It’s been a momentous week for the arts in Australia: a nation electrified by creative work across all genres, and a transformative new policy enacted as law.
Melbourne’s Rising festival; Tasmania’s Dark Mofo; Sydney’s Vivid and the Sydney film festival, happening at the same time. The Emerging Writers’ festival and the Williamstown literary festival are also on, each celebrating their 20th anniversaries, and on Tuesday this week – ahead of the annual Australian Performing Arts Market – there was a landmark gathering of First Nations performing arts organisations held in Melbourne, mapping out new futures for Indigenous creative workforce development.
Underlining it all has been the passing of the Creative Australia legislation on Friday, which established two new bodies – Music Australia and Creative Workplaces – to support Australian musicians and artists. In the lead-up, we saw MP after MP rise to speak meaningfully and passionately about the central role that creative culture plays in our lives, and its unquestionable role in powering the economy.
Creative Australia is a central tract of the Albanese government’s national cultural policy – itself a welcome boost to the industry after more than a decade of declining federal support of the arts. Embedded across government portfolios, Revive heralds a new era of creative invigoration.
For the first time in a long time, it feels like arts are on the national agenda.
So it’s been quite jarring to see the national broadcaster take steps in the other direction.
On Thursday, among 120 redundancies, the ABC sacked its managing editor of the arts and digital editor of the arts – its two most senior dedicated arts specialists. The screen arts team are moving to a new screen Arts, Music and Events department, while the two arts journalist positions that remain are being moved to the digital and innovation team, under a division called “Content” – itself an ugly word. Moving forward, the national broadcaster will have no dedicated, stand-alone team reporting on the arts online.
The news confounded the arts industry, and was met with loud opposition across social media; some pointed to the broadcaster’s charter, “to encourage and promote the musical, dramatic and other performing arts in Australia”.
The ABC released a statement on Friday defending the changes, which they say “will in no way diminish the ABC’s ability to meet its Charter responsibilities to arts coverage”.
“The proposals announced yesterday will see savings reinvested into the ABC’s arts coverage which will lead to more of the arts content audiences want and expect,” the statement read, drawing attention to other “arts-related content” across the ABC’s broadcast and social media channels. “Our commitment to the arts remains as solid and comprehensive as ever.”
Hopefully that’s true, but many remain unconvinced. Losing their only specialist editors dedicated to the arts can’t help but have an impact on the depth and scope of the ABC’s arts coverage – particularly after the broadcaster’s former national arts correspondent, Michaela Boland, left the organisation in 2020, and was never replaced. “ABC management’s degradation of the arts continues,” Boland tweeted on Thursday.
The concern is that these changes will reduce the ABC’s capacity for arts journalism, cultural analysis and industry reporting – to say nothing of arts criticism and reviews. What’s at stake is an approach to the arts that’s contemporary and relevant; coverage that draws on significant expertise to extend well beyond Archibald wins, and to engage rigorously with the industry and present timely investigations.
At the very least, it seems out of step with the current moment. When MPs rose to speak to the Creative Australia legislation, they delivered an impassioned and bipartisan celebration of the value of Australian arts and culture.
Independent MP Allegra Spender said that we rely on artists’ thinking “to drive the experimentation and out-of-the-box ideas” that create our national identity, and will lead to future prosperity.
Nationals MP Sam Birrell said “we all want to see creativity at the forefront of national identity”, and spoke of the vital role of the arts towards mental health and men’s health in regional communities.
Liberal MP David Gillespie said the arts is a “very important industry” working with “flexibility, nimbleness and freedom” to create “great work”.
Arts minister Tony Burke said that when people think of Australia, he wants them to think not just of “natural beauty” but “the new stories, the new creativity, and the stories that have lived on this earth and on this continent ever since the first sunrise”.
“The arts ask questions,” said the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, “sometimes uncomfortable for those of us in public life, but that is a good thing. In the arts, we feel joy and celebration … What the arts add up to is a never-ending journey of discovery. That is how the arts can bring us together.”
What did this week’s gathering of First Nations performing arts achieve, and what’s the national significance of that work? Where in regional Australia have arts experiences had the most profound impacts on community life? How has artistic thinking led to out-of-the-box innovation in an unexpected field? What global conversions are Australian artists leading? Whose stories are being told, and why, and by whom?
There are so many big questions to be asked right now. Let’s hope there are enough journalists left with the expertise to pursue them.
