Photo: Second Sighting
It is interesting to compare the rhetoric of the previous Coalition government that Australians should be ‘relaxed and comfortable’ with the different message the current government is sending – ‘I know it will hurt but trust me it will be good for you’.
The nervous tremor caused by the release of the Commission of Audit report may be a moment of horror from which everyone hopes next week’s federal Budget will seem like a sigh of relief. We are obviously being blooded for some blood letting.
The current big talking point for the arts is the Commission of Audit’s proposal to create a single huge arts council by bringing together the Australia Council, Creative Partnerships Australia and Screen Australia (with the Bundanon Trust added as a somewhat oddly ill fitting extra). This purportedly is to reduce administrative costs and foster closer collaboration. What is claimed is that it will provide “improved capacity for grant and procurement processes to be centrally and professionally managed.”
Whoah! Is this really going to be a remotely good thing? The recent restructure of each of these individual entities has already been causing a great deal of disruption in the arts sector. Their success or failure is yet to be judged.
The Australia Council is right in the middle of a major reform process resulting from the review conducted by independent consultants who recommended the dissolution of the separate artform boards and a more corporate model governing board. The reform is still a work in progress. The Australia Council Act was rewritten and amended after intensive lobbying by the arts sector to ensure that certain key functions were included (community participation, cultural diversity, Indigenous arts practice and freedom of expression) and that the arms length principle was maintained.
Only recently, the Mitchell Review of Private Sector Support for the Arts proposed the amalgamation of the Australia Business Arts Foundation and Artsupport which was implemented in 2013. At the same time a proposal was floated for it to join with the Australia Council. However, this was not followed through, presumably because the forced marriage of the public and private sector was seen as being injudicious. This may be something that the current Arts Minister, George Brandis should take time to think about with his proposal to try to force artists and arts organisations to accept private sector support like it or not, in order to secure government funding.
Screen Australia was another new body created from the merger of three agencies (the previous Australian Film Commission, the Film Finance Corporation and Film Australia) completed only recently. Its retiring Chair Glen Boreham AM has said, “Australian and international audiences recognise and appreciate the growing sophistication and diversity of our film and television content…Over the last six years we have reduced operating costs by 40 per cent and channelled funds into the development and production of quality Australian programming.”
Not only would another major amalgamation be completely disruptive just as they thought they were safe, but the film fraternity is jumping up and down about the recommendation to halve Screen Australia’s funding and focus on “areas of Australian content, including those with an historical perspective that might not otherwise be funded”. Cuts of this magnitude would cause devastation to an already very modest budget.
Each of these bodies operates in a very different way which has evolved as appropriate for their modus operandi. The three are so different – the Australia Council is a public sector grant giving body, Creative Partnerships Australia is focused on fostering sponsorship and philanthropy and Screen Australia is a business finance corporation. What would be the benefit of such a behemoth? Where is the research evidence to show that in this case bigger is necessarily better or more efficient?
Within a climate of government fiscal constipation, the arts sector is trying to keep its vulnerable head down in the hope that it will be seen as such a small and insignificant target in the scheme of things that it will escape attention. The Arts Minister has said there would likely be funding cuts in the Budget but he is trying to ensure they are made sensitively. Let’s hope the Government will focus its attention elsewhere and just leave us alone for a little while to lick our recent wounds.
