Title: 2705 NAVA

ESTHER:   We will do our broader introductions later.  Those of you who have been with us already, let us know in the chat where you are.  Leya, thank you for popping the link up to our live captioning.  We've got Helen in Brisbane again.  Hello, Helen.  Offering live captioning.  I know it can be difficult always to keep up with the audio and there is the inevitable technical problem.  If you click on that link for the live captioning then we will be able to see the text and follow that along as well.  There's Michaela from the sunny UK where it is 7 am, I seem to recall.  Very nice to see you, Michaela.  Michelle Ball from Elvina Bay in New South Wales.  Where is that?  There's Vicki.  From the Australian Ceramics Association.  Hello.  It is cold in Tasmania.  Jackie Bailey I'm going to do a formal introduction of in just a moment.  She is in Sydney today.  What's the feeling like there, Jackie?  

JACKIE:   I live in Wollongong.  It's actually been a beautiful day.  

ESTHER:   Perfect.  Perfect.  I am here on Woiwurrung country in Melbourne where it's also quite crisp.  Hello to Emily from Art Space Mackay, tropical country Queensland.  We will draw on that warmth.  And Larissa from Ipswich.  From the Jagera people's land.  It is a big country.  To be nice and warm up there is warming our hearts down here.  So we've still got ‑ I can see people still streaming in.  Thank you for letting us know where you are.  It's interesting when we first conceived of this program we thought we want to bring people together, we want to have some great conversations about what advocacy is, but we also really want to engage people really directly in advocacy.  I'm hoping that some people will have done their homework from last week which was to connect with your local member and send them a note either on social media or get in touch with them directly.  So if anyone has indeed done that, also let us know on the chat because we're going to have more homework at the end of today to be getting in touch with those people.  I can see Gabriel is on a call from indigenous art Co windy Perth.  Perth had that massive storm.  Is everyone okay?  That looked absolutely treacherous.  I had not seen ‑ I can't remember when I've seen a storm of that size.  Across Australia.  I see Gabriel wasn't seeking help from windy Perth she was meaning to say hello which is the opposite and really glad we clarified that.  I'm assuming Gabriel is okay and the storm has passed.  But, yeah, that really did look quite, quite extreme, I have to say.  Sarah Miller is saying that Port Beach was absolutely massacred.  It did look like an east coast low on the West Coast.  I guess this is the thing with global change and heating we are seeing very, very different patterns across the country.  

Now, the NAVA Advocacy Program has been going for six weeks now.  I am going to show us on the screen the overall program and we will be updating that handbook in a good couple of weeks for members.  So here we have our overall program and where we've ‑ where we've been so far.  Now, I wonder.  I hope that is nice and clear.  We started ‑ there are four chapters.  There are four kinds of key sections to the NAVA advocacy program.  We're looking at advocating the arts, we're looking at the policy aspects, the media aspects, and the political aspects of advocacy, so that we are building our advocacy voices and skills and getting a great sense of how do we engage with those policy and political mechanisms of decision‑making that can result in really great long‑term policy in Australia.  We started out spending four weeks looking at advocacy for the arts in a whole bunch of different contexts, starting with two key organisations, the Australian museums and galleries association and the national public galleries alliance to look at what are current issues for the sector, what are people advocating for.  The week after we recapped Arts Day on the Hill last year, the national day of advocacy for the arts and spoke to Nadeena Dixon and Selena de Carvalho who had been advocates.  Then on 6 May we looked at First Nations advocacy, with Nadeena Dixon and with Wesley Enoch, who is also, of course, not just artistic director of the Sydney festival but member of the NAVA board.  We had a great discussion about, you know, kind of decades of First Nations advocacy.  And then as we will be doing at the end of each of our four‑week chapters, a Q&A with a politician looking at what politicians expect and need to hear from us, and also the opportunity to hear from a politician in their language about what's some key issues are.  

