Script to artists: Our process is ‘robust’, says Creative Australia

The nation’s top taxpayer-funded arts body has provided a script for artists to recite if questioned about the grant assessment model amid concerns about its susceptibility to ‘cronyism’.

Creative Australia chief executive Adrian Collette.

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Artists have been instructed by the nation’s government funder of theatre, film, music and books to tell journalists that its controversial practice of having creatives judge the work of their colleagues and friends is “strict” and “guided by merit”.

The Australian revealed last week that artists judging taxpayer-funded grants for Creative Australia have themselves recently received taxpayer funding from the same pool of funds

In an email to artist-assessors at the end of last week, Creative Australia chief executive Adrian Collette suggested that if they were contacted about the robustness of the process, “you can share the following”.

“Creative Australia has strict processes in place to ensure every application that is peer assessed is considered on its merit, guided by clear, published criteria and independently scored by panels of experienced assessors,” the email reads.

“These assessors are drawn from a diverse national pool of experts, including artists, cultural leaders and practitioners across disciplines, locations and communities. Creative Australia has rigorous systems in place to manage potential conflicts of interest.

“Assessors must declare any personal or professional connections to an application or applicant and where there are clear conflicts – actual or perceived – the assessor will not participate in scoring or deliberations.

“Creative Australia operates with strong public accountability and transparency.

“The names of peer assessors and awarded grants, how we assess applications, and our policies around conflicts of interest are freely available on our website.”

Mr Collette told the artist-assessors that if contacted by the media, they did “not have any obligation to respond and can direct any inquiries” to the organisation.

Creative Australia’s peer assessment model of recommendations – in which grants are assessed by industry figures themselves – meant 32.6 per cent of the panellists who recommended grants also had been grant recipients themselves in the past six years.

This amounted to $17.7m of a total $102m given to individuals in this time.

Those revelations followed a recent saga in which Creative Australia chose, dumped and then reinstated artist Khaled Sabsabi to represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale.

Opposition arts spokesman Julian Leeser MP said the organisation appeared to suffer from “systemic governance issues” in its grant processes. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Following those findings, federal opposition arts spokesman Julian Leeser said the organisation appeared to suffer from “systemic governance issues” in its grant processes, a decision Arts Minister Tony Burke backed.

“Earlier this month, Creative Australia received a damning report about the processes they used to determine who should represent Australia at the Venice Biennale,” Mr Leeser said.

“And now The Australian has revealed that there appears to be systemic governance issues in their grant processes.

“There is nothing wrong with peer reviews, but when those who assess grant applications one year are awarded grants the next, it lacks the necessary distance for the public to have confidence in the current Creative Australia grant process and its outcomes.

“I am writing to Tony Burke to ask him to launch an independent inquiry.

“Taxpayers and the broader Australian community need to have confidence arts grants are being administered with proper governance and probity.”

Mr Burke at the time noted that it was the “same process of peer review used by the previous government”.