Those who’ve been following my (by now, rather voluminous) commentary on the 2020 summit might have noticed that one area that I’m particularly interested in is the Creative Australia stream. I’ve previously endorsed – before the summit was even called – my CPD colleague Ben Eltham’s call for a fundamental rethinking of the purposes and aims of arts and cultural policy. It strikes me that one particular aspect of arts and culture which makes it less amenable to an overarching view is the fact that a lot of the policy actors have particular vested interests, and governments have tended to outsource policy to inquiries and Arts Ministers have rarely sat back to take a more global look at the aims and goals of cultural policy. In part that reflects the fragmentation of funding and decision making across multiple jurisdictions (something recognised in the briefing notes for the summit – the majority of funding is from state and local government and federal spending is largely allocated to the ABC, SBS, and film) and in part it represents the historically low priority given to the Arts portfolio. Similarly, political debates over cultural policy are particularly heated – which actually suggests that a lot more is at stake – particularly in the notion of a “national culture” – than first impressions might suggest. But for that very reason – and largely because of the heat Keating took over his perceived “luvvie” status – there have been disincentives to re-open the debate at a broad level.
I’m very grateful to my QUT Creative Industries colleague Terry Flew for pointing me in a guest lecture last night in my CI Theory & Policy unit to an excellent monograph from Jennifer Craik available online via ANU E-Press (itself a big idea in the field of creativity, I note!)… In Re-Visioning Arts and Cultural Policy Craik traces, in accessible and lively style, some of the debates that have bedevilled arts and cultural policy in the Australian context. Anyone with an interest in this field should do themselves a favour and have a quick read of chapter six at the very least. You’ll then get a sense of why so many of the arguments in this domain seem stuck in very tried and true grooves, and never seem to reach any resolution. I won’t attempt to summarise Craik’s arguments – the chapter is just nine pages and so I don’t feel I need to do her a possible injustice by abstracting it.
Another reason why we seem to have the same stoushes over and over again – and one that Terry and I were discussing with our students last night – is the entrenched bias in funding to major performing arts companies. That’s just a fact, and should be admitted by those who would like to see such funding maintained or increased. There are a number of reasons particular to the sector which make costs fairly fixed – including the fact that creativity is labour intensive. You can’t sack the string section of the orchestra, for instance, and there’s a limit to how many parts you can double up in a Shakespeare play. In practice, this means there are a number of rigidities built into the cost structure of major companies (and it also means that salaries are often terrible). As Craik shows, the possibility for commercial expansion in the trad high performing arts sector is low, while government subsidy is very high. Although the Nugent Report initiated by the Howard government poured more money in, the virtuous cycle it envisaged has proved difficult to realise in the face of further declines in audiences. The decisions that have been made – fewer productions or “safer” productions – to contain costs often actually initiate a vicious circle which leads to greater reliance on public subsidy. In the process, some of the objectives policy has – the development of new and challenging work, spinoff multiplier effects benefitting other artists, and so on – are defeated. That’s not the case universally throughout Australia, but political and parochial imperatives to have the full panoply of forms represented in each capital also distort the objectives of policy – access in this case can drive out excellence.
Contrary to some impressions, I’m not picking on major arts companies. It’s just that there’s so much inertia in the structure of funding in the sector that (a) the real objectives policy sets for them are not met or not spelled out because of the need to keep them afloat at all costs and (b) there realistically won’t ever be a big enough pie and therefore how the cake is cut needs to be assessed against overall public purposes rather than the status quo being accepted just because it is the status quo. This happens in practice with regard to smaller companies and organisations – who face more funding uncertainty precisely because so much of the budget is effectively off limits. In the short, medium and long terms, it’s actually bad, I’d argue, for everyone in the sector and for the public.