This is now our next chapter.  We're looking at understanding policy development.  Last week we had a great conversation with John Daley, the CEO of the Grattan Institute about broader policy literacy, where do the arts sit.  This is, of course, the week with Jackie Bailey.  Next week we're going to look at achieving policy goals from within an invisible portfolio with Mike Mrdak who is the former secretary of the former Department of Communications and the Arts, and then we will wrap up with, again, a Q&A with a politician, Maria Vamvakinou, who alongside John Alexander is co‑chair of the Parliamentary friendship group for contemporary arts and culture.  That will be a good set of questions reflecting back on this whole section on policy development.  

So thank you to everyone who keeps coming in and joining us.  Please note on the chat where you are ‑ where you are ‑ where you've clicked in from or connecting in from around Australia and across the world.  

So having had these conversations, having looked at the arts, what are we advocating for, how are we doing that, how does that work for industry groups, for artists, for and by and within First Peoples communities and First Nations advocacy for the arts, and then putting that in the context of some political responses to that, looking at a politician and lobbyist and former advisers, we've then launched into now the policy context, how does that feed into policy development.  So we just had the week on that broader Australian context of how does policy development and think‑tank work across other industries.  So today we're going to put Australia into that global context of where do we sit then internationally.  We know that Australia doesn't have a written ‑ a documented arts and cultural policy at the moment but there are, of course, as we've said in previous weeks, particularly last week, there are a set of values or assumptions.  There is a basis on which arts and cultural decisions are being made and there is a political basis on which the decision has been made to not have an arts and cultural policy, whether a policy is written or not, it does exist in some ways, you know, we are within a certain kind of framework, the fact that we can't see it and articulate it is also a political choice.  It means that we can't engage with it in ways that other countries can.  

And so then it makes ‑ it makes me very, very happy to be able to welcome Jackie Bailey for today's session.  Jackie from the BYP Group is a global cultural policy research and evaluation specialist.  The theme for our discussion is global comparisons ‑ who's doing this well?  Let's look at ourselves in that broader context.  So Jackie, welcome.  It's really, really great to have you. 

JACKIE:   Thanks, Esther.  It's great to be here.  Congratulations on the upskilling of advocacy.  It's great.  I really enjoyed the John Daley session which I watched on catch‑up.  He was fantastic. 

ESTHER:   You have prompted me to say of course all of our sessions are recorded and you can catch up on them all.  They are all on our website.  There is live captioning and that link is just there in the top of the chat and hello again to Helen in Brisbane who is doing our live captioning.  And also there are ‑ there will be a transcription based on that that will be available from tomorrow but you can also access all of the past ones and, yes, they are all there.  Thank you to Leya who has posted that link so you can catch up on all our workshop recordings on the website right there.  

So then let's launch straight into that global conversation.  Where does Australia sit, I guess ‑ let's talk about the global conversation while we look at specific examples from other countries.  In what contexts are the officials and others of different countries, ambassadors, having conversations about the arts and what kind of role does Australia have in those?  What's the global policy context in which we sit?  

JACKIE:   That's an interesting question.  So what is the global policy context in which we sit?  There's a few different forums, I suppose, that those sorts of policy conversations take place.  And it's sort of depends a little bit on the wealth of your nation as well as the cultural background of your nation, which conversation you're kind of most ‑ going to get most out of.  There's the multilateral forum, the UNESCO, UN kind of forums, there's a few of those, and they are kind of more ‑ and then there's ‑ in that space quite often the dialogue is around cultural rights.  And that's quite useful in countries with early democracies, I suppose, and that what you find in later stage sort of high capitalist societies like Australia and the US is leaving those multilateral conversations, having less to do with them, which is something else we could talk about later.  

But there is a period there where the UN forums are very useful not just for information sharing but also for advocacy, for internal advocacy within the country.  So there's those forums.  Then there's ‑ your IFACA, International Federation for Arts and Cultural Agencies which is a membership body.  At the moment they're headquartered in Australia. 

ESTHER:   She's the executive director.  The chair is Simone de Beauvoir from arts... Canada. 

