23 June 2006

Peter Garrett MP
Member for Kingsford Smith
Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts

Thanks for the opportunity to give the inaugural keynote address at the 2006 FEHVA festival.

Noting the themes you are addressing this year it seems clear to me that politics, religion, social values, intellectual inquiry, local environments – all these things - when feeding the act of imagination in ways mysterious and unpredictable, result in work I’m calling ‘the creative endeavour’.

Of course in Australia we commonly call this ‘the Arts’.

It is all but impossible to imagine a world without the stuff that people make, their creative endeavours; sculpture and music, films and songs, children’s finger paintings, great novels, dance and digital videos and that huge span of work that lies between.

The human story can be seen as one of constant reflection and reaction to the environment we inhabit, where the fertility of imagination and the manner in which it is expressed means civilisations are, in part at least, judged by the artistic works they have created; especially where great creative geniuses have produced work that transcends and impacts across centuries, cultures and histories.

But the creative endeavour is not confined to those whose work achieves dizzy heights. In point of fact there is a perennial debate about greatness itself, which I’ll leave to one side, happy to say Shakespeare, Van Gogh, Mozart, Miles and Dylan, Toni Morrison and Tracey Moffat - amongst many others - fit that billing for me.

There is no culture which doesn’t express itself though some or most of these forms. The primal urge to dance and sing, to work materials into forms of beauty, to tell stories, is a universal.

And the creative endeavour is rarely absent wherever people gather; it is present in homes and small communities all the way through to places of high learning.

Consider folk songs, usually the authentic songs of any culture, often songs about solidarity, community, family, politics, and of course, love. Whether there are radio stations to broadcast them or instruments to play these songs doesn’t matter, they are timeless.

And creative expression in whatever form it takes, along with spiritual and communal values, is the foundation of the culture. It feeds the culture, framing it and defining it over time.

The great potential of humans lies in the fact that we exist, not merely to feed, clothe and protect ourselves, important as these things are, but, as well, to express ourselves through any means available to us.

Look at our own Tap Dogs or Christo, the draper of landscape and monuments. The impulse, to create whatever our reach and wherever we live, is in our DNA.

So it is a real pleasure to be at this event; a celebration of the artistic achievements of locals which reflects the vibrant creativity of the people of the Byron shire and surrounds.

People come to this part of Australia for many reasons. To enjoy its physical attractions definitely seems to be one, and here they create in an environment that is conducive to producing works of art. There is lots of creativity round here - and that’s a good thing.

We know how central to Indigenous people their art was, and still is today. There is, to use the words of a well-known Indigenous artist, a “lifeline that runs through Aboriginal art and culture”, it is a loop of connection that defines Indigenous existence.

And in the midst of the very tough challenges that we face as a nation, addressing the ongoing disadvantage and trauma that bears upon Indigenous people, their art and dance in particular, are striking signs of the depth of their culture and of the resilience of creative imagination and expression that Indigenous artists are able to summons up and present.

Indigenous art and culture are an important economic activity too, with a burgeoning market estimated at around $300 million per year, but unfortunately still virtually unregulated. This means bootlegs and copies are proliferating, but, importantly this art makes a tangible economic contribution to communities where the standard of living often sits at Third World levels.

Even more, we as Australians, who still draw so much from the Western canon, are increasingly defining ourselves by acknowledging and celebrating Aboriginal culture. The opening of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 are remembered as much for the profound and deeply moving representation of Indigenous culture as for who won which swimming event.

More recently the decision by the French government to include substantial commissions of work, by leading Indigenous artists, including Paddy Bedford, Ningura Napurrula and Judy Watson, in the newly constructed Musee du Quai Branly in Paris (which opened this week) – a museum dedicated to non western cultures- again confirms the rich heritage and vitality Aboriginal art and craft has, and that it can traverse borders and cultures and retain its strength.

And if you wonder whether Indigenous art has anything to say about injustice or the prospects of reconciliation then check out young Indigenous artists as soon as you get a chance. You’ll be blown away by the clarity of their vision and the strength of their conviction.

