Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The life of the arts, far from being an interruption or a distraction in the life of a nation, is very close to the centre of a nation's purpose and is a test of the quality of a nation's civilisation. The words of President Kennedy, inscribed at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, DC, speak to the importance of the arts to the soul of a nation. And as Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke, has said, 'A nation with a strong cultural policy is a nation where we know ourselves, know each other and invite the world to better know us.'

Australian books, artwork, film and television, as well as music and theatre, are entertainment, but they are something much more than that as well. They are expressions of who we are as a people. They capture our humour, our struggles, our landscapes and our stories and project them to the world. Australia has a proud history of recognising the importance of culture in the development of public policy. In 1994, then prime minister Paul Keating released Creative Nation, the first formally developed cultural policy from the federal government. In 2013, under the Labor government led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Creative Australia was born, with the goal of providing support to our vibrant cultural sector, which reflected the diversity of Australia and its people.

When the Albanese government was elected in 2022, arts minister Tony Burke began work on a proposal to breathe life into the arts sector once more—a sector that had been devastated by COVID-19 and years of funding cuts and uncertainty under the coalition. The result was 'Revive: a place for every story, a story for every place', a five-year plan to generate the momentum necessary for Australia's artists to thrive and Australia's stories to continue to be told. 'Revive' affirmed the government's commitment to the position of the arts in our culture and the importance of Australian heritage as part of Australia's national story.

We see culture and the arts as a national asset and a source of great pride, not an afterthought or a waste of money. I am proud to be a member of a party that has a track record of supporting creative endeavour, and I am proud of the government that has successfully delivered a comprehensive cultural policy in this country, the first in more than a decade. The Revive policy has modernised how we support the arts. It recognises that creativity today is found in different spaces and manifested in different ways, in spaces that have traditionally not benefited from government support, such as contemporary and live music, gaming, streaming and digital storytelling. The Australian content obligation on streaming services, a policy of this government that has now been implemented, will ensure that global platforms that generate billions of dollars from Australian audiences invest back into our production so that our stories can continue to be told here and shared with the rest of the world.

Live music is also a very important part of Australian culture, and Revive Live is providing critical support for our unique and much celebrated live music venues and festivals. In Western Australia that support is already making a difference. It means emerging artists can still find their audience at Mojo's, in North Freo, a venue that has launched the careers of many Australian musicians. It means bands can still take to the stage at the iconic Rosemount Hotel—the Rosie—where Perth indie band Death by Denim will play their last show this weekend, at the very same venue where they launched their careers a decade ago. These venues are more than just buildings. They are places where artists perform their first gigs, where members of the audience hear new songs for the first time, and where friends and memories are made. This is the stuff of Australian culture.

The government has also established Sharing the National Collection program for the National Gallery of Australia, to allow our wonderful national trove of art to be taken to where people live around the country, and we've already seen it come out to Western Australia with great success. The loan of artworks from the National Gallery to the Wanneroo Regional Gallery last year triggered a remarkable 481 per cent increase in the visitors to that gallery. All told, since the launch of Revive in January 2023, the government has completed 75 of the 85 things that it promised to do in the five-year plan. This government understands that, if we want Australian stories to continue to be told and Australian creativity to flourish, artists need support, and we need that support to be consistent and long provided.