I’d also qualify my observations with the caveat that those who do argue for different funding priorities often have their own vested interests – which is one reason why I think – as with other aspects of the summit – a mix of practitioners and non-experts proceeding along a deliberative democracy model might come up with something much more valuable than just a replay of the usual arguments. That’s the least desirable outcome, and one which I hope very sincerely won’t transpire – and – with no disrespect to Cate Blanchett – it’s one reason why I’m glad that Julianne Schultz is getting a gig as co-chair and policy thinkers like Marcus Westbury are bolstering the ranks of others such as Stuart Cunningham who are likely to be able to take a broad view. What I am a tad disappointed by is the fact that the debate in the lead up to the summit hasn’t really gone beyond the stereotyped grooves. We’ve certainly tried to facilitate a broader conversation in the blogosphere. I hope that’s something we can continue to do, and for my money at least, a great outcome of the summit would be a debate that expands and flourishes about the purposes and directions of arts and cultural policy. So, while I’m certainly hoping that something really spiffy emerges from the Creative Australia stream, I’m also hoping that it’s only a beginning.
Elsewhere: Ben Eltham’s take on the summit stream in New Matilda.
Cross-posted at PollieGraph.
The best arts policy is no arts policy at all other than funding the national broadcaster. Arts would then be funded by individuals deciding what deserves their penny. Obviously such a policy would have the added benefit of eliminating bureaucracy, favouritism and churning.
Why? What’s the basis for that assertion? The creative industries generate economic value – around 6% of Australia’s GDP according to Stuart Cunningham’s current statistical analysis. To be consistent, you’d need to oppose every form of industry support. Which would be a huge amount of the Commonwealth and state budgets.
… and secondly, in the US, where government support for the Arts is extremely limited, it’s not that the market or consumer preferences rule at all. Philanthropic institutions dictate. At least when we’re talking about the sorts of high input forms – ie theatre, opera, dance, etc. – there are huge entry costs into the market. You can’t set out your shingle and produce a play to commercial standard, let alone gain the requisite experience – as an individual.
I’m glad Ben mentions Robert Connolly’s paper on the film industry. It some ways it echoes Marcus Westbury’s ideas.
Thanks, Fine – I’ll chase that up!
Here it is. Mark. And Richard Harris’ response to it, which I haven’t read.
http://csb.aftrs.edu.au/
Cheers, Fine – much appreciated!
Mark: “You can’t set out your shingle and produce a play to commercial standard, let alone gain the requisite experience – as an individual.”
Of course you can. It’s just that it’s kinda difficult, and a bit unusual; and that a more communitarian approach might be, strictly on the odds, a better and more practical way which yields better overall results. But don’t stand there and insist it’s impossible, because it isn’t, believe me.
In general I’d say that using the US as a model for comparison or metaphor or example with this stuff is mainly a bad idea simply because there are 300 million people here, which is, uh, rather a lot; and even if there isn’t a giant amount of structural gov’t funding (as compared to, say, Germany) nonetheless, there is an awful lot of money and hardware and personal energy and useable space lying around, and as a result, a lot of things just tend to happen simply because they can. Which doesn’t make it a good model for comparison for a smaller country like Australia, or even Germany.
Here in the US, we manage on a regular basis to put on very good productions of the ‘Ring’ Cycle and Shakespeare and so forth; but at the same time we also come up with wacky stuff like the Grateful Dead, Richard Foreman, the Alvin Ailey Company, the Roots, the Ramones, Army Man (America’s Only Magazine), Neko Case, Bread and Puppet, CREEM, Union Station, Jay-Z, Mabou Mines, the Wooster Group, the Kitchen, La MaMa E.T.C., Second City, the Losers’ Lounge, Bill T. Jones/Arne Zane, the Continental Club, Robert Wilson and the Byrd Hoffman Foundation, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, and on and on, and none of that stuff coulda been predicted by a bureaucratic funding arrangement with a lot of executive power, although many have been helped along the way by a weak bureaucratic funding power with good taste and the occasional dutch uncle.
Compare publicly-funded Germany’s overall performance and impact in a similar time-frame. Sure they had some good opera, and they had Pina Bausch (but remember, we had good opera too during the same era), but nothing like the same level of energy and accomplishment on so many other fronts.
