Actually, this budget is full of support for the arts

If Ben Oquist from the left-wing Australia Institute genuinely “expected nothing” for the arts in the 2021-22 Budget (Canberra Times, 15 May), he must have been stunned when he saw what Josh Frydenberg’s Budget contained for the sector.

This year’s Budget includes record Commonwealth funding for the arts and creative sectors, totalling over one billion dollars in 2021-22. 

As well as maintaining annual Commonwealth core funding of around $750 million for the arts, the Budget has a big slice of extra money for our creative sector. 

There are two reasons why.  First, we want to see Australia’s creative and cultural sector recover from the COVID downturn.  But more than that, we want the sector to seize the opportunities that these unusual circumstances have created.

A good example is the additional $400 million we committed for the Location Incentive program, through to 2026-27, to attract global screen productions to Australia.

Australia is rightly seen as a safe place to make movies and the incentive is designed to capitalise on that. It has worked a treat, with 23 productions secured to date, generating more than 13,000 jobs for Australian actors and crew. 

Of course we are also supporting domestic screen activity, including through our $50 million Temporary Interruption Fund (TIF).  With no insurance available against COVID risks, this fund has been critical to unblocking screen financing; 51 domestic productions have already relied on it.

Not only are we supporting existing creative industries; we are also providing support to new industries. The Budget included a 30 per cent tax offset to support the growth of the digital games sector. 

Globally the digital games market is valued at $250 billion, some five times as big as movies. This new tax offset will be a game changer to help Australian digital games studios capture a bigger share of this huge global market.

The centrepiece of our COVID recovery support for the arts sector is the RISE fund.  RISE grants are helping arts companies, festivals, promoters and entrepreneurs to put on shows in 2021, when many have little of their own capital left after no activity was possible for much of 2020.

The recent budget allocated another $125 million for RISE (on top of the original $75 million).  It also contained $50 million to extend the TIF; over $85 million of additional funding for the National Gallery of Australia and our other national collecting institutions; $75 million to reinstate the Producer Offset Rate for film to 40 per cent; $20 million to help independent cinemas survive; a further $20 million for organisations like Support Act, Playing Australia and Indigenous art centres; $11.4 million for regional arts and tourism; and $11.9 million for the Australian Children’s Television Foundation.

So far $100 million of RISE grants have been allocated for 242 projects ranging across  music, Indigenous arts, live theatre, literature, visual arts and dance. 76 percent has gone to small and medium organisations; it has supported up to 89,000 jobs; and the total combined audience will be around 26 million.

We’ve set up a new advisory group, the Creative Economy Taskforce, with arts and entertainment sector leaders from all around Australia, to give frank and expert advice. The COVID response is a great opportunity to make arts funding more democratic and accessible; with the help of the Creative Economy Taskforce our funding decisions have gone well beyond the usual range of subsidised arts companies.

From big musicals like Hamilton and Moulin Rouge; to festivals like Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne Fringe and Sydney Fringe; to music festivals like Splendour in the Grass and Bluesfest; to theatre companies like MTC and Sport for Jove; and a wide range of other projects like the Brickman Lego exhibition in Melbourne, the range of arts events being supported by RISE is unprecedented.

This funding is driving jobs in arts and entertainment—but also in sectors like hospitality and tourism. After all if you go and see a show you very likely go to a bar or cafe or restaurant as well, you might book into a hotel for a night, you might even fly interstate to see a big musical or exhibition. 

But it is also stimulating a flourishing in creative energy and activity, right across our country.

Leftist advocates like Oquist can keep telling each other the Coalition doesn’t ‘get’ the arts.  It’s never been true, as is shown by the long list of institutions set up on our watch: the Australia Council, the National Library, the National Gallery, the Australian Film Television and Radio School, the National Museum, the National Portrait Gallery.

And it is certainly not true in 2021.  On the contrary, our energetic arts policy response to the COVID downturn has resulted in federal government support for the arts and entertainment sector reaching levels never previously seen from a federal government, Labor or Coalition.  That’s something to celebrate.

This article appeared in the Canberra Times on 7 May 2021