But artistic expression is not only about what skilful, creative people produce. It happens to be good for all of us.

We are discovering how important to early childhood development, to the acquisition of numeracy and literacy skills that simply doing art, learning music can be.

We train the brain when we learn to sing, to read music, as much as we have fun. Rigorous research is proving what Shakespeare intuited, namely that ‘music is the food of life…’

Young people of today, as Ann Bamford in her book ‘The Wow Factor’ puts it, are the “…inventors of new cultural patterns and social philosophies of tomorrow..” and “…they will design the systems of organisation, education and the social sciences too”.

And as the access by companies and nations to raw materials and technology becomes both more pronounced and more fiercely contested, the skills of cooperation and organisation, of creative and innovative thinking that partner creative learning and expression, are that much more important for our future.

To put it plainly, the society that encourages and exalts the creative endeavour is equipping itself with a greater chance of responding successfully to many of the challenges coming at us in the new century.

I have no doubt we need creative minds that can apply insight and drive innovation, as is already happening especially in the digital economy but as well in areas of social and environmental sustainability , and education.

And in a society that is as materially rich as ours, and one that has the potential to harness and encourage people who produce art in its many forms, it is time for a lifting up of the creative endeavour.

I envisage this as a kind of modern renaissance of creativity involving individuals, organisations and communities and of course governments.

All have a role to play but government remains critical. Governments whose support and encouragement of the creative endeavour is a necessary precursor to any kind of creative renaissance.

People might be surprised to learn that governments here and overseas generally provide more money than ever before to support the Arts. I still don’t think they provide enough and neither do a lot of artists.

But it is true that there is a continuing flow of funds that goes to arts organisations, and especially in the case of the federal budget to: film, opera, the orchestras, and national institutions such as the National Gallery, the National Museum - these things in particular cost a lot of money.

But perversely at the same time, artists usually still exist on the poverty line. They are poorly paid if at all, they do it for love not money. And they need a range of measures; including substantial reform of the taxation system and the social security system to take into account the circumstances most artists face.

Even a successful painter for example who spends years preparing work, who has to meet the cost of materials, of framing, to pay commissions if exhibiting, would be extremely lucky to generate anything approaching a low to average weekly income.

In fact the average annual ‘creative’ income of artists is just over $ 17,000 . . . need I say more.

And it’s not just about money either. It’s about encouragement, education and talking about the Arts in a way that says the arts have an intrinsic worth. It’s about saying that the Arts are worth supporting for their own sake as much as for any other reason.

As an Australian who likes both sport and the Arts and who reckons there are plenty of people out there like me who can and do enjoy and take an interest in both, I can’t help thinking our fixation with sporting success is blinding us to the more enduring and important successes of the creative kind, happening at international, national and like tonight at local levels.

There is a wealth of talent out there and letting it flow and grow so we literally increase the size of our artistic throughput is needed now more than ever.

If the motivation of the true artist is a self generated imperative to create, the motivation of the politician who has responsibility for developing and advocating policy for the Arts and convincing the public and the Treasury of the intrinsic and explicit value of the Arts, must be to do their best to locate and champion positive means of supporting and promoting the creative endeavour.

I’ll mention just a few of these means that Labor is committed to:

• Labor will review the effect of the USFTA and related agreements to determine the impact it is having on the health of our cultural industries, particularly film and television.
• Labor will focus on education, including the school curriculum to ensure art and craft and music learning are available to all students regardless of where they go to school and that practicing artists can more easily work in the school and university systems.
• Labor will look closely at the current taxation and social security systems and explore ways of reconfiguring arrangements so that artists are able to move in and out of work without suffering penalties simply because they are artists.
• Labor will strongly assert, and where necessary protect, the right of creative expression and of freedom from political interference for artists.

Above all we will acknowledge that the work of artists – their creative endeavour – enriches the life of the nation, enlarges our culture and helps frame the world we experience in such a way as to open up a range of yet unimagined possibilities that lie in the human condition.