Federal Arts Minister, George Brandis, discusses the feedback he has received on the draft guidelines for the National Program for Excellence in the Arts.
The arts community has been very critical the $104 million syphoned from the Australia Council for the Arts to fund the new National Program, which will be administered by the Arts Ministry itself.
Feedback closes 5PM this Friday.
TRANSCRIPT:
MICHAEL CATHCART: Two months ago the federal government cut $104 million from the Australia Council, the federal government’s art funding body, and the money was to be reallocated to a new entity called the National Program for Excellence in the Arts, or NPEA. Now, as you know, this announcement has been the subject of great speculation and a good deal of distress in some sectors of the arts community. At the start of this month the government circulated draft guidelines for the NPEA, called for public comment essentially and that process ends on Friday.
To talk to us about how this is all shaping up we are joined by the Arts Minister, Senator George Brandis, who is in our Parliament House studios this morning. Senator, welcome to the program.
MINISTER BRANDIS: Good Morning, Michael.
MICHAEL CATHCART: So how much feedback have you received?
MINISTER BRANDIS: We have received about 80 submissions.
MICHAEL CATHCART: And are there any clear insights or themes that are emerging?
MINISTER BRANDIS: As has always been the case with our new program, there’s a variety of views. There are those who celebrate it and who understand the point of it; there are those who are committed to the status quo who don’t want to see any reform at all; and there are constructive submissions which do what, the very thing that we asked the sector to consider, and that is to look at the draft guidelines. They weren’t put out there, by the way, merely for the sake of a gesture; they were put out because we genuinely welcome the feedback from the sector as to the terms of the guidelines. So we will be taking those views into account. I don’t want to anticipate what changes might be made when the public feedback period hasn’t even ended yet. We have had some useful feedback, absolutely.
MICHAEL CATHCART: So let me put to you some of the areas of concern that have come up on the show over the last few weeks. In the arts community there have been people who have seen this as an attack on the small to medium sized companies and I guess that’s because the Australia Council had to cut the six year funding program. It had promised to fund these companies for six years and now has retracted on that. So there has been a perception that your word ‘excellence’ is code for big companies and that people who are working at a community level have a reason to be worried.
MINISTER BRANDIS: My word and my commitment to excellence is not code for anything – it’s a commitment to excellence. And I don’t administer the Australia Council’s budget – the Australia Council does that. The decisions that the Australia Council makes are matters for it, like every Commonwealth agency it has to work within the budget that the government gives it, but I did make it clear that I wanted the 28 major performing arts companies quarantined because, frankly, they are the companies – the flagship companies – that mean the most to Australian audiences, to larger numbers of Australian audiences. And in saying that I mean absolutely no disrespect to the small to medium sized arts companies which do very fine work. But, you know Michael, the problem here is that people get wedded to the status quo and the become so wedded to the status quo that they find it impossible to think that things could be done better. This is the problem with any reform in public policy; you always have to overcome the understandably human fear of people with a vested interest in the status quo – the fear of change.
MICHAEL CATHCART: Well, with respect Minister, people are fearful because they are trying to read your mind. They’re trying to work out what values, or what kinds of art practice you value and what kinds of art practice you think we have too much of and so the small to medium sector, especially people who are engaged in community work or working with Indigenous people or disadvantaged people, are wondering whether their work appeals or falls within your category of excellence which sounds as though it belongs on the big end.
MINISTER BRANDIS: I know that sometimes, even in a satirical way, people have suggested this is about my own personal tastes – it’s not, because as I keep reminding you and others I’m not the assessor.
But can I give you an example, please Michael, of a perfect example, as it seems to me, of the rationale of diversifying the opportunities for arts funding so that not everything is channelled through the Australia Council. Last night, like so many others, I went to the Helpmann Awards. It was a wonderful evening, a wonderful celebration of live performance in Australia and all the various genres. Now the two most successful shows rewarded last night were Les Miserables which was perhaps, expected, and Faramondo, the baroque opera that Leo Schofield and Jarrod Carland presented as part of the Brisbane Baroque Festival earlier this year. The two most successful live performance, live shows in Australia in the past year – neither of them, neither of them had Australia Council funding. Now you might say, well with Les Miserables you wouldn’t expect it to because it’s a major commercial production. But look at Faramondo which beat Opera Australia in the Best Opera category. The Brisbane Baroque and Faramondo couldn’t get Australia Council funding because the funding guidelines just didn’t allow for them so they were funded through the Ministry of the Arts. So there you have a perfect example of what I’m trying to make people appreciate - that some of the best of our art, in this case performance art, judged by the industry and by peers, couldn’t even get Australia Council funding and had I not funded it through the Ministry for the Arts and had the former Queensland Government, Ian Walker the Arts Minister, not funded it through Arts Queensland it wouldn’t have happened.