Of course this datum alone doesn’t clinch an argument, but it does give you something to think about. Meantime, Australia with its 20 million population and its generally-understood strengths and weaknesses in various areas (combined with some meditation on its unique geo-historic arena) ought to inspire some individualized contemplation on the subject, w/r/t what can and can’t be realistically achieved in a planned fashion (because who knows what-all can be achieved in the un-planned arena when you least expect it and no one’s looking.)
“To be consistent, you’d need to oppose every form of industry support. Which would be a huge amount of the Commonwealth and state budget.”
Well let’s turn that argument on its head- if arts needs funding then why not fund every industry. How about erotica? Why shouldn’t my next trip to the brothel be subject to a Government subsidy, after all brothels are labour intensive and hence generate substantial employment. Moreover according to the industry body, Eros, the erotic industry is worth over one billion dollars to the Oz economy. http://eros.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3&Itemid=3
On top of that I’m thinking of making a porn film but lack the cash to put on a really classy production. I demand a Government subsidy!
Oops, sorry about that, ‘”The” Bruce Dickinson’ above was still me. See, now there’s the first thing the Oz govt. can fund: standardizing software to fix the format for blog pseudonyms… Money well spent!
And one more point on this of contention: “The creative industries generate economic value – around 6% of Australia’s GDP … ”
These types of statements are a nonsense. Even if the percentage dropped by one-quarter subsequent to the Government withdrawing support it would have no economic consequence as consumers would simply spend their money on other things or at the very worst pay off some consumer debt. If the arts were a major foreign currency earner your argument would have more legs.
Well,
Brucej_p_z, two points:(1) It’s difficult to make international comparisons for a number of reasons, and I recognise that scale and population are a big difference between the US and Australia. Also, because as Ben notes, the statistical variation is huge – something UNESCO is working on. More broadly, there just isn’t that much two way interchange between English and non English speaking cultures – most of the cultural influence flows one way (and incidentally, there are many Englishes – think of cultural output in the Caribbean and subcontinent for instance, and crossover artists like M.I.A.). So – as we discover from the stats in the CA briefing notes – Sweden spends far more than other nations on cultural policy – but what this means in terms of (a) what that figure encompasses (the Australian one includes public libraries for instance) and (b) what we’re actually aware of outside Sweden is unclear. So I’m not too sure we can judge German cultural output in terms of an overall valuation (and value judgement opens up a whole other can of worms.)
Then there’s what we in sociology call path-dependence (heh! jargon!) – that contrary to some of the big claims made in the globalisation literature, culture and policy are very sticky. So a largely absent state in the US and a tradition of voluntarism and philanthropy would be very hard to replicate here, just as a consultant touting cultural policy ideas in Washington would be ignored. Popular music is a bad comparator in terms of funding support because it doesn’t get any realistic support here either. And it just is fairly exxy to put on a theatre production in these parts with few venues and little tradition of theatre going.
(b) I agree that we should assess our strengths and weaknesses. Australia is near the top of the table in terms of Visual FX and the games industry. But as Ben argues, these are precisely the areas that are being glossed over – as with OzLit and publishing. Which goes back to my preference for a mix of experts, practitioners and a sort of citizen jury rather than this model of talkfest.
Dude, it is.
But that’s an odd approach to take to economics – as if the amount of economic value generated is fixed. It’s not.
But, to be honest, and with no disrespect intended, I’m not interested in arguing the toss with you as to whether there should be arts and cultural policy. The fact is that there is, and there will likely to continue to be under almost any feasible political dispensation between now and 2020. I’m much more interested in talking about what we do do with our dosh, and why we do it. If others want to debate you on this, that’s fine, but I want to have a different debate, so that’s my choice.
