A new path for the arts? Image: pexels.com
Senator Fifield has yet to give an interview on his new portfolio but in the little material that is on the record he has shown no fellow feeling with the widespread opposition to Brandis’s National Program for Excellence in the Arts.
In June, when the Senate voted to run the Inquiry into the Budget changes which stripped $105 million from the Australia Council for the NPEA, he told The Australian that it was ‘absurd’ to have an inquiry into the NPEA when the program had not yet begun.
Since then the Inquiry has been flooded with more than 2,000 submissions and is part way through a national round of hearings that have heard in detail the damage the loss to the Australia Council will do to the entire arts sector.
The advocacy peak body ArtsPeak expressed its support for the Minister and its belief that he would respond to widespread dissatisfaction with the NPEA. ‘The arts sector is confident that Mitch Fifield will quickly realise that the government has a unique chance to cut its losses, and recall the NPEA and return the funds to the Australia Council. It’s not too late – the NPEA has not officially opened – but Minister Fifield does need to take action urgently, ahead of the critical funding decisions the Australia Council is soon to make about the future of hundreds of small to medium arts organisations. If this becomes Minister Fifield’s first task as Arts Minister, it would be a significant commitment to a new way of dealing with the arts sector across Australia,’ Co-convenors Nicole Beyer and Tamara Winifkoff declared.
Australian Society of Authors (ASA) have also called to Fifield to restore funding to Australia Council.’ We welcome the advent of a forward-looking government that seeks to have Australia move beyond its reliance on the “dig-em-up” industries and embrace the knowledge economy, which has creative industries at its core. It’s time for those industries to be valued and adequately supported by government, not only for their economic benefit but also for what they contribute to the vibrancy, energy and liveability of our communities,’ said David Day, ASA Chair.
Opposition parties have been swift to call on the new Minister to rethink the unpopular move.
‘I call on the new Minister, Senator Mitch Fifield, to learn from the mistakes of his predecessor and end the war on artists by restoring funding diverted away from the Australia Council for the Arts,’ Shadow Minister for the Arts Mark Dreyfus wrote on Facebook.
Greens spokesman Adam Bandt attacked the former Minister and pointed out that his failures could be rectified at no cost.
‘There has never been an Arts Minister less liked by the Australian arts community than George Brandis. George Brandis gutted the Australia Council and threatened the very independence of publicly funded arts by siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars into his own personally-controlled vanity project.
‘At absolutely no cost to the Budget, the new Minister Mitch Fifield can revitalise Australia’s arts community by scrapping the NPEA and giving its funding back to the Australia Council. The NPEA didn’t arise from a review or seek to fix a problem, it arose from the Abbott government’s imagination and created a mess.
‘I join the arts community in celebrating George Brandis’ time as Arts Minister coming to an end. With George Brandis now gone from the Arts Ministry, incoming Arts Minister Mitch Fifield can reverse much of the damage for $0. The first thing that Mitch Fifield should do as Arts Minister is rebuild relationships with the arts community by dropping the NPEA and immediately restoring funding to the Australia Council.’
The satirical protest art project The Art of Brandis rebranded as The Gloat of Brandis,
#vale #freethearts #reshuffle pic.twitter.com/62e1pWeSaw
— Gloat of Brandis (@ArtOfBrandis) September 20, 2015
But Gloat of Brandis wasted little time before turning its satirical attacks to the New Minister.
The evil Time Lord known only as ‘The Minister’, caught mid-regeneration. #freethearts #auspol #reshuffle pic.twitter.com/uLyeByoNFS
— Gloat of Brandis (@ArtOfBrandis) September 20, 2015
