The Australia Council is one of this country's most important cultural resources.
That arts activity and cultural industries have grown so dramatically over the 21 years of it's existence is testament to the success of Commonwealth policies in general and the Australia Council in particular.
However, there are now three times as many practising artists and four times as many arts organisations as there were 20 years ago, and most rely substantially on the Council for their continued existence. It is not surprising that the Australia Council is finding it more difficult to respond to the demands placed on it by this expanding community, in an environment where funding and staffing levels, and particularly the support from non-Commonwealth sources, have failed to keep pace with client growth.
The Government realises that the Council has dealt well up to now with assisting artists who practice their skills in a small market which faces intense pressure from abroad. It has achieved this success principally through its support for the creation and presentation of the arts.
But it also believes that the Council, as a matter of some urgency, has to turn its attention away from the `supply' side of the arts equation to the creation of a higher level of demand from arts consumers.
It would be unfair to deny that the Council has devoted a significant proportion of its funding and energies to promoting and marketing the arts, both locally and internationally. But the Council's efforts in this area have to some extent been hamstrung. New initiatives towards new directions are constantly foundering on a lack of resources. Short-term consultancies carried out outside the Council have not been an adequate answer.
The Commonwealth believes that the Council has to undergo a process of structural change to meet the new requirements of its role. It has already to some extent embarked on this process with its recent announcement of a wide-ranging review of peer assessment processes in order to streamline them and make them more flexible and suitable for future needs.
The Government strongly supports this initiative on the part of the Council. It reiterates its support for arms length funding and peer assessment. But it believes that a peer assessment system which is not efficient of time and resources for both Council staff and its clients should be changed. It further believes that the process of applying for, and being assessed for, funding should be simple and transparent, so that those clients who are unsuccessful in their applications can clearly understand the reasoning behind the decision. The Australia Council should also squarely address the question of whether any change is needed to its current means of defining `peer'.
Changing the peer assessment processes will not of itself, however, be enough to equip the Council to carry out the role the Government requires of it. The Australia Council structure, which has evolved over 20 years, should be simplified in order to enable the organisation to respond more flexibly to the changing needs of the arts community.
The Government believes that the Australia Council should continue to break down the existing rigidities between the art form Boards. These Boards face common problems of audience and sponsorship development, and an across Board approach is needed.
The Government recognises that there has been a decline in corporate sponsorship for cultural organisations in favour of sport, a situation which is likely to be exacerbated by the forthcoming Olympic Games in Sydney in the year 2000. It is also true that those dollars which now go to cultural support flow overwhelmingly to the larger organisations.
The next generation of arts funding must be a better combination of private and public, not because the Government wishes to reduce its outlays in this area - but to meet the needs of the arts community if it is to play the role we expect of it in the country's future development. Put simply, we need to move more towards the United States' approach to benefaction.
The Government recognises that the Council has already begun exploring ways to encourage this process through corporate sponsorships and bequests, but it believes that the Council should be able to play a much expanded role in future, both in helping smaller organisations develop the skills base themselves and in raising general consciousness of philanthropy for the arts.
The Australia Council must also concentrate on developing audiences for Australian creative work. There is much that can be done domestically.
The Council must continue to work closely with schools and post-secondary education institutions. In a healthy artistic culture, those who enjoy the arts activities most, understand something of the artistic traditions within which they are embedded, and are thus better able to engage with them critically. Education has a major responsibility in this area.
A cultural education system which is concerned simply with the development of the skills of artists and workers in arts industries is inadequate. Arts education must be about much more than skills formation. We require a broadly based education system that focuses on a comprehensive range of educational values stressing imagination and creativity as well as skills.
Audience development must occur not only through formal education institutions but also through the parallel education system, which includes libraries, museums, historical societies, open learning and continuing education agencies, film and television and the like. Finding the mechanisms to break down the barriers which have traditionally existed between these different education systems is a challenge which the Council must meet.
It is very obvious, for example, that a school audience development strategy that is oblivious to changes in youth culture is unlikely to be successful.
The Government is aware that the Council is already working on its role in educational development, and looking to the possibilities that arise from utilising new approaches, such as new media, as a means of putting young people into contact with writers, painters, musicians and craftspersons. In doing so, the Australia Council can not only ensure better access to what young people may tend to think of as "high" or more often outmoded culture, but also open new and broader perspectives on the part of arts practitioners themselves.
In more general terms the Australia Council should carry out the restructuring necessary to ensure that Australian artists' incomes are improved by new technologies, that Australian copyrights are exploited to the full and that Australian talent is employed in the new broadcasting technologies.
It is worth remembering that the precursor to the existing body, the Australian Council for the Arts, as originally set up was designed to encourage film and television in association with other art forms. The arts are now much more interdependent than they were then.
The Government believes that the Australia Council, with the accumulated knowledge from dealing with thousands of artists over the years of its existence, its skilled staff and its formidable research base, should be able to play a vital role in encouraging the translation of the arts to screen-based media. It considers that the Council should give a high priority to the process of generating Australian content for the information highway. New access to the arts should be widely developed across free-to-air and subscription based broadcasting, thereby bringing into play a much wider range of niche, specialist, educational and mass audiences.
