15 August 2010

Peter Garrett
Federal Member for Kingsford SMith
Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts

A re-elected Gillard Labor Government will provide new funding to the Australia Council to nurture the creative process, help artists create new work and ensure audiences have greater access to a diversity of creative expressions.

We will provide $10 million over five years for the Australia Council to invest in new and innovative Australian work, by delivering:

• New artistic works, including visual art, performing art, literature, new media and music.
• Additional Presentations to Australian audiences, including to communities outside the major metropolitan areas.
• More Fellowships for Australia’s young and emerging artists and mid-career artists.  
  

Grants of up to $80,000 per annum will be available for new artistic works, up to $50,000 per annum for each new presentation, and up to $60,000 per annum for new fellowships.

This new program will support up to 150 artistic works, presentations and fellowships in priority areas including: support for young and emerging artists, the creation of new Australian work (visual art, music, theatre, literature and dance) and assist artists in building sustainable careers by generating new income streams from corporate support and philanthropy.

Individual artists will benefit from this program as it provides new opportunities to create work and present to wider audiences across the country, raising their exposure and their ability to generate an income through their work.  

Audiences will also benefit by having access to new and diverse creative expressions, including in peri-urban and regional centres outside of the major metropolitan areas.

A re-elected Gillard Labor Government will also ensure greater efficiency and effectiveness of arts funding by transferring a number of programs – Playing Australia, Visions of Australia, Festivals Australia, the Contemporary Music Touring program, the Regional Arts Fund and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy - from the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts to the Australia Council.

Since 2008, the Australia Council has undertaken a number of important reforms which have resulted in a more streamlined process for delivering arts funding – ensuring more funding goes directly to artists and arts organisations, not to administration.

Transferring these programs will utilise the existing infrastructure, resources and expertise of the Australia Council’s artform boards and peer review processes, ensuring greater efficiencies and better outcomes for arts funding.   

Australian audiences at activities supported by the Australia Council have increased dramatically over the last three years.

In 2006, some 9 million Australians attended arts activities supported by the Council.  In 2008, the total audience figure reached over 13 million.

The Australia Council is a statutory body and delivers arts grants at arm’s length from Government and through the principle of peer review.

In the 2010 Budget the Government announced the provision of ongoing funding to the Australia Council, which previously received triennial funding.

This will ensure greater funding certainty for artists and arts organisations.

The total cost of this package of initiatives is $5 million over the forward estimates, and $10 million out to 2015-16.  

This funding will be fully offset over the forward estimates, consistent with the Gillard Labor Government’s commitment to return the budget to surplus in three years.

» Fact sheet (3p PDF)
» Ministerial statement (12p PDF)

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