I dont want to be too patronising,but we are in brief mode! Is that because no-one wants to be considered a bore of some proportional matter,as the subject matter really often would seem boundless!? There seems to a mix here of marketing the input,of whatever it is..with an immediate concern that the output will be totally acceptable,and will not become a drudgeware,or pox,on all creative enterprise.I had a couple of my own thought as self-references as I read down to reply space.One matter I was proud of to see my idea get up,and that was music in the Stalagtites and stalactites.Somewhere out of Sydney.Jenolan Caves perhaps!? With very blunt opinions most of the time about art and creative comment,I have at times, like that mentioned,come up with a marketable idea where participators may have enjoyed the scene.Payment for voluntaring the idea,would of encouraged me further,and who knows how many other skilled creative types may have survived longer on my eh,coat-tails!?.Operatic singers at the wine trellises were an adaption of my idea.But the most recent thing that captured my idea of a great art thing was this American shadow show of Robot sex with Humans!?Not so much the singularity of the subject but shadow art in itself modernised in this manner. It could have further adaptions in both settings I claim as mine here. I think,the point I am attempting to make,because to be positive about it.. seems a pretty stupid exercise in thinking about the thinking in creative matters ,is,as in my case,I had no direct link with place and participators.Thus maybe that was the reason that the ideas worked as enterprises in creativity. If an analysis was made of all the, inverted commas, successes and failures in the creative arts and skills where there was a distinct and real separation between an idea and its actual place of performance and participators..then it may well be,that the non imposition of a character,personality,historical being or human flesh as originator..could have some bearing on the outcomes of the effort involved in the final product. That is I could not of organised the singers musicians and performances inside the caves,well a particular large entrance,and thus those that did..responded entirely to their own enthusiasm.Which isnt a misplaced word in this subject context.
John of Arkansas:(btw, that’s how you spell it, with an S at the end not a W) — don’t you think your tit-for-tat reasoning is somewhat redolent of the straitjacket reasoning of lefties in general? What I mean is, in a healthy democratic society, we don’t say, ‘According to the infallible logical principle of X which we have a priori adopted, our civilization must be ordered as X plus A times C…’
What we should be saying instead is, “As mature, healthy-minded, self-governing grown-ups who can be trusted to make responsible choices about our res publica, we think we might like to live in a certain kind of society where our arts culture is fostered with X structures, and we’re free to debate the question, pro or con. And ultimately we’ll get the sort of funding and structural institutions for our culture as per the intelligence and quality of our debate concerning same.”
In other words it should have as little to do with a priori outside propositions as possible, and as much to do with how honest, intelligent, capable citizens wish to vote to order their society, as we can manage. To consign these matters to be an unfree function determined by a mere theory, is to inhabit the outer darkness of the cannibalistic leftist mind.
I felt that all groups, not just the “creative” one, showed the same tendency to see 2020 in terms of issues which really emerged some time ago.
(Sorry; this is more than a bit long, but it sketches a reality I can’t see in 2020’s briefing papers … so I thought I’d share it, and start a few arguments (I hope).)
In times marked by discontiuous innovations, the past is not a very accurate guide to the future, unless one goes back to other well-documented periods of discontinuous change; which, by some weird coincidence, occupy almost exactly the same time scale within the century from the most significant invention: Guttenburg’s printing press c1439; the Wedgwoods’ new Big House Pottery Burslem’s introduction of Chinese work organisation c1740; World War II, with its computers, atomic bombs etc 1939. A similar trend follows with significant events/inventions c1475, 1775, 1975; with marked convergence of technologies from the late 80s, and critical changes in the first 20 years of the new century.
