Image: ArtsHub 2016 Melbourne Conference. Photography by Jane Chisholm
Victoria Minister for Creative Industries, Martin Foley, kicked off last week’s ArtsHub 2016 Melbourne conference with a challenge that ensured delegates were wide awake at breakfast.
‘I like to think certainly the first half of this year that we will start not just the roll out of the response to that report but seek to back that up with some appropriate resourcing and appropriating changes as well. That is a work in progress with my colleagues, particular treasurers,’ he told ArtsHub’s performing arts editor, Richard Watts.
In response, Watts asked MinisiterFoley: ‘You just used the phrase appropriate resourcing – does that mean an increase for funding in the arts?’
‘Yes,’ replied Minister Foley.
‘We need to use investment that we have got better in that more collaborative way that brings forward creatives, because of course you can’t have those big mega success stories that take on the world unless the pipeline of support and assistance is appropriately nuanced to bring forward people wherever they are in Victoria to keep that ecosystem evolving.’
