The ALP's Federal Arts Policy

Apologies for my scant attention to the blog. The business of weekly wage earning has been all consuming. You know the story.

In the meantime, here is another nice post from my esteemed colleague Ben Eltham, who I am pleased to say is going to be a Melbourne arts correspondent for SAJ. There's nothing like bridging the gap between these two fair cities... even though we are the much poorer sibling in the arts debate.

Today he offers another tidy summary of Australia 2020 and ties it in nicely with Mr Garrett's performance so far.

It sits nicely next to an article I previously wrote for Crikey. For those outside of New South Wales, it appears that the correlation between the Iemma Government's attitude to the arts is disturbingly similar to Mr Rudd.


Earlier this year, the Australia Council's marketing website Fuel4Arts commissioned me to examine the incoming Labor Government's arts policy agenda.

That paper has now been published at Fuel4Arts HERE. You will need to be a Fuel4Arts member to read the post, however it is free to sign up.

For those of you who aren't Fuel4Arts members, I've posted the full text of my paper over at New Matilda's Pollie Graph blog.

As can be seen by the conspicuous lack of game design, new media arts or interactive digital media practitioners on the 2020 summit list, Peter Garrett's emerging policy agenda is surprisingly traditional in shape.

Screen, music and major performing arts look set for continued high levels of government support, while new media arts, community arts and publishing look like they will languish.

On the other hand,there is one big positive: we now have a Federal Government which is actually prepared to say it supports the arts. This is an important symbolic improvement.

If you do want a say on what will be tabled at Australia 2020, I encourage you to nag dear Alison Croggon who has somewhat foolishly opened herself up as an arts messenger.

She has tabled a number of key issues HERE.

Get amongst the fray.