So Tony Burke has stepped into the breach left by former Arts Minister Simon Creans’ demise. It must be the shortest turnaround ever between a well-received major policy announcement and the sacking of the Minister responsible – a mere eight days. New Minister Burke has moved quickly to clear the air on disability and to say that he supports and fully intends to implement the policy.
Will Minister Burke also consider addressing any of the other shortcomings or failings of the policy? Like any policy there are winners and losers, sectors whose specific needs and requests might have been overlooked, and that is to be expected. The one area that gets a mention in the Creative Australia document, but has significant issues that remain glaring omission is the Tertiary Education sector of the Arts.
You don’t need to be that close to the sector to recognise that it is one of impending crisis, through a clash of funding cutbacks with the much publicised ever increasing need for skilled and appropriately trained graduates. The emphasis in the policy on innovation (although that’s strangely limited to technological innovation) and on expansion of the sector, along with the various state economically based creative industry strategies, reinforces the need for a larger skilled workforce. Yet, in 2013, we have a sector where Universities are continuing a trend of ‘getting out of ‘ applied and creative arts. Those that remain ‘in’ are either specialising in particular areas and underwriting the costs as a badge of honour, or dramatically cutting back on facilities, staff, teaching hours and intake numbers.
Perhaps because the Australia Council does not deal directly with the tertiary training of Arts it gets overlooked from within the Office of the Arts as well, but one of Creative Australia’s strengths is meant to be its cross-portfolio agenda and scope. Clearly this is a boundary was not significantly overcome in developing the policy, and it weakens the final product considerably.
Much has been made, for instance, of the benefits of removing the artform silos in the Australia Council funding programs, yet they remain in tertiary training for artists through (at best) artform based faculties, often on separate campuses or (at worst) in totally separate single-artform institutions. The policy claims that it aims to “build, produce and nurture world-class artists and creators”, while remaining silent on the separation of artforms within tertiary training. The Australia Council Review argued these silos will prevent such an outcome from happening if continued in funding structures. Surely the same rationale must apply to the initial training of our artists.
The policy also seeks to “ensure the opportunities, training and skills development needed for careers in the arts and creative sectors are not limited by social circumstance”, whereas the closure of courses at institutions such as the University of Western Sydney and the need for many, if not most first year creative arts students to move away from home in order to attend a course creates such a socio-economic barrier. Many will find the costs of relocation prohibitive. Others will find the time required for extensive commuting on top of their studies means they cannot support their studies through part time employment, and so on. These two valuable aims are potentially undermined through neglect of the critical issues in tertiary arts training.
Defenders of the policy will point out that the sector was not overlooked completely, thanks to the new funding initiatives for what former Minister Crean called the ‘Elite Training Institutions’. But this, in itself, is highly problematic. There is no rationale for why these institutions are ‘Elite’. Indeed it could be argued that they are in reality an accidental list of organisations which over time, and for various differing reasons have managed to secure direct funding from the Commonwealth. That is not to say they don’t deserve to receive such funds, but why them and not others? Why does Australia have two elite circus training organisations but no elite visual arts training organisation? Many other similar, unanswerable questions remain unasked.
To its credit the Education Investment Fund has supported three excellent multi-million dollar projects to improve arts training facilities, and they are listed in the policy and included in its’ total value, but the rationale for those decisions lies within another portfolio’s program. They were happening regardless of Creative Australia, so while this initiative is welcome and of assistance to those three institutions, it is not part of a program specifically aimed at the Arts.
Let us move on to vocational training , which the policy acknowledges “…is critical for the sector…artists rate formal training as the most important source of skills for their professional development”. Yet TAFE, the largest single provider of vocational training in creative and applied arts is completely ignored in the document. TAFE is experiencing as much difficulty as the Universities involved in creative arts. In NSW for example, visual arts courses at TAFE have been much more than decimated in the current reduction of funds in NSW with many, if not most courses being effectively discontinued.
Indeed, given that there is extensive expertise in the delivery of vocational training outcomes within the sector, and have been for quite some time, it is mystifying that the Arts Ready program will be managed through the AFL. Sports Ready may well be a marvellous model, but surely it could be licenced and applied through an arts institution based delivery model which makes use of existing infrastructures and skills bases, creates direct pathways into them for post-Arts Ready engagement, and connects to the core business of arts training institutions. Surely that would be more to the long term benefit of the sector and the participants than providing a non-arts institution with an add-on activity so long as Government funding is maintained. Again, no rationale for this decision is provided in the document.
There is no doubt in my mind that the most effective strategy Creative Australia could have included in order to significantly address the complex issues in the tertiary training sector in the arts would have been to commission a formal and detailed expert review. Ideally, it would have taken place at the time of the various other reviews which preceded and informed the policy, but failing that, it is not too late.
Minister Burke, there’s something for you to follow up and put your own stamp on this policy.
