Arts funding sticks to status quo

As first published in Crikey.

For the arts, this year’s budget is less about a "Creative Australia" and more like steady-as-she-goes, as Arts Minister Peter Garrett follows on closely from predecessor George Brandis. However, it's what happens over the coming years that could be of most concern to the arts community.

So far, very little has changed from the previous financial year, with the previous government delivering one of the largest injections of federal money to the arts just twelve months ago. Garrett has pretty much maintained the funding for the coming twelve months, adding a few small flourishes of his own that give a little push to arts institutions to foster new talent and new creativity.

The biggest change we will see this year is the creation of Screen Australia, a Howard Government initiative to merge the Australian Film Commission, Film Finance Corporation and Film Australia into one national peak body. It has been kept by Garrett and provided with $103 million for the coming financial year.

A closer look at the finances reveals that this is a funding cut to the film industry when you look at the overall provision of the three organisations from previous years. But a Garrett spokesman has told Crikey that the new 40% producer rebate for qualifying production expenditure will hopefully make more of the film industry "rely less on direct funding".

ArtStart, the controversial programme that will provide artists with improved access to social security has been ignored this year but Crikey has been told that it's "still an election commitment and has not dropped off the radar".

Regional Australia has also been left off the map after a continuing request for $24 million in touring and presentation funding was ignored. The Arts Minister has tried to offset that cut with the creation of a $10 million Creative Communities initiative that takes the arts to outer metropolitan and regional areas.

As well, the Australia Council for the Arts, already hit with an "efficiency dividend" of 2% earlier this year, gets a slight increase in total government funding to $173.2 million. This will no doubt please the major performing arts companies, the small to medium performing arts sector and the visual arts and crafts industry, who profited most from Howard’s previous budget.

But after the slight increase this year, future budget estimates show that Federal Government funding plateaus despite inflation rising by 4%. As well as these increasing costs and the efficiency dividend, the Australia Council will also have to find $6.6 million to fund Garrett’s Young and Emerging Artists program, which aims to increase the exposure of performing arts companies to schools and young people.

Kathy Keele, Australia Council CEO has guaranteed that grants to artists, despite the rising costs, will not be affected. “We are putting in place measures to maintain our funding for artists and arts organisations by streamlining the organisation and making $2 million in administrative savings,” she said.

Another organisation hit by the efficiency dividend has been the National Library of Australia which sees funding drop $600,000 to around $57.6 million for the coming financial year. Already running off the smell of an oily rag, the cut to the NLA has angered many, not only within literary circles but also those who understand the importance of storing digital information – a costly and complicated exercise that will keep the nation's public records for years to come.

One of the positives from this year’s budget is the creation of a resale royalty rights scheme for visual artists that will cost $1.5 million over the next three years. The funding will assist in creating an independent collecting body that will ensure that artists continue to get paid for works when on-sold to other buyers.

“This scheme will bring Australia into line with similar resale royalty arrangements operating in the United Kingdom and Europe and will embody the recognition that visual artists’ rights extend beyond the first sale of an artwork,” Mr Garrett said in a statement on Budget night.

The creation of a new National Film and Sound Archive as an independent statutory authority is another big step and will receive an allocation of $105.2 million over four years.

“As well as continuing its important activities in relation to the national audiovisual collection, the government believes it is important that the National Film and Sound Archive has a strong role in public outreach,” Mr Garrett said.

It’s a solid first budget for Mr Garrett, setting him only slightly apart from his predecessor. He is slowly showing his stripes in favouring additional funding for young and emerging artists. It’s a small step, but it could be the tip of an iceberg as he slowly forces the institutions that previously found favour with the Howard Government to increase their involvement with young people and start investing in the future creativity of the country.

Nothing even compares to going to the Rugby

My father loves Rugby. Not that other poor excuse for a game referred to as 'League' but the Rugby of his youth when he played in the rough and tumble of Parramatta first grade.

He used to take me to as many games as he could afford, the highlight always being when we played the All Blacks. The atmosphere as it whips up with the teams running onto the field. The Haka, the staring down, the whoops and cheers.

You can see the glint in his eyes when the Wallabies are close to scoring a try. He lifts his huge frame and starts yelling at the players. If they don't score, his exasperation is a most marvellous thing to behold.

It's a shame I don't really share the same level of passion for the game as he does. I like it and am always captivated by the spectacle, but take me to the theatre any day and I am just like my father at a Rugby match. Without the whooping that is.