By instituting the above measures, and others which the Council is in the process of implementing already, there can be a substantial increase in domestic audience development. But we also need to look for markets for our cultural products offshore. There is at present only a minimal market for cultural exports, and this can be best addressed by developing international strategies across art forms, in co-operation with the other cultural agencies and indeed other portfolios, particularly that of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The Government believes that the Australia Council is the obvious body to develop an international cultural marketing structure that encourages cultural exchange; it does not subscribe to the theory that we need to establish a British Council look-alike, although our diplomatic posts and specialist agencies within the Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio and other relevant portfolios will obviously continue to play their important roles.
In summary then, the Government believes that the Australia Council needs to deploy an increasing amount of its resources in areas of audience development, linkages with broadcasting technologies, marketing and sponsorship stimulation and international export development. The outcome of these processes will, in the medium term, substantially impact on artists' incomes and on the well-being of the community in general.
The Government is confident that the Council has the will to take up the challenge. It also recognises that will alone is not enough. The Council must also have the capacity to institute change without penalty to those whom it currently assists.
The Government therefore will provide a range of measures for the Council to enable it to succeed.
We have long recognised that the Council and its clients deserve to operate in an atmosphere of stability and predictability. Funding the Council on a triennial basis will provide this atmosphere for its own operations, and will enable the Council to make continuing commitments to a larger number of clients than it is currently able to do.
With a greater knowledge of future funding levels, arts organisations will be able to undertake more accurate forward planning and enter into long-term and more efficient financial commitments.
The Government will introduce triennial funding for the Australia Council.
The Government will also honour its commitment to provide predictable and stable funding to major performing arts organisations by setting up a new board of the Council, the Major Organisations Board. This follows on from a recommendation of a joint working group from the Council and the Australian Cultural Development Office, and provides government recognition of the special requirements of major performing arts organisations as significant business enterprises.
The Board will address the underlying financial difficulties of certain major companies and will obviate the need for ad hoc requests for assistance from the Government.
Organisations will be included in the Board by the Council on the basis of an assessment of their national significance and their financial viability. It is anticipated that some organisations will need to receive an injection of funding to overcome current financial difficulties before they are placed within the Board.
Once within the Board, the organisations will receive guaranteed funding for up to three years. They will enter into a performance agreement with the Commonwealth based on a business plan covering the period of the agreement. All organisations will be reviewed before the renewal of the agreement.
The Council has already carried out some preliminary work to identify possible organisations for the new board. Membership of the Board will be announced in the near future and it is anticipated that the Council will announce which organisations will be funded by this mechanism shortly thereafter.
The Government will establish a Major Organisations Board of the Australia Council
While we expect the Major Organisations Board to be widely welcomed, the Government recognises that smaller organisations and individual artists would benefit considerably from a greater level of support. It has decided, therefore, to provide an increase in the base level of assistance to the Council which can be used across existing Council programs, and particularly for assistance to individual artists. By so doing, the Government will be helping both the Council and subsidised performing arts bodies to meet the cost of increased wage obligations caused by the recent arbitrated wage increase for actors and dancers.
The Government will increase the Council's base funding level to provide additional assistance for individual artists.
One of the most successful programs of recent years has been the Australian Artists Creative Fellowships Scheme. The Government has now agreed that the scheme be extended to include a separate component for talented young artists to receive a level of support in order to concentrate on their artistic development. While the details of the proposal will be announced shortly, it is anticipated that it will operate under a mentorship arrangement, with the number of the new junior fellowships depending on the number of the senior ones.
A system of junior creative fellowships will be established to complement the existing Australian Artists Creative Fellowships Scheme.
This policy has already addressed the need for the Council to develop an international marketing strategy to increase export potential. The Government will provide the Council with additional funds for this purpose. The strategy should be developed in conjunction with Austrade.
The Government will fund the Council's development of an international marketing strategy.
The Government will also provide additional funding to the Council to develop alternative mechanisms of funding for the arts and stimulate increased private sector support. As has been argued above, the stimulation of benefaction is an essential step in the development of the arts.
The Government will fund a new Council program to develop private sponsorship of the arts.
The Government proposes to transfer the operation of the Foundation for Australian Cultural Development, based in Melbourne, from the Department of Communications and the Arts to the Australia Council.
As a result of the transfer the Foundation will have access to the administrative support and the arts network of the Australia Council and the opportunity to explore and develop partnerships with a wide range of cultural and humanities organisations.
The Foundation will give the Council a Melbourne presence, something for which there has been support for some time. The Foundation, while located within the Council, will retain its own Board and local management.
It is intended that the Foundation's goals and mode of operation will resemble - albeit only in the broadest sense - those of the American Endowment for the Humanities. The Foundation will gather more effectively into the cultural development of the nation the knowledge and talents of the humanities and the social sciences. It will initiate and support projects of national significance, including multi-disciplinary projects such as those between film-makers and historians.
It will also stimulate private sector sponsorship for projects and for individual scholars and artists, and encourage partnerships between the corporate and public spheres. As such, it will provide a linking framework between key agencies (libraries, universities, heritage), the public and private sectors and communities.
The Foundation's aim will be to extend Australians' understanding of their own country and its future. It will play a particularly important creative role in the preparation of 2001 celebrations.
The Council will assume responsibility for the Foundation for Australian Cultural Development.
These new measures will, in the Government's view, make for a dynamic and progressive Australia Council which is equipped to meet the challenges confronting the arts as we move towards the next century.
An organisation with a task such as this requires its chief officer to devote full-time attention to its operation. The Government, therefore, will in future make the position of Chair of the Australia Council a full-time executive position.
The Government will establish the Chair of the Australia Council as a full-time executive position.
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