Attorney General and Cabinet Secretary “Labor believes the arts are central to our lives as Australians. They define who we are as a modern, innovative, confident and outward-looking society. The arts are how we express ourselves, how we explain ourselves, and how we understand ourselves as Australians. When we tell our stories through the arts, we are creating a chronicle that transmits a shared sense of the Australian self through generations. Our continent is the home of the longest continuous arts and culture makers on Earth - the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples.
A lively arts sector is also important to our economy. Supporting our creative industries generates jobs and helps keep talented Australians here at home. The visual arts, film, music, theatre and dance all contribute to economic activity across Australia’s cities and regions at the same time as providing entertainment, delight and meaning in our lives.
Australia’s arts sector has struggled under the Abbott-Turnbull Government. From huge cuts to the Australia Council to the steady strangling of national cultural institutions and the messy upheaval caused by George Brandis’ disgraceful intervention in well-established funding programs, the past few years have been tough.
The Abbott-Turnbull Government’s savage cuts to the ABC have added salt to the wound. Traditionally, Australian stories have been safeguarded by Australian content quotas on commercial broadcasters and funding to the ABC. The increased acquisition and availability of foreign small-screen content has seen the dilution of unique Australian stories and voices.
A Shorten Labor Government will undo the damage and restore Australia’s arts sector to its rightful place at the centre of our cultural life. We have a comprehensive plan for the arts that will see this sector thrive and grow again, reaching out to enrich the lives of all Australians.
Labor will renew the Federal Government’s commitment to the arts and the cultural life of this nation. Our plan to grow Australia’s creative industries for a more creative and prosperous country is outlined below.
1. Restore the standing of the Australia Council for the Arts
The Australia Council has been the pre-eminent body for the arts in Australia for almost 50 years. It provides an independent, peer-reviewed approach to arts funding which protects artistic freedom and expression by working at arms-length from government.
Labor endorses the Australia Council’s strategic plan for Australia to be a ‘culturally ambitious nation’.
The Abbott-Turnbull Government damaged the Australia Council’s standing by ripping over $100 million from its funding to establish a personal slush fund for George Brandis as then Arts Minister through a so-called ‘National Program for Excellence in the Arts.’ The program was so unpopular that it was rebadged as the Catalyst fund under replacement Minister Mitch Fifield, but the fundamental problems remain. Funding delivered through Catalyst is not transparent or independent – as evidenced by the Turnbull Government’s decision to announce a flurry of grants, some in breach of the program’s own guidelines, just two days before the federal election was called in May.
A Shorten Labor Government will close the Catalyst fund and return all remaining money – $32 million over the next four years – to the Australia Council. We will also boost the Australia Council by providing $20 million a year in new funding over four years from 2017.
This new funding will restore vital support and stability to small and medium arts organisations across the country. Community-based arts organisations which make music, theatre, dance and the visual arts accessible to all Australians have suffered repeated cuts under the Abbott-Turnbull Government, forcing many to close.
The entire arts community will also benefit from putting an organisation that is independent of government back at the centre of funding for our creative industries.
This returned and additional funding will see the Australia Council better fulfil its purpose of supporting and championing Australian arts and culture – both at home and overseas.
2. Grow regional arts
Australians in regional and remote communities should have just as much opportunity to connect with our shared culture through the arts as people living in big cities. What’s more, the stories of our country towns and regional centres are stories all Australians should hear.
Since 2001, the Regional Arts Fund has supported arts and cultural development projects in regional Australia. It supports sustainable cultural development through ongoing artistic initiatives rather than ‘one-off’ events, and increases employment and professional development opportunities for regional and remote artists. The Fund also has a particular focus on artistic skills development among disadvantaged communities, including young people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in remote townships.
The Fund operates on a four-year agreement between the Ministry for the Arts and Regional Arts Australia. It generates far-reaching benefits for the size of its investments – over the last four years $9.3 million worth of successful applications leveraged a further $17 million in additional financial support from business, State and local funding sources.