JACKIE:   That's right.  Sorry, yes.  Good distinction.  And they serve their members.  So that's a fantastic forum for peer to peer learning and networking.  Again, you've got different sort of subgroups based on regions as well as kind of wealth differentials in terms of what is going to be of interest to those different forums.  I mean, Australia is a member of all of these forums.  Australia has a long history of wanting to be a good international citizen in terms of participating.  That has tailed off a little bit at the UN multilateral level and there's a lot more interest in regional and bilateral and kind of smaller group, I guess, groupings based on interest and like‑to‑like sort of forums.  I mean, there's a lot of other forums but those are the kind of main ones that those kind of conversations happen within. 

ESTHER:   Sam is just noting she has never forgotten attending the meeting in Shanghai in 2004.  Australia was not represented.  We also abstained from supporting protection and maintenance of indigenous culture at UNESCO.  Australia has a dreadful record.  Tell us a bit more in the context of that about what you mean by cultural rights. 

JACKIE:   Yeah. 

ESTHER:   And where is Australia's place when it comes to ‑ yes, how do you front up on First Nations cultural rights when we don't have a framework even here. 

JACKIE:   Yeah, that's a good point.  I guess when I say Australia has a good history of that, that was kind of back from the Doc Evert days post World War II establishing the UN.  When I say in more recent times I'm kind of dating that back to the Howard government.  As soon as the Howard government came in that participation declined and there was like an overt stepping away from being dictated to, I guess, or whatever you want to call it.  There's a couple of reasons for that, particularly in the environmental space where activists were using UN treaties that Australia were signatory to to try and change federal law in Tasmania about the Tamar valley.  It's a related conversation but anyway.  That kind of drove the Australian Government away from its UN obligations, I guess, and there are a number of UN bills of rights ‑ there's one on economic rights and there's one on cultural rights, the ICCPR, and then they have attached protocols as well.  What you can do is you can sign them but you don't have to embed them in your legislation.  And what Australia has done is that, is the latter.  We've signed them but we haven't embedded them in our actual legislation.  So locally they don't have any real efficacy in a court of Australian law apart from as a statement of intent.  If there are any legal experts, jump in and correct me if I've got that wrong because that's my very, you know, rudimentary international law 101 understanding of it. 

ESTHER:   I was going to give a non‑liberal analogy which is like, you know, when you befriend someone on Facebook it's like, "Yeah, on the list we're totally friends."  So you're not actually listening. 

JACKIE:   And then there's ghosting which looks like what we did like Sarah was saying in Shanghai. 

ESTHER:   Will you come to my party?  Of course I will come to your party.  

JACKIE:   Yeah.  So there's different levels.  And I would say that's kind of ‑ we're not ‑ but what I would say is those tools ‑ they are very effective and useful in terms of advocacy, actually, but if your country is not, you know, keen on that kind of being told what to do by a multilateral organisation, then it's not going to help you in your advocacy, unfortunately, which is a shame but ‑ ‑ ‑ 

ESTHER:   And that's been a really disappointing shift in the rhetoric, hasn't it, to go from a notion ‑ and particularly post World War II where there was a very strong sense that international cooperation is a good thing;  that there are a range of, you know, wicked problems and global opportunities that we all share and partake in, that if we can form global co‑operations we will all be the richer.  We contribute and then we are strengthened, empowered, enriched by that.  Lately ‑ and I'm just thinking of the last couple of years of Trump Johnson and Morrison in Australia ‑ certainly we could spend the next hour talking about Brexit, but let's not ‑ the issue around this notion of negative globalism that Trump used and our Prime Minister simply parroted.  This notion we can stand up in a bullish way and say we're not going to do what those countries tell us even though we have contributed to that, contributed to an agreement on best practice.  So then how do we then make best use of what those global agreements are in an advocacy context where it can just be reacted to with such a petulance.  That's been one of the most difficult aspects of advocacy when you can put forward a great argument and the response is phhh. 

JACKIE:   Yeah.  I tend to talk about, you know, going for the sympathetic middle, Esther.  You've got your 20 per cent or 10 per cent which, you know, you're never going to change their minds.  It would be so hard to change their minding, don't even go there.  Then you've got the people who are on your side, love what you do, love your work and then you've got your sympathetic middle.  Say 60 per cent ‑ these are made up numbers ‑ and they're ‑ you know, if you kind of started talking to them and started informing them, then they're probably going to be sympathetic to what you think.  It's to push them to action.  That's what I think about, how to take that sympathetic middle from just being sympathetic to being active on your behalf.  Yeah, that's where I think energy is best spent.  

