Double-dipping in sights as audit targets arts board funding

A REVIEW of board positions on state-funded arts bodies in Queensland to stop double-dipping heralds a shake-up of the sector.

A REVIEW of board positions on state-funded arts organisations in Queensland to stop double-dipping by directors heralds a shake-up of the sector under new minister Ian Walker.

The latest addition to Campbell Newman's cabinet, elevated after Ros Bates was forced to resign as arts minister last month, has big plans to overhaul arts funding.

Mr Walker, a corporate lawyer whose father played saxophone with Col Joye, ordered the review of arts boards after it emerged Screen Queensland director Kaye Martin was also holding down a $1500-a-day consultancy with the organisation. She has since left both positions.

Mr Walker said the situation of a director working as a paid consultant to the same body was unacceptable, and he had ordered his departmental director-general to review all board positions to ensure nobody else was doing it.

"I just think it's important that transparency in the arts is there for all stakeholders," he told The Weekend Australian's special Sunday edition. "I thought it was important as one of my jobs to ensure we put that beyond any doubt."

Mr Walker, 58, takes on the portfolio at a time when the patchy performance of Ms Bates and Mr Newman's scrapping last April of the Queensland literary awards continue to dog relations between the Liberal National Party government and the arts community.

Asked if he needed to build trust with the sector, Mr Walker said: "The important thing to say is that last year difficult decisions were made given . . . the government's dire economic situation and the arts community unfortunately had to bear some of the brunt of that."

Speaking on the day that submissions to the government's Arts for All Queenslanders initiative closed, Mr Walker said a discussion paper would be released next month, "tossing it all up in the air" on where the arts should head.

Arts Queensland distributes $41.5 million annually in grants, a quarter of which goes to the four established state performing companies, Opera Queensland ($2.5m), Queensland Ballet ($1.9m), Queensland Symphony Orchestra ($2.8m) and Queensland Theatre Company ($3.5m).

Other states have moved away from this model, with Victoria making contemporary dance outfit Chunky Move a state company.

Mr Walker acknowledged that the status of the traditional state companies would be part of the review, although all of them were "performing well", especially the Queensland Ballet under new artistic director Li Cunxin.

"I am certainly not a great one for saying that everything has to be an organised agent of the state," he said.

"I think there is some great creativity happening in other organisations."

He knows this first-hand, having chaired the board of the Camerata of St John's, Brisbane's up-and-coming chamber orchestra.