After many years of not going to any Rugby matches with my father I thought it was about time for us to revisit something we had always done when I was a kid. So I went online and I got us some tickets to the upcoming Wallabies v All Blacks match in July.

I go onto the website, select the match and order the two tickets. I click next and go to the checkout. $280.

What?!

$140 per ticket, to not even sit near the half way line. In fact, we are down near the goal posts. Bloody miles away.

$140 for that?! And thousands of people pay this? In fact 83,500 people pay between $79 and $164 for tickets to a Wallabies match. We are talking about approximately $8 million in ticket sales alone. For one day.

Suddenly I find myself harking back for the days when that beautiful game was amateur... and cheaper.

Or maybe just harking for something that's the price of a theatre ticket. Who's the fool that said theatre was expensive? What rubbish.

Pick a night, any night this week and compare the prices between thirty blokes running around on grass with a football and some damn fine theatre.

$20 online ticket special to see the STC's Serpent's Teeth HERE.
$29 to see Toby Schmitz giving it his all at Belvoir St HERE.
$26 for a Beer, laksa and a show at the Old Fitzroy HERE.
$28 for D Reserve tickets to the Ballet HERE.
$30 for some comedy at the Darlinghurst Theatre HERE.

And you could see all of that in one week and still get change from one ticket to the Rugby.

Theatre affordability? It already is. (And there aren't any 'no alcohol areas')

My Island Home

My Island Home is a snapshot of modern Australian cultural excellence - a celebration of a confident nation rejoicing and showcasing the wealth of talented performers that call the earth’s largest island “home”.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House for the APEC Australia 2007 Gala Cultural Performance. Sydney is a truly global city with two defining icons – the world heritage listed Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Tonight’s performance provides a snapshot of modern Australia and features over 200 young performers and famous artists showcasing the very best of contemporary Australian performing arts.

The Asia-Pacific is a region that has emerged as the fastest growing and most dynamic in the world, and tonight’s performance embodies this spirit. It spans a diversity of genres, including classical and indigenous music, modern dance and musical theatre, and traditional ballet and opera.

‘My Island Home’ takes us all on a journey through a diverse programme sharing Australia’s cultural heritage with our friends from around the Asia-Pacific region.

The Hon John Howard MP
Prime Minister of Australia

So, what did our international guests enjoy last night during the APEC Australia 2007 Gala Cultural Programme?

The evening got off to a bang with conductor Andrew Greene leading the Australian Opera & Ballet Orchestra in the main title theme from the film The Man From Snowy River.

Yes, that's right - The Man From Snowy River. Isn't it astonishing that we had to travel back to 1982 to find a film worthy of playing the main theme from.

To give you some perspective, the equivalent would be the US getting the New York Symphony Orchestra to play Gandhi or ET to display their cultural might in 2007. But wait - it does get better.

This was soon followed by, as promised, You're the Voice (1986) performed by soloist Robert Adam and an array of kids from Gondwana Voices and the Sydney Childrens Choir. The John Farnham retrospective was swiftly followed up by the 'Somewhere Medley'.

What, may you ask, is the 'Somewhere Medley'?

Well, let me tell you...

Picture, if you will, six singers (Sophie Carter, Amelia Cormack, Ben Lewis, Alexander Lewis, James Millar and Christina O'Neill) centre stage in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.

The lights come up on young Sophie, Amelia, Ben, Alex, James and Christina who earnestly look into the crowd. Picture if you will, the world leaders - Vladimir Putin, George Bush, Hu Jintao, Shinzo Abe, Gloria Arroyo looking back. The sextet then slowly start singing Somewhere Out There:

Somewhere out there, Beneath the pale blue night, Someone's thinking of me, And loving me tonight. Somewhere out there, Someone's saying a prayer, Then we'll find one another, In that big somewhere out there.

After polite applause they then get a little more serious and tackle that ever-faithful anthem of earnestness Over the Rainbow:

Somewhere over the rainbow, Way up high, There's a land that I heard of, Once in a lullaby.

The song trails off as the performers transport the world leaders to Oz... yes that's right Toto, to Oz!

The audience by this point must be wishing that if they click their heels they are transported somewhere... please god... anywhere!

Which makes the power of the next song so relevant and cruelly ironic - none other than Somewhere from West Side Story:

There's a place for us, Somewhere a place for us, Peace and quiet and open air, Wait for us, Somewhere.

