people each year. These career pathways and social benefits now hang in the balance. Above all, the inquiry has shown this is not just about artistic production and appreciation. Crushing small-to-medium arts groups means crushing Tasmanian jobs. It means crushing the community programs that help educate and inspire our kids and crushing effective grassroots efforts to improve mental health, boost confidence, improve literacy and social skills and divert young people away from drug abuse and crime.

However, Minister Brandis also has a rare opportunity here. Given that he has diverted Australia Council funding into his own slush fund, he has a rare chance to reverse a policy mistake while having little impact on the overall federal budget bottom line. He has the chance to show tens of thousands of artists, aspiring artists, arts workers and arts lovers that he genuinely understands and appreciates their unique contribution to our national life.

This is about us as a nation. It is about our national identity. It is about jobs. It is about wellbeing. It is about a lot more than one minister creating a slush fund to pick his favourites. This is about continuing to ensure we have an arts sector in this country—a creative industry in this country. That can only happen if we have a well-funded Australia Council for the Arts, not one that has $105 million ripped out of it so that a minister for the arts of the day can set up his own slush fund. Minister Brandis should listen, learn, change his mind and restore funding to the Australia Council for the Arts.