A half-billion dollar package to be shared among Australia’s national collecting institutions over the next four years will be part of May’s federal budget, in a step to ameliorate the effects of years of underfunding in the cultural sector.
The arts minister, Tony Burke, and the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, will make the $535m pre-budget announcement on Wednesday, throwing a financial lifeline to beleaguered institutions such as the National Gallery of Australia, the National Library of Australia and the National Museum of Australia.
On Monday, the National Library’s endangered archives – comprising more than 6bn records of newspapers, journals, books, pictures, maps and other documents – was promised a $33m bailout by the Albanese government, just three months before Trove’s coffers were set to run dry.
In Wednesday’s announcement, the library will receive a further $31m for capital works over the next two financial years, $11.7m to pay for storage costs over the next four years and $70.5m in recurrent funding from 2023 to 2027, bringing the total funding package to $146.2m. After 2026/2027, the library has been allocated $31.3m in annual ongoing indexed funding.
The other major winner will be the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), whose dire financial position has received national coverage in recent months. The gallery has said it is in need of about $265m over the next decade to pay for urgent repairs to make the 40-year-old building suitable.
One-off government grants totalling almost $22m for repairs were scheduled to run out at the end of the financial year.
The May budget will deliver an additional $42.4m for capital works between 2023 and 2025, along with $76.7m over four years to ensure the gallery’s financial sustainability.
The National Museum of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery, the Museum of Australian Democracy, the National Archives and the National Film and Sound Archive, along with the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney and the Bundanon Trust in Shoalhaven, will also share in the $535m allocation, with $38m in new money from the previous budget.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the forthcoming federal budget would restore national pride in Australia’s most cherished cultural and historical institutions, which were not included in the government’s $300m national cultural policy, Revive, announced in January.
The budget funding would address “a decade of decline” and “chronic underfunding” under the previous Coalition governments, he said.
A clear line of sight over future capital works undertaken at the country’s nine major collecting institutions would be established to ensure they would never again fall into the state of disrepair they have done over the past decade, Albanese said in a statement.
“These are special places and we should be proud of them,” he said. “They preserve, protect and celebrate Australia’s stories and history. My government is committed to preserving, protecting and celebrating them.”
Burke said strong core funding delivered by government would place the country’s leading cultural institutions in a position to attract greater philanthropy further down the track.
“This funding means people will be able to go to places like the National Gallery of Australia and enjoy the exhibits without worrying about the physical integrity of the building that’s housing them,” he said in the joint statement.
“It is a disgrace that the former Coalition government allowed these institutions to fall into such a shocking state of disrepair.”
Last month the plight of the NGA was called a “national disgrace” after Nine newspapers published images of buckets and towels capturing water leaking from the gallery’s walls and ceilings, and reports of artworks having to be removed from walls for protection.
The Guardian was unable to obtain comment from the NGA prior to publication.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, will deliver the full 2023 federal budget on 9 May.