I just wouldn't use a rights argument in that context.  And I think, you know, that's ‑ there's a much larger discourse that goes on around rights, and, you know, the utility of the rights discourse in terms of advocacy and change, and I think rights are incredibly important when it comes to, you know, legal ‑ the legal system and justice and that sort of situation, but I do find if you're going to talk about rights you have to talk about responsibilities, and that's where people get their backs up really quickly.  They're like, "Well, you're talking about all your rights but you've got an obligation yourself to contribute to the economy", blah, blah, blah, and you get a polarised conversation really quickly which is suited for an adversarial context but it's not suitable to human to human.  You're better off finding shared ground in that kind of person to person advocacy.  I'm not saying it doesn't have a place in advocacy but I don't ‑ personally I don't know if it's a great place to go in Australia right now if you're trying to ‑ if you want to actually effect change.  But I would love to hear what everybody else thinks.  That's just kind of what the vibe is. 

ESTHER:   Look, I think that's a ‑ and your term there about that sympathetic, you know, finding that sympathetic middle is incredibly important.  We're in an era of politics at the moment which is very much again about that kind of petulance, easy dismissive attitude to something that might seem too complicated.  We have a Prime Minister who has explicitly used the language of quiet Australians who are not complaining about their rights.  You know, this is verbatim, something that the Prime Minister has said.  And so to be talking, yeah ‑ to be advancing an advocacy or policy conversation from a rights‑based approach is not going to have ‑ is not going to meet with a sympathetic response and is not going to shift, yeah, that thinking.  I completely agree.  

One of the conversations ‑ this reminds me ‑ that I got no a couple of years ago when visiting Canada ‑ and hello to any Canadians who may be with us this evening ‑ which I'm assuming there will be none because you will be fast asleep.  It's the middle of the night there at the moment.  17 hours ago.  But in Canada there is something called the status of the artist legislation which is also a UNESCO framework which was reviewed towards the end of last year and I haven't had a chance to have a really good look at it.  So status of the artist ‑ we've got half a Canadian.  Marina Robbins is Canadian but living in New South Wales.  This is good.  My sister lives in Canada.  Part of my heart is in Canada.  Status of the artist which is a UNESCO ‑ it's got the status of a convention, hasn't it.  I forget its specific UNESCO status but it's about governments introducing legislation that says this is what it means to carry out business as an artist, this is how we value artists, and what it's designed to do is to allow different areas, different portfolios of government to when they're working when they're interfacing with us to refer to that legislation and say, you know, this is ‑ this is what it ‑ you know, this is the status that an artist has, you know, across different areas of interfacing with government.  And there's a lot of conversations about wouldn't it be great if Australia introduced such a thing here and my response was always, you know, this isn't the political ‑ this isn't the current political environment for even going in that direction.  It's just ‑ it just is absolutely fanciful that we could achieve that in the next little while.  But Jackie, what are some other ways in which countries around the world in your scope of interest, what are some very different analogous interesting models for arts and cultural policy that we really should be looking at, whether it's a politically, you know, sort of supportive environment for them or not.  How are others doing it?  

JACKIE:   Yeah, no worries.  It's a broad canvas.  I would say the ones that I tend to pay most attention to are first world countries.  So apologies to you guys if you're not living in a first world country but I will speak to the developing world as well in a minute but I do tend to focus on the OECD countries and the European and the English‑speaking countries just in terms of, you know, what Australia is kind of most similar to.  And in those contexts, it's the Europeans who are kind of ahead ‑ like top of the class ‑ ‑ ‑ 

ESTHER:   Yeah. 