MICHAEL CATHCART: Minister, what do you say to people who claim that you are politicising arts funding, that you’re in a position now to silence artists who might be seen as critical of the government?
MINISTER BRANDIS: They are completely wrong, they are completely wrong. This is about the best allocation of public money. Every dollar that the Commonwealth spends on arts funding is public money and governments, whatever their political persuasion Michael, have a responsibility to ensure that that money is spent where it is best spent. That is a responsibility that lies in every area of government and the arts are no different.
MICHAEL CATHCART: The draft plan does say that the Minister for the Arts may moderate assessments to ensure that each assessment has been properly considered and one of the grounds on which it can be modified is on the grounds of government policy objectives. Now that does look like a licence to engage in ideological vetting.
MINISTER BRANDIS: Well that’s one way of putting it which I don’t accept. A slightly more sensible way of putting it, if I may say so, would merely be to say that the government of the day should have an arts policy. There were some of my critics, by the way, in the sector who said ‘you don’t have an arts policy’. We did, of course, we took an arts policy to last election but I was being criticised last year for not being specific enough about our arts policy.
Let me give you some of the highlights, some of the main features of the guidelines that demonstrate where the government’s policy priorities lie.
We want to encourage endowments, we want our arts companies, not just the big arts companies, but the small to medium arts companies as well, to be on a more secure financial footing and so we want to use a funding stream within the new program to leverage more private sector investment into arts companies. That is a policy objective of the government and it’s a good one.
We want to encourage more international touring by our arts companies because modern Australia is as identified by the quality and excellence of its art – its performing art and its visual art and its literature and its film – as it is by the more traditional iconic associations with Australia. I, as the Arts Minister, get a great deal of pleasure out of thinking that perhaps, beside the Kangaroo, our most recognisable international icon is an Opera House. It’s a great thing. Australia, as the Australia Council said in their strategic plan last year, is a culturally ambitious nation but it’s also a culturally accomplished nation. So it is the policy of the government, which I’m proud of, to display the best of Australian art to the world and that comes at a cost. Now those are two features of the new program – those are areas that we will be giving some priority to.
MICHAEL CATHCART: Senator, you announced that NPEA will have $20 million a year over four years, that’s $80 million. Which leaves, what is it, $24 million missing. What’s happened to that money? The money that was cut from the Australia Council that doesn’t show up in the current figures for the new national programme?
MINISTER BRANDIS: We will be distributing to the sector as much of the $104 million as we can, I mean there will be some transactional costs, there always are. I haven’t seen that $80 million figure before. It is $104 million over four years and as much of that $104 million that can be distributed to the sector will be distributed to the sector.
MICHAEL CATHCART: And I do know that you have to go, but just two more questions. The first is there’s no funding for writers or individual artists under this program. What was your thinking behind that?
MINISTER BRANDIS: Funding for individual artists will remain a function of the Australia Council. Specifically, in relation to writers, can I remind your listeners, Michael, that in coming weeks we will be announcing the constitution of the new Book Council of Australia and we will have more to say about that then.
MICHAEL CATHCART: Okay.Now I’m delighted to note that the programme is not spelt ‘mme’ but just program in the standard way, program with an ‘am’. I’d like to think this is because of me, but perhaps it isn’t. What is the thinking behind going against the current trend in Canberra of having the Frenchified spelling?
MINISTER BRANDIS: Well Michael that’s probably the most surprising question I’ve been asked for a long time to which I don’t have a ready answer.
MICHAEL CATHCART: That’s not like you Senator.
MINISTER BRANDIS: It’s not like me, you’re right but I’m not going to be a commentator on spelling styles adopted by the Australian Public Service.
MICHAEL CATHCART: Can I urge you, well the Australian Public Service’s guidelines, the style manual specifies program without an ‘mme’ as the way to spell it, so it would be nice to see…
MINISTER BRANDIS: How would you prefer it to be spelt?
MICHAEL CATHCART: Spelt program ‘p-r-o-g-r-a-m’. Program.
MINISTER BRANDIS: Well that’s the way it is spelt.
MICHAEL CATHCART: Yes and I’m all for it. What else did you take away from the Helpmann Awards last night, I mean the…
MINISTER BRANDIS: I thought it was a joyous occasion. I must say and there was, Matthew Westwood makes this point in his arts column this morning which was perhaps written in anticipation of the event, that there was said to be some suggestion that because of criticism, from some, of the new program I would be the subject of criticism. There was not a breath of criticism from any recipient of any award and at the function afterwards I was, as one would expect, a lot of people came up to talk to me. Most of the people who sought me out were interested in the new program, most were enthusiastic about it. The number of people who sought me out with criticisms of the program was two.
MICHAEL CATHCART: Thank you Minister, thank you for joining us.
MINISTER BRANDIS: Thank you Michael, always a pleasure to talk to you.
END