SIMON CREAN ANNOUNCES NATIONAL CULTURAL POLICY

Arts Minister Simon Crean today launched Creative Australia, a $235 million vision and strategy to place arts and culture at the centre of modern Australian life.

Creative Australia, the new national cultural policy, promises to create jobs and encourage a new generation of artists and creative industry business with sweeping reforms to Australian Government support for the arts, cultural heritage and creative industries. 

“Creative Australia is about creating excellence, creating jobs, creating prosperity, creating opportunity and creating unique Australian stories – all vital to an outward looking, competitive and confident nation,” Mr Crean said.

“I’ve long held a passion for the arts. It’s not just the enjoyment they bring, I see the artist as central to us a nation and to securing its future.

“Creative Australia, the first national cultural policy for nearly 20 years, recognises that we must update our strategies because of the major changes sweeping through the cultural sector with digital communication and because more and more Australians are actively participating in cultural activities.

“The cultural sector – the arts, cultural heritage and the creative industries – must have the skills, resources, and resilience to play an active role in Australia’s future.

“Australia must be a creative nation that spurs innovation, creates jobs for the 21st century and shapes a future of prosperity and shared opportunity.

“In 2011, the cultural workforce represented 5.3 per cent of the workforce and Census data shows that creative services employment is one of the fastest growing areas as the economy digitises.

“There’s a social dividend in investing in the cultural sectors with the return in strengthening our underlying values of inclusiveness, openness and democratic practice. There’s another benefit to the nation from investing in the arts and artists to build a rich cultural life: the economic dividend. A creative nation is a productive nation.”

It is stated that Creative Australia sets a long term agenda for cultural growth centred around five core goals with 11 pathways for action that provide a strategic framework to drive our national creative capacity

The promise is that it will guide funding and support, recognise the centrality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures in national life, encourage creative expression, recognise the role of the artist and connect the arts to national life for a social and economic dividend.

“The Australian Government will immediately implement structural reforms to the Australia Council. These are the most significant since its creation 40 years ago at a time when the arts were only beginning to realise their potential,” Mr Crean said.

“I will be introducing new legislation into Parliament next week, which will be backed by an investment of $75.3 million in new funding for the Australia Council over four years.

“The Australia Council will be a more responsive funding body with a clear mandate to support and promote a vibrant and distinctively Australian creative arts practice, and have a new emphasis on independent peer-assessed grants to recognise and build artistic excellence.

“We will provide $8.6 million in additional new funding to Creative Partnerships Australia to build partnerships between artists, business and private donors to build a new culture of giving in Australia.

“Partnership across all levels of government will be strengthened with the finalisation next month of a National Arts and Culture Accord with state, territory and local government.

“As every Australian student gains a universal arts education with the implementation of the Australian Curriculum: the Arts, the Government will invest in building links to training with $20.8 million of new funding for Australia’s arts training organisations over four years for the highest achieving.

“As well as this $8.1 million for the Creative Young Stars Program will be made available in every Australian community with grants for participation in national competitions and training. We will also extend the successful AFL SportsReady program to engage students in learning through ArtsReady.

“There’s also an additional $10 million to support digital production and augment Screen Australia’s development of multiplatform programs and distribution.

“This new screen funding, along with our previous commitment of $20 million for the creation of an Australian Interactive Games Fund, is about the development and distribution of Australian content in the context of this technological revolution and builds on the Convergence Review recommendations.

“The Government also commits to increase Australia’s competitiveness as a world-class filming destination with a further $20 million incentive to bring international production to our shores.

“This is as a precursor to an increase in the Location Offset should the Australian dollar remain high. This new incentive fund is in addition to our investment in securing The Wolverine, and the current negotiations with Disney to secure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo.”

‘We know young people are passionate about their music, design and the arts as they are about sport – we are giving them real opportunities to train for jobs in rapidly growing service and creative industries which build on this passion.

“I am very proud to release Creative Australia – a national cultural policy that is all about creating excellence, creating jobs, creating prosperity, creating opportunity and creating unique Australian stories,” he said.

Read the full suite of Pathways for Action and initiatives in Creative Australia: creativeaustraliaculture.arts.gov.au

Creative Australia Funding

Responses

Belvoir has welcomed the announcement of the National Cultural Policy, Creative Australia, by Arts Minister Simon Crean at the National Press Club today.

Belvoir will receive $320,000 per year for four years to support the company’s shift from parity pay scales. ‘This funding will allow us to pay artists a living wage and support our company to continue to produce world-class theatre,’ said general manager Brenna Hobson. ‘We’re thrilled to have the Federal Government’s support.

