Creative Australia: groupthink and backslapping

Adrian Collette, CEO of Creative Australia, has come under fire for the appointment of Australia’s representatives to the Venice Biennale. Picture: Britta Campion

Creative Australia’s embattled CEO Adrian Collette will front a Senate Estimates hearing on Tuesday night, where his foot-fingers will be held to the fire over the ill-fated appointment — and the spectacular de-appointment — of artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, formerly Australia’s artist representatives to the Venice Biennale.

Collette is sure to expand on the mess of what happened. His position hinges on the strength of this performance, and from what we understand of the palaver he’s likely to say something along the lines of: “Yes, it was me, I signed off on Sabsabi and Dagostino, but only after a direct report recommended them to me, and after assurances were given that there was absolutely no landmines lurking in either of their works.”

We’re paraphrasing, but you get the gist. And of course those assurances were given to him.

Creative Australia has hired, funded and nurtured artists whose personas revolve around anti-Western, anti-Australian or anti-Zionist “resistance” narratives, sometimes all three.

The place has become a merry-go-round of grant-funding panels stacked with folks who elevate their mates and hand out money to ideologically aligned affiliates (all conflicts declared, of course).

Collette might want to explain how Creative Australia appointed 517 peer assessors to oversee grant funding between 2022 and 2024. Amazingly, more than one in three of these assessors — roughly 37 per cent — received grants themselves over the same period. Their hands are practically aching from all the backslapping they’ve been giving each other.

Khaled Sabsabi was sent to Venice before having his role as representative rescinded.

When we drilled down into key funding categories like visual arts, we found 39 per cent of assessors received their own grant funding. In literature, it was 43.6 per cent.

You’re wondering what this means? It means these people who sign the same anti-Israel petitions, attend the same protests, sit on the same artist collectives, buy each other’s work and boost each other’s content on Instagram, are all marking each other’s homework.

Our analysis showed in the visual arts, 23 per cent of the assessors shared an ideological alignment on views either anti-Australian, anti-Israel or anti-Semitic in nature. In literature, it was 51 per cent.

The place has been warped, cooked, by biases.

Under the weight of these forces it’s easy to see how artists might channel their creative impulses — and deaden others — to align with the tastes and values of these peers. We’re thinking of assessors like Karen Wyld, a grant recipient who publicly mourned the death of the despicably cruel terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar. “Resisting colonisation until his last breath,” she wrote.

Collette might want to explain how this lunatic could ever have been considered a suitable peer assessor, or been trusted to sensibly adjudicate on the distribution of taxpayer funds.

In the meantime, is it any wonder Creative Australia’s cultural gatekeepers missed the alarm bells amid Sabsabi’s appointment? What’s that old saying? When all you do is wear rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags just end up looking like … flags.

Shifting shares

Even Sanjeev Gupta’s inner circle was caught by surprise by Peter Malinauskas’s bold move to seize control of the Whyalla steelworks last week. But, an extraordinary swiftie pulled by the British magnate to avoid the loss of another steel business suggests the secrecy was a wise idea.

Gupta’s move to transfer control of a group of European steelworks immediately ahead of another insolvency, this time ordered by a London court, also offers a salutary lesson for KordaMentha and the rest of Whyalla’s frustrated creditors as they look to unwind the mess in South Australia.

In this case it’s a shambolic attempt by global steel giant ArcelorMittal to claim money it is owed after selling seven major steelworks across as many countries to Gupta’s GFG Alliance in 2019.

GFG Alliance’s Sanjeev Gupta. Picture: Mark Brake

Gupta’s group was to pay €740m in total, including €140m in deferred payments. Gupta’s group failed to deliver the remaining cash, according to ArcelorMittal.

ArcelorMittal, controlled by Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, took the matter to the British courts, eventually winning the right to put one of Gupta’s (many, many) UK companies into administration on November 24 last year.

Sadly for the steel giant, it only targeted the Gupta company which actually owed the money, Liberty Steel East Europe (Holdco).

That company controlled another entity, Liberty Steel East Europe (Midco), which controlled another Gupta company, Liberty Steel East Europe (Bidco), which controlled another six companies, which actually (probably) owned the companies which owned the European steelworks.

Guess what happened?

That’s right, faced with a loss in court, Midco sold its shares in Bidco to another Gupta group company — Liberty Delta 5 — the same day its parent (Holdco) was put into administration.

Confused? So, too, are ArcelorMittal and the London administrators put in to recover the steelmaker’s cash, FRP Advisory.

Lamentations over the transaction are included in an FRP report released in January. But, essentially it means Gupta has retained control over all the European steelworks.

ArcelorMittal is left trying to recover the cash from a holding company (Holdco) which only owns another holding company (Midco) that doesn’t seem to own anything anymore.

Gupta called in voluntary administrators for Midco the day after the transaction closed, further complicating matters. And, all of the actual assets remain within the Gupta group, at least for the moment.

But, guess who might wind up with the job of sorting out that mess as well?

Buried deep in Mark Mentha and Michael Korda’s conflict of interest disclosures for Whyalla, released on Monday, was the news KordaMentha’s Singaporean arm might be taking up some work for ArcelorMittal. The top of the Gupta corporate tree winds up in Singapore, you see.

Although to get there you’d still have to work your way through — and we kid you not — another four Singaporean companies, then one registered in the UAE, then another Singaporean company.

Good luck to all.