In recognition of the cultural and economic benefits of the arts to regional Australia, Labor will increase the Regional Arts Fund by $8 million over four years from 2017, on top of its current funding level. The existing grants system would continue to be used, so there will be no significant increases in administration costs and so these additional resources will reach projects on the ground in our regional communities.
This will almost double the size of the Regional Arts Fund, reflecting Labor’s commitment to ensuring all Australians can create, participate in and enjoy the arts.
3. Strengthen live music
Australia is the sixth-largest music market in the world and has the potential to become a significant global exporter of contemporary music. The talent of contemporary Australian musicians should be shared with the world.
A Shorten Labor Government will strengthen Australia’s contemporary live music industry by bringing the Live Music Office and the Australian Music Centre under the umbrella of an expanded Sounds Australia to deliver export, domestic and content management strategies.
Sounds Australia is Australia’s music export market development initiative – fast-tracking Australian music success globally.
This new structure will leverage and expand its success to support the development of Australia’s live music export industry. It will also formalise a four-year industry and government investment partnership to strengthen one of our greatest creative industries.
Artists like Courtney Barnett, Vance Joy, Sheppard and Gossling have already benefited from the exposure to new markets and international performance opportunities fostered by Sounds Australia.
The expanded Sounds Australia will develop and strengthen three key areas:
· Export: Expand the operation of Sounds Australia to include the export of all music genres to key and emerging international markets.
· Domestic: Expand the remit of the Live Music Office to include all genres and venue types.
· Content Management: Use the Australian Music Centre content management system to aggregate and promote Australian artists and music content.
Labor will commit $1.8 million a year over four years to support the expanded Sounds Australia. This will operate as a public-private investment partnership between government and the music sector. Through this partnership the music industry will provide an additional annual investment of $500,000 a year.
This initiative will grow job opportunities including for artists, their managers and a range of affiliated professionals such as digital content managers and promotion and production workers. A greater number and genre of artists will benefit from the expanded services and markets provided by Sounds Australia, enabling them to gain exposure to wider audiences and markets both domestically and internationally.
4. Boost music in schools
Supporting Australia’s creative industries starts in the classroom. But in the Music to Our Ears report, Music Australia and the Caledonia Foundation found that 63 per cent of Australian primary schools offer no classroom music instruction. Only in Queensland and Tasmania is music a part of the primary school curriculum in government schools, and taught by specialist music teachers.
That is why a Shorten Labor Government will provide $2 million a year to expand successful school music programs such as Music: Count Us In, Musica Viva in Schools and The Song Room.
We will also invest $350,000 a year to continue the SongMakers program beyond 2017. SongMakers is an intensive program which sees Australia’s best songwriters and producers mentor students to create and record new music in the classroom. The program is designed to fast-track secondary students’ understanding of the opportunities in today’s contemporary music world and set them up for success.
Through mentorship, SongMakers gives students real-world skills in composing, collaborating, arranging, writing lyrics, and using the latest available technologies to create and distribute new songs. It promotes student engagement by linking students’ in-school and out-of-school interests and experiences, and gives them the opportunity to work with some of the most successful Australian songwriters and producers in the business. All resources are aligned with the Australian Curriculum.
Labor believes the benefits of musical education should be available to all Australian students. Our initiatives will support more schools in introducing children to the arts through the joy of music.
5. Invest in local drama
A Shorten Labor Government will invest in local production so that Australian audiences can grow up watching Australian stories on Australian screens.
The increased acquisition of foreign small-screen content has seen the dilution of unique Australian stories and voices. Traditionally, Australian stories have been safeguarded by Australian content quotas on commercial broadcasters (becoming less effective as audiences move online) and supplementary funding to the ABC.
Investment in Australian drama makes sense. It fosters local creative skills development for Australian writers, producers and actors and will help to invigorate the local industry. It also provides a boost to the local economy. For example, the ABC’s Anzac Girls series, produced in South Australia, employed over 1,500 Australians (87 crew, 130 cast and 1,300 extras) with a total expenditure of $5.5 million.
A Shorten Labor Government will invest $60 million over three years in the ABC to produce local drama. This investment will allow the ABC to deliver 30 hours of family drama programming each year, comprising 30 episodes of 1 hour each or 60 half-hour episodes.