‘It is great to see the Minister acknowledging the centrality of the arts to Australian life and recognising its key role as an economic driver,’ Hobson continued. ‘Australian artists and arts organisations have a key role to play in cultural diplomacy and we hope to see this recognised with support for international touring through the excellence pool.’

Belvoir has a long standing commitment to telling Indigenous stories and Indigenous arts leadership. ‘It was inspiring for the Minister to open his address by highlighting the importance of Indigenous arts and we are pleased to see continued funding to support this sector,’ said Hobson.

Bangarra Dance Theatre has been recognised in the Creative Australia policy with an injection of $613,000 in core funding.

“The Government’s increased investment in Bangarra will be repaid exponentially in cultural returns,” said Catherine Baldwin, Executive Director of Bangarra. “By building our capacity, more Australians will be inspired by our performances and experience our community outreach programs. Public funding gives us a strong foundation from which to build our corporate and philanthropic support, to achieve sustainable artistic and business success”. 

Circus Oz strongly supports the Federal Government’s investment in the arts and recognition of the creative sector through its announcements today.

Circus Oz welcomes the Government’s support in ensuring the company continues to be a trailblazer in taking distinctly Australian work which is competitive on the world stage.

Circus Oz applauded the commitment to further support training through the arts, delivering pathways for artist development and employment in the circus arts through NICA and the Flying Fruit Fly Circus.

“With the Government’s investment in Circus Oz we will be able to diversify our income streams, build audiences and grow community and corporate programs so the company can contribute to the Australian community through the creation of art, identity and social capital,” said Lou Oppenheim, General Manager Circus Oz

Black Swan State Theatre Company is delighted to be one of six Major Performing Arts Companies (MPAC) (out of 28) to receive additional core funding from the Australian Government. 

The additional funding will contribute to Black Swan’s continued pursuit of its vision as WA’s state theatre company and will support more new and innovative work including the commissioning of new plays, the focus on telling Australian stories and working with and developing WA’s outstanding creative artists and performers.

Black Swan’s Artistic Director Kate Cherry commented, “We congratulate Minister Crean on the launch of the policy and additional funding for the arts. The additional funding for Black Swan and WA Ballet is a great outcome for the arts in Western Australia”.

Black Swan’s General Manager Shane Colquhoun said, “Black Swan now calls upon the State Government to confirm its recurrent co-funding contribution as part of the 2013-14 budget process. The Barnett Liberal Government provided one off funding with the Australia Government for Black Swan’s 2013 season, which has enabled Black Swan to present two additional productions this year, including a highly successful season for Perth’s 2013 Fringe World Festival.”

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has welcomed the boost in funding to arts training organizations but argues that Creative Australia’s ambitions will be undermined by short-sighted cuts to the creative arts by universities and TAFE.

“While the Federal government is putting in $20.8 million into the National Institute of Dramatic Art, the National Institute of Circus Arts and some other high level training organisations, universities and TAFE are busy cutting creative arts programs,” NTEU National President, Jeannie Rea said.

“The creative arts are an easy target when university and TAFE funds are being squeezed.

“The six training organisations to attract the increased funding have around 1200 students between them while many thousands of others have already been disadvantaged or excluded by course cuts at universities and TAFEs. It is a sad but familiar story – one hand giveth while the other taketh away.”

Rea said that major cuts to the arts had already occurred at a number of institutions across Australia including the Australian National University, the University of Ballarat, Swinburne University of Technology and the Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts, Perth’s ‘star factory’.

“Last year James Cook University decided to refocus its creative arts school on digital arts, while dropping theatre and performance majors. Meanwhile, the New South Wales Government has removed all subsidies to fine arts courses as part of its $80 million cuts to TAFE with some 4000 students losing out and now paying a small fortune to study. More recently, Monash has cut fine arts at its Churchill campus,” she said.

“In terms of graduates being employed in the arts industry, Swinburne University is one of the most successful organisations in the country, but the $35 million cut to its budget last year, as part of a general Victorian Government cut of $290 million to TAFE, means it will have to close its Prahran campus, home to its creative arts program and the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA).

“It’s all very well to increase funding to elite training organisations, but if universities and TAFEs are slashing creative arts programs at the same time, where will Australia get its future camera operators, directors, set and lighting designers, choreographers and makeup artists for television, film and stage?

"We need a cultural policy which has agreement from all states, from all levels of government and from our different institutions and organisations.”

Rea said that the NTEU supported Creative Australia’s goal of every Australian student gaining a universal arts education with the implementation of the Australian Curriculum: the Arts.

“But, again, where will we get enough skilled and inspired teachers if we’re axing so many creative arts courses at our universities and TAFEs? We should all be singing from the same song sheet.”