JACKIE:   ‑ ‑ ‑ if you like.  That's not to be ‑ you know, it's completely expected because so much of their history.  So what I do see is countries where history and identity are closely wrapped up with culture and architecture, you know, beautiful buildings and types of food and language.  Those countries have, you know, significant cultural spending and cultural, you know, of course they have ministries of culture.  You know, of course they do.  They wouldn't dream of not having that.  You know, so countries like Austria, France, Poland, actually, is really interesting.  They're spending ‑ they're one of the highest spenders on the kind of COVID‑19 emergency funding for the arts and cultural sector after Austria.  It kind of goes Austria, then Poland.  Not including Germany.  They are spending so much money I don't even put them on the chart. 

ESTHER:   I know.  Their Parliament has gone down and gone how can we spend as much money as the rest of the world put together. 

JACKIE:   Yeah, pretty much.  So, yeah, so those countries where they have a strong ‑ and Poland is interesting, I find, because for them it's more about ‑ it's kind of almost a defensive measure, if you like, because they're such a small little country, Germany, Russia constantly having to say we're not German, not Russian, we're Polish.  They support.  You have China which spends a huge amount on everything including arts and culture.  That's one of their five pillars of ‑ it's a soft power pillar.  It's outward facing showing the world we are a cultural power that we have cultural status, you know, for the academics in the group, it's a lot ‑ there's a lot of symbolic capital that some countries spend on culture in order to earn that kind of symbolic capital and that status.  So I think John Daley last week was talking a lot about status markers and legacy.  Still to this day a lot of the reasons why countries all around the world have more or less for their cultural funding is to ‑ kind of is to do with that.  Austria, you know, incredible history of classical music, architecture and all these things.  They spend a lot on arts and culture.  It's obvious.  You have interesting examples in South America as well, like Brazil has this really cool culture points program which ‑ I mean I'm not from Brazil, I haven't been there.  But it sounds like an amazing program where it's really trying to democratise and achieve sustainability and goals with policy.  I know we don't like arts for instrumental outcomes but arts is part of quality of life and arts and cultural policy can achieve multiple goals.  They kind of do that.  They have these cultural points.  They might fund, you know, a Samba school in a village.  Really grass roots stuff all the way through.  I really like that as well.  What you ‑ what I do see a lot of in kind of the more developing countries like in Africa and some of the ‑ some of South East Asia is quite a lot of connection between cultural policy and sustainable development goals.  So, you know, aid ‑ not aid but development and addressing poverty, just completely reasonable and fair enough.  

The other thing I see ‑ and this, again, goes to kind of the policy context of a country is quite a few countries have social insurance policies which artists are part of.  Which I think is a really interesting area because I do think this crisis is pushing people ‑ pushing countries to think about a universal basic income in a much more serious way than they have before.  And we're talking about like serious economists like neo‑liberal economists and the Warren Buffets of the world saying we actually do need universal basic income.  I feel like that is a conversation that would be a great one to have, and arts and culture could really benefit from that.  There are a number of countries who have social insurance schemes already for artists.  A lot of the European countries including the eastern European countries, Canada, a couple of the South American countries.  So that would be kind of incredible, if we had that.  I often think about ‑ I grew up in Brisbane and Powder Finger was a band kind of emerging when I was in my ‑ in my youth.  And, you know, they always said that if it hadn't been for the dole they would never have managed to become a band and produce the music they did.  It took them 15 years when they wrote My Happiness.  I knew them before they were famous.  You know what I mean?  It's that universal social insurance which can make a big difference.  There are these fields of policy that sort of encircle cultural policy that can really help arts and culture as well.  

ESTHER:   And you ‑ ‑ ‑ 

JACKIE:   I keep on talking but you direct me because otherwise I will just keep going. 

ESTHER:   It's so much better.  In fact ‑ but you've just outlined there a whole bunch of different principles by which you would have or value or evaluate, I guess, an arts and cultural policy, so talking about soft power and cultural diplomacy, looking at cultural identity, looking at cultural maintenance particularly in European countries where there is not just that competitiveness among each other but wanting to preserve what is culturally unique about a particular country.  There's broader social good and social utility and that's before we even get into things like health, education, mental health and so on, but, you know, that's, I think, a really great overview, Jackie, of nations that have for some time valued arts and culture as an industry, artists as individuals, the work of arts in that broader context.  A couple of questions that I'm just going to pick up on and then go towards that question of, you know ‑ because we've ‑ it's now 34 past the hour and we have hardly at all talked about COVID‑19, which I think ‑ I think we just all, you know, there's a number of us here on the line, we've all just broken a record for the past three months, the longest time someone has gone without talking about the crisis.  We're going to extend that period and defer that conversation for a little minute.  Ken Mackenzie has asked me about Japan.  

