Peter Garrett MP
Member for Kingsford Smith
Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts
The Cultural Ministers’ Council meeting in Wellington, New Zealand is one of the last opportunities for the retiring Arts Minister to address a number of critical issues facing the arts sector.
The tabling of the latest review into the major performing arts companies and the long overdue examination of the need for a national cultural policy are significant challenges for this government and require leadership from Minister Kemp.
As a result of the 1999 Nugent report a combined $70 million of extra federal/state funding was made available to the struggling major performing arts companies.
Despite this, many companies continue to find themselves under continued financial stress.
A 2006 report commissioned by the Australian Major Performing Arts Group into the nation’s theatre companies forecast “a severe financial crisis . . . in the short term”, and identified a number of concerns, including:
- Weakened artistic vibrancy within the sector, highlighted by a decline in acting roles and a narrowing of diversity;
- Reduced investment for artistic development;
- Increased dependence on box office revenue; and,
- Rising production costs.
The recent example of the Sydney Dance Company is instructive, with Graeme Murphy expressing his frustration: “Funding bodies, once dynamic, now seem impotent in the face of a government’s indifference to a force which could bring so much to the troubled culture of Australia’s identity”.
Yet the government continues to ignore the plight of the major performing arts companies and the call for a real debate in this country about the need for a national cultural policy.
Now is clearly not the time for Minister Kemp to excuse himself from the table.