Forum calls for tax-free grants and prizes for artists
Archibald Prize-winning painter Ben Quilty has joined calls for tax-free arts grants and says the struggling culture sector is ‘on a terrifying precipice’.
Archibald Prize-winning painter Ben Quilty has joined calls for tax-free grants and prizes for artists, describing the taxing of a $30,000 arts scholarship he received as “ludicrous” and declaring the struggling culture sector was “on a terrifying precipice”.
Quilty told a high-powered arts and tax reform forum on Thursday he spent all his prize money when he travelled to Paris for a six-month residency in 2002 after winning the coveted $30,000 Brett Whiteley scholarship.
The painter revealed at the summit – attended by federal Arts Minister Tony Burke, state arts ministers and 200 cultural leaders – he didn’t realise he needed to pay tax on the scholarship. “It sent us into economic chaos when I realised I had to pay tax on that $30,000, which is just ludicrous,’’ he said.
One of the country’s best-known visual artists, Quilty criticised several universities that had shuttered their visual art colleges over the past 12 years, and said “Sydney College of the Arts is half the size it was when I went there. That’s only the art schools. The music schools as well were decimated … We’re on a terrifying precipice.’’
Quilty called for fossil fuel subsidies to be redirected to the struggling arts industry. “If we get one tenth of the subsidies that Woodside gets, we’d be f..king right,” he said.
The tax summit, held at the Sydney Opera House, brought economists, arts leaders, artists and politicians together to thrash out how tax reforms could help to revitalise the struggling cultural scene.
The summit comes as popular music festivals have been postponed and as the nation’s flagship arts companies including the Art Gallery of NSW, the Australian Ballet, Queensland Ballet and Opera Australia have announced job cuts, battled hefty deficits or faced leadership instability.
NSW Arts Minister John Graham – the prime mover behind the forum – admitted that government funding was struggling to “keep up” with the needs of arts organisations. The NSW government received more than 300 submissions ahead of the forum. Mr Graham said “the most popular” reform ideas were for tax-free grants, prizes for artists and tax offsets for live performance.
He acknowledged the arts sector was grappling with “severe cost pressures” and a “big surge” in overseas content.
Mr Burke told the forum: “We have the chance for real lasting structural change.” But he added: “I won’t (immediately) be giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to different ideas.”.
The Art of Tax Reform summit will make recommendations to the federal government that are likely to shape Canberra’s next national cultural policy. Attendees included Quilty, entertainer Tim Minchin, philanthropist David Gonski, Australian Writers Guild chief Claire Pullen and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore.
Ms Moore said “almost 60 per cent of the creative sector” had told Sydney City Council they wanted to leave the city because they could not afford its high rents and house prices. They had also been priced out of working or rehearsal spaces that were developed as commercial sites. “This is a big problem that needs a big systemic solution,’’ she said. Tax reform was a good start, but “the industry is teetering”.
University of NSW chancellor David Gonski said there were “many things in the tax world that need looking at (to help the arts).’’ He said reforms could include governments matching funds from private donations, and making donations to individual artists tax-deductible.
Sydney Theatre Company co-CEO Ann Dunn said the post-Covid era “has been a really, really tough time and it’s a time I have not seen in my 30 years (in the industry). I really fear for the arts sector in this country.’’
As production costs were rising and it was risky to produce new local work, “we are going to risk not having an Australian voice (in the performing arts)’’.
Midnight Oil, Cold Chisel and Missy Higgins manager John Watson echoed Ms Dunn’s comments, warning that, without reforms, Australia was in danger of reverting to a 70s-style cultural cringe because algorithms dominated by bigger English-speaking countries preferenced overseas talent over Australian stars.
“In Australia we probably have less Australian songs on our charts than at any time since the 1960s,” he said.
He said the music industry was growing but the Australian portion of it was shrinking, and asked: “Is this the moment in Australian history where we want to have a more American culture?”
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