PM calls on best and brightest?

It's all over the front page of The Australian today:

"The Prime Minister announced yesterday that 1000 of the nation's 'best and brightest' would be picked to attend a two-day summit in Canberra to articulate radical solutions to the 10 most pressing problems facing the nation over the next decade."

And to my general shock and amazement The Arts gets a guernsey, coming in at number 8 (just after Indigenous Australia and just before Democracy).

It does have to share a place with film and design, but I suppose that if The Arts are considered more important than democracy we shouldn't complain too much.

To be held in April, the weekend forum will aim to propose long term options for the development of Australia towards 2020. Rudd's press release goes on to explain that "this Steering Committee will select up to 100 participants in each of the Summit areas who will attend in a voluntary capacity. The participants will be drawn from business, academia, community and industrial organisations, the media and include a number of individual eminent Australians."

This is where you, dear reader, come in. The last thing we need is for the usual suspects to be lining up and representing 'the arts'. Can you imagine anything worse than a continuation of the status quo? It's enough to make you shudder.

It's very important that a 'real' cross section of the industry needs to be represented at this event in April, not just the institutionalised individuals at the top of the pecking order. You need your James Strong representatives in their bow-ties and jaguars, but you also need your fringe theatre artists. You need your Cate Blanchetts with their business sponsorship deals but you also need your regional arts organisation and their struggling relationship with state governments.

Unfortunately state premiers will be in attendance, so you can look forward to Premier Iemma of New South Wales having a chat with you about the merits of rugby league over opera. So the two day ideas-fest will spend at least one of the days discussing terms of reference.

Unless of course you convince Premier Iemma not to come, explaining to him that there isn't a sport category up for discussion. In fact, maybe he can just stay in Sydney that weekend and check out the footy. Doesn't the rugby league kick off that weekend?

I think there are a number key areas that must be addressed by the two day forum. The first is, of course, the funding structure of the arts with a greater integration of federal, state and local funding. The situation in New South Wales where funding keeps get cut and cut and cut, will soon enough spread to other states and territories. How can greater integration stop this from happening?

A new and fresh vision for the Australia Council must be discussed. The grant application procedures are at times ridiculous and anti-creative and the whole idea around 'peer review' needs to re-evaluated.

One of the other things that could be discussed would be an equivalent of the Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG). Maybe we could call it the Australian Minor Performing Arts Group (AmPAG), representing artists outside the gates of Troy.

The third area of importance is the state of arts education. This is an area that needs critical attention not only at a school level, but more urgently at a tertiary level. Arts faculties across the country have shrunk and a stream of subjects have disappeared at every institution.

And don't even start me on the National Art School which each year struggles to stay afloat. Just fund the damn thing.

The fourth area of importance is arts reportage. Is the standard offered by our media outlets (I'm looking at you Mr Fairfax and you Ms Rural Press and also you Mr Murdoch) really that good enough and how does it need to be renewed with vigour. And how do we stop the arts section from being just a pit stop for cadet journalists to practice their prose?

The fifth area of importance is greater integration of multicultural arts and collaboration on an international scale. Why is the AsiaLink programme so under utilised for cross-cultural collaboration? What does the Federal Government plan to do about expanding the touring programme for artists and arts organisations? What will be our vision for cultural exports?

There are more and you will be able to make your submissions online, when a website is created for the summit. So don't be silent and don't rely on those that are currently in the ears of government. It does make a difference.


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