JACKIE:   Sorry, I'm trying to adjust my lamp so I'm not like ooh. 

ESTHER:   I will turn mine on soon too.  It's getting dark. 

JACKIE:   Japan is spending ‑ it's interesting.  They just announced like ‑ or not just but in the last little while they announced ‑ this is a COVID related thing but they announced 50 million Euros or something for arts and culture and screen and stuff.  Then they also announced 950 ‑ I better check my numbers ‑ it's 950 or 750 million Euros for global market creation ‑ global demand creation and promotion of content ‑ sorry, okay.  So 880 million is what they just announced which is a huge amount of money.  Like coming after Poland and Austria, of course.  And global demand creation.  Like, what is that?  

ESTHER:   I love that expression.  That's kind of like ‑ ‑ ‑ 

JACKIE:   If anybody else knows more about it it. 

ESTHER:   Global demand creation.  You all want our stuff.  

JACKIE:   It's very market developmenty type of ‑ ‑ ‑ 

ESTHER:   Yeah.  That is super interesting.  Of course in the situation ‑ zooming back into Australia for a while, the situation where we're not going to have international tourism for some time, of course our States those who have released packages, I think all of them now are going to be eyeing off one another quite competitively for tourism, and Victoria have announced $150 million experience economy package, which is kind of like, you know, almost the opposite.  You know, it's building global demand would have to be around, you know, a range of that understanding of culture for export, and that's also something that in Australia we have not done particularly well when we look at cultural diplomacy and the role of arts and culture there.  It's just not been something that we've done in a concerted way.  It's been a bit stop/start, hasn't it?  

JACKIE:   Yes.  The answer is yes. 

ESTHER:   Yeah.  Now, let's go back to that notion of artist insurance, universal basic income and the countries who are doing this well.  I know in countries like France there is a notion of a guaranteed annual income.  So you've got this, you know, if you opt into this program you are declaring that you're an artist.  There is a guaranteed annual income that the government will declare ‑ sorry, will guarantee for you but if you drop below that you are able to claim something.  I mean, Jackie, doesn't that ‑ isn't that just a clear message of how important the artist is and the work of the artist is to France?  

JACKIE:   Yeah.  I guess it is.  I mean ‑ but it's not just France.  It's a whole lot of countries do that, like Estonia, Croatia, loads of countries ‑ Canada has that kind of set‑up. 

ESTHER:   Mentioning Finland saying the case studies from Finland's UBI trial a few years ago interesting especially how artists were able to make more work because they were less worried about money.  We've got this notion here of, you know, dole bludgers and so on, if you went on the dole you would be lazy.  In fact, no, you would be freed up. 

JACKIE:   There's a whole ‑ huge amount of research into creativity and the conditions that are best for creativity.  One of them is, you know, removing those kind of external pressures or just balancing them, like having positive external pressures rather than negative ones.  So you have to be able to ‑ you have to have your hierarchy of needs, Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  You have to have survival before you can create.  All the research says that.  I've seen it amongst my friends as well.  Some are writers.  I've got writer friends who I just ‑ you know, of course COVID has been hard but at the same time after a couple of weeks of adjustment, they've kind of settled into, you know, they can access job seeker without having to whatever it is apply for jobs every other five minutes, and they can just actually produce work.  They've produced so much more work than in the last two years.  Anyway, that's an aside.  Yes, the social insurance thing, it's very widespread.  It's not like it's this weird left wing idea.  Japan has it.  Lots of countries have this kind of thing.  I mean, you do have to live in a country that is okay with tax, you know:  so people have to be okay with tax.  That's another conversation in Australia about who is being taxed and, you know, company tax and stuff.  Yeah, if we get a chance I also want to talk a little bit about what cultural policies are doing well in terms of First Nations and cultural diversity as well but we can come back to that if you have other questions around this kind of collective insurance. 

