This was published 1 year ago
National Gallery facing possible sackings and shutdowns
By Linda Morris
The National Gallery of Australia is headed for a financial cliff next year and contemplating drastic measures including forced redundancies, the closure of the Canberra building two days a week and the possible reintroduction of entry fees.
The NGA’s looming cash crisis.Credit: SMH
On top of this, the owner of the country’s most valuable public-funded art collection is facing a $265 million funding shortfall over the next 10 years to waterproof its 40-year-old building and bring it up to standard.
The extent of the crisis facing Australia’s leading cultural institution is detailed in a letter NGA board chairman Ryan Stokes sent the new Arts Minister Tony Burke on September 9.
In the letter, obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age under freedom of information laws, Stokes foreshadows a budget crunch in June 2023 when a short-term funding injection of $24.77 million ends.
Years of efficiency dividend measures adversely impacted the gallery’s operations, stripping out over 10 years some $6.2 million in funding to stage exhibitions and programs, Stokes said.
He called for urgent consideration and provision of “sufficient funding to address the instability and uncertainty”.
Parts of the Stokes letter were redacted but the consequences of the gallery’s return to “base funding” includes a new round of staff redundancies, on top of 30 positions already lost in 2020. Restrictions to the physical building are being contemplated to cut costs - including the gallery’s closure two days a week - should there be no extra significant funding.
NGA chairman Ryan Stokes has written a letter to Arts Minister Tony Burke on the issue.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Burke said the Albanese government was acutely aware of the pressures facing major cultural institutions including the NGA.
These predated the Labor federal government. The Albanese government’s first budget in October offered no additional funding for the NGA and funding decisions around the coming May budget will be crucial.
“We’re working through the issues in order to make decisions about future funding,” Burke said.
“All our cultural institutions are suffering after a decade of neglect. The culture war waged by the previous government has pushed a number of our most important institutions to the brink.”
Some art in the National Gallery of Australia.
A review by KPMG into the financial sustainability of all national collecting institutions was commissioned by the federal Office of Arts before the May election. Access to this report, which considered the future viability of the Australian National Maritime Museum, National Portrait Gallery, National Library and the NGA, was refused on the basis it was a document prepared for cabinet.
A spokesperson for the National Gallery said the institution would have to consider all options to achieve financial sustainability. “The minster clearly understands our financial position, and we are working with him on this.”
The NGA is home to the country’s largest public art collection, recently valued at $6.9 billion. Its public assets are said to be among the nation’s largest, pipped only by Defence, the Broadband Network and the Snowy Mountain Hydro Electric Scheme.
Independent senator David Pocock called for an urgent examination of the gallery’s funding.
National collecting institutions, not just the NGA, are subject to an Australian public service-wide efficiency dividend and a further government savings measure, introduced in 2015-16 that now sits at 1 per cent since July this year.
“Our National Gallery in particular is in a financially perilous state and without urgent action, there’s a real risk serious measures will need to be implemented to cut costs,” Pocock said.
“I understand such measures could include reduced operating hours, even closing its doors by as much as two days per week, serious staff reductions with at least half the current workforce at risk, as well as other closures and cutbacks.”
“The National Gallery is tasked with managing the most valuable collection in the country, one that helps to tell the story of us and our evolving culture. It belongs to all of us, and it does little good if it can’t be preserved, curated, exhibited or made available to the Australians who pay for it.”
A cultural guide to going out and loving your city. Sign up to our Culture Fix newsletter here.