National Arts Policy

On 4 February, Esther Anatolitis met with Paul Fletcher MP to recommend three impactful reforms with tax law advice prepared by Arnold Block Leibler as pro bono legal advisers to NAVA.

The announcement of NAVA’s National Visual Arts Agenda was made as NAVA celebrated its 30th anniversary at a special ceremony at Parliament House in Canberra attended by Her Excellency the Honourable Dame Quentin Bryce, then Governor General of the Commonwealth of Australia and Mr Bryce.

As part of measures to ensure a conducive environment for the visual arts in Australia, NAVA proposes the following recommendations to be considered for address in national government arts policies.

In the 2014 and 2015 federal budgets, major cuts were made to the arts. The sector collaboratively campaigned against these cuts, and almost 3,000 submissions were made to a Senate Inquiry into the Impact of the 2014 and 2015 Commonwealth Budget decisions on the arts. In May 2016, it was announced that NAVA alongside 64 other organisations did not receive funding. These are key organisations vital to the health of the arts ecology and the impact will be felt far and wide.

In response to the devastating Australia Council funding results, the lack of consultation around changes to arms length funding and lack of a Coalition arts policy or inclusion of the arts in the 'innovation agenda', the arts sector called a National Day of Action on 17 June 2016.