let’s put art at the heart of the capital

Art makes life better. It brings us together. It helps us process the tough times and celebrate the fun ones. Art is good for the soul.

Canberrans love art; 99% of us are engaged in creative and artistic activities and events locally. Most of us think art stimulates our minds, helps child development, helps us understand other people’s cultures, improves our mental health and more. In the capital, art matters.

The ACT Government has set a bold Statement of Ambition to make Canberra a city with art at our heart. But how can we have an arts scene without artists?

How did we get here?

It is hard to make a living from making art. I know this from experience. Before entering politics, I was a writer. I wrote poems and stories and articles and a blog. I staged festival pieces. I had a novel published. I also ran a technical writing practice and worked part-time to ‘supplement’ my income.

My actual money came from the salaried and contract work, not my creative work. I was thrilled with each royalty cheque and grant and festival booking. I didn’t earn much from my practice, but I assumed I didn’t work hard enough and wasn’t yet good enough.

I didn’t talk money with my artist friends. I regret this. Our world assumes that if you’re good at what you do, you’ll earn a living from it. This idea works for plumbers and accountants, but not artists. Income varies across fields and there’s a huge difference between a concert pianist and a cake designer. But it’s immensely helpful to see professional associations publish average earnings.

The Australian Society of Authors says Australian authors earn on average $18,200 each year. The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance has found that half of Australia’s musicians earned less than $6000 a year. The National Association for Visual Arts says over 80% of visual artists earn less than $25,000.

If you can’t earn a living from your practice, it’s not your fault. It’s not because you’re not good enough or because people think art is irrelevant. It’s because, unlike plumbing and accounting, we haven’t set up the structures to pay for art.

This is poorly understood by politicians and public servants. I argued for ACT and Federal COVID business support to extend to arts businesses. I failed. Those schemes were pinned to provable monthly income, not gig work. They were designed for businesses meeting the GST threshold of $75,000 per year. The attitude was: artists don’t make money anyway, so why worry about them?

I’m worried.

Professional art has long been marginal. Artists get by with second jobs, partners who earn and careful budgeting. But this is no longer working.

COVID decimated our live music scene. The cost of living crisis has compounded this.

Audiences, especially young people, can’t afford to buy art or tickets, or food and drinks while they’re at the show. Artists and venues can’t sell.

And costs have gone up. Public liability insurance has skyrocketed. I’ve spoken to many artists who’ve since left town or left practice.

Our venues are toppling. Our talent is leaving. What was once marginal, is now impossible.

How will we have an arts scene without artists?

What should ACT Government do about it?

The ACT Government has set a bold Statement of Ambition. Let’s fund it.

ACT arts organisations need ongoing funding for programs to pay proper wages to artists and arts workers. Twenty-one arts organisations recently signed an open letter pointing out their funding shortfall. The last budget responded, sort of. It just about met CPI (consumer price index) increases. Government told the sector this was a generous funding increase.

This is not good enough.

Each year, the ACT Government spends over half of its ‘arts budget’ on capital works. This means the developers and builders get paid, but many of the artists don’t. It’s important that we maintain our venues. Woden Arts, Tuggeranong Arts, Ainslie and Gorman House and others need uplift and maintenance. Some of that work is underway. But it’s all basic maintenance that our city and Federal Government should pay for. It’s not part of our core arts budget.

You wouldn’t build a hospital and then run out of money for doctors and nurses. Why build galleries and theatres without funding them to stage art exhibitions and shows?

How will the ACT Greens do it differently? We will double funding for arts centres, arts organisations and arts grants. We’ll provide organisation funding on a four-year basis with full CPI indexation each year. No more begging and anxious waits to see if you meet basic cost increases. Put your energy elsewhere.

This will help our arts organisations to pay our artists fairly. The Greens have long backed sector calls for fair pay. We welcome the ACT Government commitment to the Fair Remuneration Principles. But we need to provide funding that meet these. We also need to track implementation to make sure the principles lead to fair pay.

The ACT Greens will also make new long-term opportunities. Established festivals could run multi-year contracts instead of providing gig work. We will create a new commissioning officer in ArtsACT who will connect local artists with existing opportunities in ACT Government. Think photos and illustrations in annual reports, local music for phone hold lines, art as part of corporate training. This officer will also create new spaces and connect artists with existing under-utilised spaces. We want art in our shopping centres, our new developments and our suburbs.

We will increase support for First Nations art through our Cultural Arts Program and commissioning.

We have a big focus on accessibility too by providing new funds and assistance from ArtsACT to make art accessible to all.

We’ve thought hard about how to save live music. We’ll follow through with the work on entertainment precincts, getting settings right for Civic and Gungahlin and rolling precincts out in Belconnen, Molonglo, Woden, Tuggeranong and EPIC. We’ll work with the sector to problem-solve public liability insurance. We’ll look at sector risk management tools that lower premiums, law reform options and direct Government support. All of these options have been supported by this government or others in market failure situations. I’m confident we can solve this one too. We’ll also create a new Industry Development Officer to support long-term professional opportunities in live music.

Let’s talk money

Gosh, that all sounds expensive! How will Canberra afford it?

Doubling the funding for our arts centres, organisations and grants will only cost an extra $10 million per year. That’s a pretty small chunk from a $9 billion budget.

The ACT Government has no problems finding a lazy $10 million for sectors it wants to support. Take the horse racing industry. Despite constant opposition from the Greens and the community, the ACT Government continues to fund that industry with $8 million of taxpayer money each year. If there’s this much for horse racing, we can afford $10 million for the arts.

There will be a huge economic penalty if we don’t. Our creative sector contributes $2.9 billion – around 8% – to our local economy. The ACT has the largest proportion of creative workers in Australia. In 2021, there were over 25,000 jobs in our local creative sector. Imagine if we lose all this.

So let’s commit. Let’s fund the Statement of Ambition and put art at the heart of the capital.

Where can I find out more?

Check out the ACT Greens arts policies for details and get in touch. I’d love to hear your views and ideas! And remember, if you want this plan – vote for it.

The ACT election takes place on Saturday 19 October 2024. This is the first in a series of opinion pieces in which ACT politicians put forward their policies and beliefs in the lead-up to the Australian Capital Territory’s election.