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Op-Ed: Omission in a title doesn’t diminish commitment
The recent announcement that commonwealth arts policy will sit within a merged Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications has triggered a fair bit of commentary.
Some see it as a snub to the arts sector. Let me explain why I disagree — and why, on the contrary, I see it as an opportunity.
There is no change to ministerial responsibilities. As the relevant minister, I have the word arts in my title and I sit around the cabinet table where I can make the case directly for the importance of the arts.
There is no change in the funding of $749m committed by the Morrison government to the arts portfolio in 2019-20.
There is no change in the number of dedicated and committed officials working on arts policy; they simply continue their important work in the combined department. There is no change to the role and funding of our important arts and cultural institutions such as the Australia Council, Screen Australia and our national collecting institutions.
The arts sector has not been singled out; with 18 departments reorganised into 14, these machinery-of-government changes affect many important policy areas.
It is true that the word arts is not in the title of the new department. But that is neither new nor unusual. There have been two periods in the past decade — under Labor and Coalition governments — when the commonwealth’s arts policy function sat within a department that did not have the word arts in its title.
At the state level, arts does not appear in the title of the responsible department in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia or Tasmania.
You could, I acknowledge, mount a reasoned argument that arts policy can best be advanced through a small, specialised, stand-alone department, although I have not observed much reasoned argument in the Twitter commentary.
But in my view the much better argument is that arts policy will have a stronger voice across government within a larger, merged department, where arts can cross-pollinate with policy areas such as regional development, cities and infrastructure.
Consider, for example, cities policy — a responsibility of the new, merged department.
An important consideration in cities policy is how to activate urban areas; under the Launceston and Darwin city deals (tripartite local-state-commonwealth agreements), universities are being relocated to CBD areas to help make those areas more vibrant, interesting and active.
There is an obvious opportunity to leverage arts activity in a similar way to help activate urban areas.
Whether it’s congratulating deserving recipients at the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards or the National Arts and Disability Awards; seeing the work of extraordinary Aboriginal artists in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands or at Desert Mob; attending performances of the West Australian Ballet, or Sydney Theatre Company, or HotHouse Theatre Company in Albury-Wodonga, or Bangarra, or the National Institute of Dramatic Art, or Sydney Dance Company, or Circus Oz — in seven months in this portfolio I have been left in no doubt of the sheer brainpower in the arts sector.
Nor do I have any doubt about the fundamental importance of Australia’s performing, visual, musical and literary artists to our sense of national identity, to our social cohesion and to our collective understanding of the world and nation we inhabit.
We now have the opportunity to draw on the brainpower and creative excellence of Australia’s arts sector to influence the way that policy is made across a much broader range of sectors, and in my view that is something to be welcomed.
Paul Fletcher is the federal Minister for Communications, Cybersafety and the Arts.
Originally published in The Australian, 19 December 2019