In 1508, although Columbus’s voyages mark what many saw as the apogee of printing – accurate maps and widely available accounts of illustrated voyages to the new world – Martin Luther was still 9 years short of nailing his 95 theses to those doors in Wittenberg. In 1808, though steam engines were powering factories, Treverthick’s “Catch-me-who-can” locomotive has run in London parks, Fulton’s steamboat worked on the Clyde, Boulton (James Watt’s partner) was experimenting with gas lighting (since 1806) and Thomas Wedgwood (yep, that lot!) who’d been experimenting with primitive cameras since the 1790s, was using silver nitrate coated paper and white leather to form negative images; no one (except perhaps the aforementioned) could predict that, in 1812, steam engines would power “The Times” presses & Clegg’s gas lighting would illuminate Ackerman’s London Print Room. By the time the Royal Mint installed steam engines in 1816, London would have 29 miles of gas mains
(& I’ve left out the philosophical, religious, political etc revolutions)
By 1520 and 1820, most of the trends that would create most of the rest of those centuries, were already changing lives, national politics & economies, geopolitical realities; yet in 1508, no one foresaw Luther’s revolt and its monumental effects; the role of the printing press in the spread of Protestantism, and the attacks on monasteries whose monks were no longer needed to hand-copy books. By 1808, the sheer rapidity of technological convergence, the spread of gas lighting and its effects & the potential of photography were little appreciated even in England, yet alone on the Continent. In a couple of decades, changes would wipe out, not only whole industries, but the Yeoman-Guildsman classes whose inventions had created the Industrial Revolution, and whose children would be deskilled, dispossessed factory-fodder.
In 2008, we can follow convergence of communication technologies, the progress of DNA-gene identification and genetic engineering, the emergence of new economies etc – but where are the key innvations that will shape 2020 and following decades. If Europe couldn’t see the impact of a different communication technology for the propagation, storage & retrieval of knowledge, or see the Industrial Revolution for the wars with France – what are we not seeing for current “imperatives”?
Nope JPZ, arts is just another pig at the public funding trough and there is no reason for treating it unlike all the other boars and sows. Every dollar spent on the arts by Government is a dollar taken out of the taxpayer’s pocket. It is also a dollar not spent on health, education, housing and other core areas that are genuinely short of funding. Surely bread must come before circuses, or am I being too old fashioned?
And regarding Mark’s comment- Eros also gladly tells us how the erotic industry is a foreign currency earner. Fancy that! I eagerly await your next piece: “Towards an Erotic Australia? Or Continued Impotence?”
John from Arkansaw,
I find your view amazing. I’m going to focus on music. Do you live without music? If you do, you’d be quite unique. Assuming you do have music in your life, how does it get played? Music doesn’t just come out of thin air. It is actually very costly to learn and produce. Many music organisations need support.
Imagine life without music? What a terribly boring life that would be!
Other forms of art also enrich people’s lives and are generally important. These too require financial assistance. Life without film, visual art etc. would be pretty boring!
John of ArkansaS: “Surely bread must come before circuses, or am I being too old fashioned?”
No, you are totally right, bread must indeed come before circuses. The thing is, art is bread, it’s not a circus. That’s the part you haven’t understood.
On reflection, I think I’d rather not host a discussion for and against public funding for the arts per se on this thread. In the comments policy, we ask people to avoid turning debates around into one about their particular opinion – in order to encourage the maximum degree of input from people who do want to debate the topic and don’t need their comments stuck in between a side argument. So – John of Arkansaw and those who disagree with him – I’d be very grateful indeed if you could take this discussion to the open thread, and leave this one to those who’d like to discuss the topic of the post. This discussion appears to me to be a classic instance of the “stuck on rewind” phenomenon!
The open thread is here:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/04/12/saturday-salon-138/
Further off topic comments on this thread will be deleted.
Some thoughts picking up on Mark’s piece as well as the earlier one by Marcus Westbury.
[For a wider overview of the issues, see my paper "Sovereignty and Software: Rethinking Cultural Policy in The Global Creative Economy", in International Journal of Cultural Policy 11(3), 2005, or accessible from here:
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Flew,_Terry.html ]
1. If the Summit is largely about arts funding, and comes back with the answer “More money for the arts (and the ABC)” then the wrong questions were being asked. As Marcus noted, the question is as much about what and how funding occurs, as much as it is about how much money.
2. “Towards a Creative Australia” should not simply be a proxy for the arts. Creativity is clearly happening in business, the sciences, technology etc., as well as in the arts and cultural sectors.