With this funding boost, the ABC could commission a long-running, quality local drama which provides an opportunity for Australian stories to take a permanent, prime-time place in the ABC’s schedule and provide for advertisement-free family viewing in a market that is increasingly being dominated by international content.
6. Carefully consult on copyright
The Australian book publishing industry is competitive and highly innovative. It has not only survived digital disruption, but has embraced it to become the 14th largest publishing industry in the world.
Producing more than 7,000 titles annually, this industry generates $2 billion in revenue and directly employs more than 4,000 people. The Australian publishing industry has thrived despite the advent of online shopping which demonstrates the industry’s resilience in the face of global competition, and that it provides consumers with locally produced products they are willing to buy.
Labor understands that the value of the Australian publishing industry goes beyond its economic benefits. A strong local publishing industry also fosters emerging Australian authors, often giving them their first publications and the chance to enrich our culture by telling Australian stories to ourselves and to the world.
Labor will consider any proposals or recommendations to adjust the current territorial copyright regime with caution. While there are economic arguments to be made in support of this, such a significant change to our copyright laws could have a serious impact on our publishing industry, our authors and Australia’s cultural life.
Labor understands the importance of the Australian publishing industry – both in cultural and economic terms. We have heard the serious concerns expressed by our publishers and authors about the Abbott-Turnbull Government’s intentions on territorial copyright, and we take those concerns very seriously. A Shorten Labor Government would consult extensively and openly before reaching any decision on copyright changes which would have a significant impact on one of our most important creative industries.
7. Supporting Community Radio
In addition to the six-point plan outlined above, Labor believes that community radio provides a vitally important independent voice and is an essential service in our cities and in rural and regional Australia.
It also provides special services for Indigenous, print handicapped, ethnic and religious communities. Five million people tune in to more than 440 not-for-profit, community-owned and run radio services operating across the country each week. Despite professing to support community digital radio, in his first budget as Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull cut $5.6 million from community digital radio services.
A Shorten Labor Government will restore $5.6 million over the forward estimates ($1.4 per annum) in much-needed funding to community radio. The funding is for digital platform and infrastructure costs including data connectivity, linking, multiplexing and transmission. This will ensure the continued delivery of community digital radio services in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
8. Restoration of Trove
Our cultural institutions are the keepers of Australia’s national memory. Labor believes our stories and history are too important to be lost to anonymity.
That is why a Shorten Labor Government will restore Trove, a unique and important online repository that has been gutted by the Abbott-Turnbull Government’s cuts to national institutions.
Labor’s will invest $12 million over four years in Trove.
Trove is an initiative of the National Library of Australia, and provides online access to collections of books, photographs, newspapers, maps and historical documents. It is one of the largest digital cultural collections in the world. Trove was established by the National Library in 2010, and was funded from the Library’s own resources.
The representatives of Australia’s museums, archives, libraries, galleries, historical societies and research bodies have recognised Trove as an essential piece of national research infrastructure.
Trove’s future is under threat because the Abbott-Turnbull Government cut $6 million from the National Library of Australia as part of the $37 million it ripped from our cultural institutions in 2015.
Without the resources to continually update and maintain Trove as a database, it will become increasingly obsolete and irrelevant as time goes on, before ultimately withering away. The loss of an innovative resource such as Trove works against Australia’s transition to a knowledge based economy.
Trove has some 471 million items and more than 20 million unique users every year.
Museums, archives, libraries, galleries, historical societies and research bodies across Australia will benefit from this measure.
Labor’s record
Labor is the party of the arts. From Gough Whitlam’s establishment of the Australia Council to the Gillard Government’s wide-ranging Creative Australia policy, we have valued and elevated the contribution of the arts to Australia’s social, cultural and economic life.
This is the approach we will continue to take under a Shorten Labor Government. Importantly too, we are committed to consulting widely with the arts community and delivering sound, inclusive policies and programs. We will rebuild the trust and collaboration that has been destroyed by the Abbott-Turnbull Government and set Australia’s creative industries back on track for a stronger future.”
