Campaign Launch Speech

Australia needs ambitious arts policy that invests in artistic courage.

We need the voice of the artist to inform, invigorate and inspire the national political conversation.

And – equally importantly – we need the national political conversation to inform, invigorate and inspire our artists. 

The visual arts are Australia’s number one artform by participation – yet policy changes across recent years have disadvantaged individual artists the most. Artists’ incomes are declining, the numbers of visual artists and craft practitioners are declining, and artists’ fair pay and intellectual property rights are increasingly ignored. Despite working longer and harder than ever before, more and more artists are living precariously, it’s taking longer for artists to become established, and the gender pay gap is worse in the arts than in any other industry.

This is bad news for all the ways in which we imagine and create our future. 

Australia urgently needs arts policy that’s ambitious and fair – because without it, we risk losing culture, talent, jobs, and the local economies they power.

In every room of Parliament House you’ll find the work of Australian artists. Artists are right there when all the big decisions are made – but are they being heard?

Now is the time for the artist to be heard.

Australia needs ambitious arts policy that invests in artistic courage. This means:

• Putting First Nations first: on the ongoing advice of Elders, artists and community, fund the National Indigenous Arts & Cultural Authority ambitiously, implement the Uluru Statement, and action the Fake Art Harms Culture recommendations
• Making fair pay at industry standards a condition of public funding for all organisations who work with artists
• Investing ambitiously in artists’ time, artists’ leadership and artist self-organisation – there’s more about these specific artist investments on our website
• Increasing the Australia Council’s funding by at least $25m per year – to catch up on past cuts as well as opening up capacity once again to drive-much-needed sector development initiatives
• Committing to the integrity of independently peer-assessed arts funding decisions
• Replacing the Major Performing Arts Framework with an Artistic Investment Framework that includes the Visual Arts & Crafts Strategy in long-term indexed investment
• Prioritising initiatives that propel artist self-organisation, strengthened communities and a vibrant independent arts sector
• Advancing copyright reform so artists can earn incomes their intellectual property without threat from ‘content’-mining tech giants
• and there’s plenty more to be done in superannuation reform and tax incentives that encourage investment and make creative careers more manageable.

And that’s just a start. So much more is needed. 

Visionary leadership is needed – leadership that understands that political leadership is cultural leadership. 

An investment in artistic courage would change Australia. 

It would strengthen Australia.

Because artists define what’s possible. 

And because artists defy what’s impossible. 

A nation that invests in artistic courage is a nation with the confidence to face any unknown challenge.

An investment in artists is a vision for Australia’s future.

This election year, we call on all parties to invest in artistic courage.

Video: Sohan Ariel Hayes