Let me take a short interval here by saying that this programme would have to be one of the most embarrasing elements of the entire APEC Forum. It could beat the Chaser team making their way past two security posts or even George W Bush calling APEC - OPEC and Australia - Austria or it could even beat the non-existent aspirational and non-binding climate change targets set by the forum...

To think that the staff and advisers from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet would serve this up can only be described as nothing short of bad taste that is utterly blind to the actual cultural activities in this country.

The programme was appalling. The Somewhere Medley for goodness sake! What on earth is a Somewhere Medley?

Let me be very clear about this. This programme of events must have been altered, changed and re-jigged until the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet had officially approved it and I don't think that any blame could possibly be passed onto the exceptional artists involved.

And the world leaders and delegates and international media are told by the Prime Minister that this event is 'showcasing the very best of contemporary Australian performing arts'. You may as well have given the politicians and world leaders a lagerphone and a gum leaf. Here you go Skip!

The arts industry should be furious at the department for allowing this type of event to even make it onto paper. If I was an original composer I would be most particularly concerned at the complete lack of original Australian composition used in the gala. The amount of American and European content in this production is stupefying. And this is the ASIA-PACIFIC Economic Forum. You could be forgiven for thinking behind those security fences that cultural diversity in Australia is something you only find in restaurants.

There should be complaints made by the arts industry and multicultural bodies to express worry into how our culture is portrayed by this government on an international level.

With the activities of the Australia International Cultural Council now provided with $20.4 million of funds over four years through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, I hope to god that events like last night are not the norm in how we present the very best of contemporary Australian performing arts.

Let me concede at this point that it is oh-so-thankful that Artistic Director Stuart Maunder put in a bit of Bangarra Dance, Taikoz, Australian Ballet and Opera Australia to soften the blows - otherwise the entire affair could have gone down in history as the worst concert ever staged in the Sydney Opera House.

There's a time for us, Some day a time for us, Time together, With time to spare, Time to look, Time to care, Someday, Somewhere.

We'll find a new way of living, We'll find a way of forgiving, Somewhere, There's a place for us, A time and place for us.

Hold my hand, And we're halfway there, Hold my hand, And I'll take you there, Somehow, Someday, Somewhere...

By god, we better find a way. Somehow. Someday. Somewhere. Go on, readers, hold my hand.


As published on Crikey.com

Arts v Sport - Round One

It's interesting to point out that while our athletes in Osaka were striving for their second worst result since the world athletics championships began in 1983, our ballet dancers were also on tour in Japan.

"'That was me shouting bravo,' Masashi Miura, one of the city's foremost dance commentators, told The Australian, and he wasn't alone. At the final curtain large sections of the crowd stood and everyone cheered," said the report on the Australian Ballet tour.

There is a wonderful synchronicity between athletics and ballet as anyone who appreciates both sport and the arts will know. The physical hardship and strain these performers and athletes go through is phenomenal.

A report published in 2000 found that "the injury rate for ballet dancers over an eight-month period was 61 percent. This is comparable to rates found in other studies for athletes in collision sports such as football and wrestling."

It's remarkable that the Australian Ballet even gets to tour, let alone wow audiences and receive gold medal review after gold medal review as they did with their latest Japan trip.

In the same way, the physical journey that the rugby lads are about to go through will be an amazing test of determination and physical strength during the Rugby World Cup. According to that ever trusted source, Wikipedia, the Rugby World Cup is the third biggest sporting event in the world after the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. It puts to shame the US appalling habit of calling everything that they do (on their own) a 'world series'.

As I write, there is only 1 day, 19 hours and 59 minutes till the big event starts!

It might surprise those in the anti-arts brigade to know that some of us arts people enjoy sport. In fact, in 1 day, 19 hours and 58 minutes, I will be walking down to a mates place with a slab over my shoulder ready for the start of a month of sleeplessness.

And surprisingly, a lot of other 'arty' people will be there as well. Actors, directors, musicians. Can you imagine?

I think its one of those urban myths that the anti-arts brigade like to push - 'Arts people don't like sport'. It's absolute rubbish of course and to prove it, I won my father's Super 14 tipping competition this year against a bunch of ex-footballers. $500 thanks very much!

It's just as ridiculous to claim that sports people don't like the arts. Take Collingwood's Rupert Betheras who recently jumped from AFL Premiership winner to visual artist. I just hope for his sake he doesn't get any Australia Council funding, otherwise the brigade will be after him! I can see the Bolt headline already - "Footballer Now Painting With YOUR Money."

Here's to a good (and successful) World Cup folks!


Image credit: "ballet by Denis Germain"