Creative Australia to bring new life to federal arts policy

Arts minister says it’s time to revitalise our approach to the arts

Tony Burke. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Artists aren’t hobbyists, they’re workers. In fact, they’re essential workers. They help us to know ourselves, understand each other and let the world get to know us.

Their work is storytelling – and as Arts Minister I want to make sure those stories keep coming. I want those new artists to keep breaking through. I want people, when they think of Australia, to think not just of the natural beauty but of the stories that are still being told.

The new stories, the new creativity, and the stories that have lived on this Earth and on this continent since the first sunrise.

That’s what’s possible. It’s a ­decision this government has taken and we’re now implementing

As part of those changes, from next month, we will have a revitalised Australia Council called ­Creative Australia.

On January 30 I stood on a stage with Prime Minister ­Anthony Albanese at the Espy in Melbourne and launched Revive – Australia’s new National Cultural Policy.

I love what’s often referred to as the high arts – in all of its poetic, dramatic and musical forms. But launching at a venue that is a home to another love of mine – pub rock – was a deliberate reminder that cultural policy isn’t for some so-called elite. It’s for every single Australian. Now, less than six months after it was announced, the revival of Australian arts and culture really begins.

Cultural policy has been a feature of every post-war Labor government. The establishment of the Australia Council, the launch of a formal policy in Creative Nation or the vision shown in Creative Australia – all by Labor governments.

The impact of Revive will ricochet through communities around Australia in a whole lot of ways. The first three bodies to start under Revive – Creative Australia, Music Australia and Creative Workplaces – will transform the way we fund the arts, support Australian music, and protect artists as workers.

Creative Australia is a revitalised Australia Council, with the George Brandis-era cuts returned in full and the funding that was meant to be there a decade ago ­finally possible again.

It will be the government’s principal arts investment and advisory body that works as a one-stop shop bringing together the commercial, government funded and philanthropically funded sectors. For too long, the Australia Council dealt with only government funding, with philanthropic funding managed elsewhere and the commercial world left to look after itself. This brings them all together as part of Creative Australia.

It’s the same workforce. It’s the same audience. It should have the same home.

Music Australia goes one step further. If you were anything like me growing up, I’m sure you would remember there used to be a lot more Australian music in our lives.

If you looked at the charts, there were always a good number of Australian bands on there. If you wanted to catch a gig, there were also a whole lot more venues back then. That, in so many ways, has slipped, and it’s not because we don’t have great artists.

The artists now, if you go to a festival or a gig, are at least as good as and probably better than a whole lot of what we might have grown up with. But we have the challenge now that the ways of making money that used to be there aren’t there in the same way anymore.

The number of venues isn’t available and the opportunities for commercial success – through album sales – just don’t happen in the same way they used to. That’s why we need a body that’s able to make the fast decisions that need to be made to really enrich the contemporary music sector.

We can no longer have a view that contemporary music isn’t part of what the federal government has to take an interest in. Under Revive it’s there and with Music Australia it’ll be right at the core.

The third change is the establishment of Creative Workplaces.

It’s an acknowledgment that the different institutions we have for safe workplaces with reasonable remuneration haven’t been delivered on for the creative sector.

They’re different sorts of workplaces; they’re itinerant workplaces. The method of engagement is often not an employment relationship.

But to think that the storytellers we rely on to tell often difficult and challenging stories have been ­experiencing that in the very workplaces where they’re doing that storytelling needs to be dealt with.

Creative Workplaces will do just that. We’ve seen this kind of behaviour in what’s known globally as the #MeToo movement. We all owe the artists who’ve come forward and told their stories. Sometimes those artists have done so knowing that in telling their story they risked being ostracised and finding it harder to get work.

But a whole lot of them took that step. Had they not, we might not have fully understood the need to establish Creative Workplaces.

This government hears you and we’re taking specific action to make sure that those workplaces can be safe and fair.

All three of these new bodies are aimed at one thing: empowering Australian artists.

I’m currently finalising the boards for all three, with an ­announcement not far away.

In January, standing on the stage at the Espy, I said you could just feel the culture wars from government disappearing. What we have in its place is cultural policy from government, and it will make a massive practical difference for the arts and artists in this country.

Tony Burke is the federal Arts Minister.