3. Federalism presents a recurring problem in Australia, as it requires all states to have their own flagship arts sectors, seemingly regardless of the level of subsidy required to maintain this. But the politics of ’sinking a flagship’ are just not going to happen.
4. Comparisons with the U.S. are irrelevant not just because of size, but because of the ways in which private philanthropy works over there, and the hostility to cultural policy that exists in the U.S. At the same time, comparisons with Europe are tricky, as there are just not the same cultural roots attached to linking high culture to national or European identity.
5. It may be that the big cultural policy ideas now happen, and are funded, at the sub-national level rather than that of the national government. Maybe great ideas don’t come from ‘Australia’ (i.e. funded by the Federal government), as much as they come from Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Newcastle, Noosa etc. Maybe inter-place competition is the major catalyst for creative industries policies rather than Creative Nation-style grand statements of national identity.
Terry, I don’t want to seem to nit-pick about your thoughtful post but federalism doesn’t present a recurring problem in Australia but a recurring reality. The states from which the federation is configured represent its history and, more importantly, its geography. Essentially they are configured around large metropolitan centres (I’m being most generous to Hobart here) separated by vast distances. Each of those metropolises, with its hinterland, has its own dynamic and its own cultural needs in expressing itself to itself, which is what the arts do for us. Therefore a “creative Australia” as a single or uniform or monolithic thing is neither possible nor desirable. Australia is remarkable in its cultural uniformity across vast distances, represented, for example, by having a uniform, national accent across the continent so that one of the valuable contributions that the creative arts can contribute is to give expression to regional variations.
Your paper, to which you have provided a link, canvasses this issue well.
GregM, I think Terry addressed that to some degree in that he both recognised that political realities would prevent rationalisation of arts companies in each capital city, and also emphasised in point 5:
It is the case, for instance, that the subsidy given to major arts companies in Hobart is some 10 times as large as that in Sydney. What would be interesting to know would be the degree of difference in repertoires, quality, innovation, and so on. There could be a case along the traditional lines of the policy entrepreneur justification for federalism in addition to factors of location.
I also noted in the post that one of the conclusions to be drawn from Craik’s paper is that many of the objectives government sets are not necessarily consistent – for instance access and excellence. That’s not to say that access shouldn’t be appropriately weighted or even weighted more highly, but I think it is indicative of the lack of thought as opposed to rhetoric that goes into cultural policy and funding decisions. There’s often quite a disjunction between policy statements and realities.
Ps – I’m not trying to speak for Terry, but I know he goes overseas on business over the weekend so I’m not certain whether he’ll have the chance to return to comment further.
Mark, I’m glad you’ve come across Jennifer Craik’s monograph – it’s a fantastic piece of work and she deserves a lot of credit for it.
I think Terry’s point 5 above about inter-state and inter-region competition as a major spur to arts policy is spot on – buit we should also recognise that the dark side of this phenomenon is Grand Prix-style boosterism. Often the benefits – economic and social – touted for major regional performing arts centres are far in excess of what they could ever achieve. Marcus pooints to this phenomenon in the first episode of Not Quite Art.
There’s a further international perspective, which is that Australian culture as an international brand is vastly under-invested in, by both governments and creative corporations. Is this industry policy? of course it is, but lets not pretend we don’t have de facto industry policies littered all over the Australian regulatory landscape. After all, one of our most regulated industries is broadcasting, to the detriment of independent media voices. Creative de-regulation of things like public liability, local government event and noise laws, urban planning and copyright law have the potential to make a massive difference by lowering the barriers to sustainability for many artistic micro-businesses.
For instance, I think one of the most important policy changes over the last couple of years that is never talked about from an arts perspective are the Costello-Swan tax changes at the lowest end of the wage spectrum. For very low income earneers like many artists, these changes and things like the entrepreneur’s rebate have made a significant difference to their material well-being.
As demonstrated in Marcus’ tv show too, Ben. And a good riposte to those who think all this is about is handing out grants. Facilitating and enabling creativity can be quite creative…