This seems to be the way of it in the arts at the moment. As we brace ourselves for the new federal budget that promises the tough medicine, we are still reeling from the recent funding cuts to the national cultural institutions imposed since the Rudd government came to office. While at the same time we are imagining a bright new future of support for the arts with the recent Australia 2020 Summit and the submissions for the Review of the National Innovation System. So where does the arts sector stand in the current climate?

Australia 2020 Summit

On the positive side there has been much optimism as we look to a brighter future promised with the Australia 2020 Summit held recently in Canberra. Here 1000 of our top thinkers joined ranks to discuss issues such as productivity, creativity, health, families and Indigenous Australia. Amongst this group was Dr Astrid Wootton, the Executive Director of the Design Centre in Tasmanian, and member of the ACDC network, who participated in the Creative Australia forum. These discussions while ambitious have focused the country to think about a future of possibilities. The long term outcomes of such blue sky thinking have galvanized many of us in the arts to conjure the possibility of the arts being central to government thinking and valued as a dynamic contributor to the economy; about the arts and creativity integrated across all layers of government; about visual literacy embedded in the national training curriculum to train the future thinkers of this country; about artists having a recognized minimum wage for the work they do with relevant legal and taxation support as they lead the charge into new global markets.

Australia 2020 Summit   Craft Australia submission  

The government website now has an Australia 2020 Summit - Initial Summit Report on what transpired on the day. In addition the government has advocated strongly for the embedding of creativity across all layers of government in order to be more globally competitive. We surmise from this that the arts will have a role to play in this dialogue and while we welcome the sentiment, we are all working to ensure the rhetoric can become reality. See: Related links

Review the National Innovation System

The opportunity to have our issues represented in the broader government arena came with the recent call for submissions by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research to Review the National Innovation System. Initiated by Senator Kim Carr from the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and research, through his speech New Agenda For Prosperity. Craft Australia developed a submission after consulting with the sector and the ACDC network at the recent meeting held in Sydney. A green paper will be developed from these submissions by July where public comment will be sought. A final white paper will be developed by end of the year that defines the government's priorities to support the future of innovation in Australia.

Review the National Innovation System   Craft Australia submission  

Impact on funding

While all these programs are a collective imagining and setting in place the tools to move towards a brighter future for the country, the recent actions of the government present a different story. Efficiency dividends have been imposed on all government departments. The impact on the cultural sector is that we have seen significant cuts to all the major cultural organizations and we have been told that the Australia Council for the Arts has to find $2 million in savings. The impact of these cuts to the Australia Council has been met stoically by Council staff who have reassured the sector that the funding cuts will not impact on programs.

This may be the sentiment but the actions, which speak louder than words, are not the case. In the past 3 months Craft Australia has been notified of cuts to several programs. Initially these were because they were the initiative of the previous government and therefore no longer relevant. In this case the axe fell squarely on the emerging artists mentoring program. This is a valuable program that has had enormous benefit in the craft design sector by assisting emerging artists to negotiate the pathway to a viable artistic career. The success stories, range and scope ripple across the country with the outcomes that have been delivered through this program.

One such mentoring success story, Phoebe Porter and Blanche Tilden, can be read on Craft Australia youth@craft·design National Forum.

More recently Craft Australia has been notified that the International Craft Strategy has been restructured. Gone is the 5 year program supported by the Visual Arts Board that has seen work by Australian craft and design people enter the international market with spectacular success. Presentations of exhibitions at SOFA in Chicago, Collect in London and Talente in Germany have seen many artists establish vital links to galleries and museums in the much coveted American and European collector market.

The international program by the Community Partnerships and Market Development division of the Australia Council supporting contemporary craft in the international market is currently under review. In the past this program has supported galleries to represent Australian artists at the same events mentioned above as a way of maximizing exposure for contemporary craft and design in the international arena. We begin to suspect that 'restructure' and 'review' are a new code for 'no longer funded'. We wait to see the outcome of this report to know where we stand.

These cuts demonstrate the impact of the decisions by government to impose across the board efficiency dividends. The arts sector is already a very lean beast in its operations. The future impact of the budget is yet unknown but we hope that the worse has already hit the sector and we can move upwards from here to a more dynamic future. However, in my head, a voice keeps saying, "don't count your chickens before they hatch".

Catrina Vignando
General Manager
Craft Australia
April, 2008