ESTHER:   No, look, let's talk about that now and then I am going to segue off to the COVID‑19 response.  On First Nations I just want to remind everyone that the First Nations arts awards are on tonight.  That is live streamed presented by the Australia Council.  All information is on the Australia Council's website.  That starts at 6 o'clock.  So if come 6 o'clock you are not completely over sitting in front of the screen, then, yeah, do join that.  It's the first time it's being live streamed.  It will be fantastic to see.  

Yes, Jackie, let's talk about First Nations and the broader ‑ and distinct cultural diversity agenda of cultural policy.  Again ‑ and thank you to Leya for including the link there for the First Nations arts awards and Sarah Miller for pointing out that NIRIN is reopening too soon.  For a place that our politicians like to crow about as being one of the most successful multicultural nations on earth, politicians from all sides of the political spectrum who like to lay claim to that and yet we don't ‑ we just have not had consistently great policy in this area.  

JACKIE:   Not for a while, no.  I mean, not really since the 70s, I'd say, or maybe even early 80s, if I'm being generous. 

ESTHER:   Yeah. 

JACKIE:   What do you reckon?  Sort of ‑ I don't really think we've had a multicultural policy since then. 

ESTHER:   No.  I mean, a lot of us ‑ you know, you look back on the 80s and 90s, and the arts as an industry was actually more diverse back then.  It's something that, you know, there are only a small number of us CaLD in leadership positions let alone in staff more broadly.  Diversity arts Australia has done some useful benchmarking on this and those reports are available on their website.  But, yes, tell us about that in that broader context. 

JACKIE:   Yeah, no worries.  That's ‑ we did that research with... actually. 

ESTHER:   Of course. 

JACKIE:   It was still pretty disturbing.  It's kind of interesting because the country ‑ like, Australia is pretty good with multiculturalism if you think about it in terms of, you know, if your benchmark is civil unrest and, you know, actually killing each other, like it's not exactly on a par with the Balkans.  You're doing pretty well there. 

ESTHER:   On the not killing each other measure we're doing great. 

JACKIE:   We've got our moments but yeah.  Yeah.  But there's obviously can do better than that.  I would say the countries that are kind of coloniser cultures that are doing better than Australia, well, kind of all of them, like the UK and Canada and New Zealand. 

ESTHER:   They're all doing better. 

JACKIE:   Well, I mean, I'm just being flippant now but ‑ ‑ ‑ 

ESTHER:   Yeah, yeah. 

JACKIE:   But that coloniser cultures, it's not like they get gold star for, you know, in that regard but, I mean, it's sort of like ‑ it's almost like proportionate to the amount of colonial guilt, how much better they are at it or something.  I don't know, like the UK is actually very good when it comes to standards and benchmarking for cultural diversity in their arts and film funding.  So, yeah, that's quite interesting.  They've got really extensive statistical collection that happens and reporting and the British film institute has really great three tick system.  If you want to see that stuff, have a look at that. 

ESTHER:   Yes.  And they, of course, Arts Council England have done some naming and shaming. 

JACKIE:   Yes. 

ESTHER:   She have put their measures out, they have them said, and this is how the ‑ then said this is how the industry is looking and this is what needs to change. 

JACKIE:   Yeah.  So that's good.  Canada and New Zealand, obviously, very good ‑ well, they look to me like they're very good at ‑ or better than us, anyway, when it comes to First Nations arts and culture and placing that at the heart of cultural policy.  I would even say in the US the conversation around ‑ at least around people of colour is more sophisticated than it is here in terms of the discussion is around, you know, equity as opposed to just really basic recognition here.  It's still very basic here. 

ESTHER:   Yeah.  

JACKIE:   Not everywhere, like ‑ and, you know, it's lumpy.  Sometimes it's better in other places than it is ‑ but, yeah, overall I would say it's unfortunate because it's a place that Australia has such an opportunity for leadership, such an opportunity also in an economic and market sense.  You know, it's the one distinctive niche advantage, if you like, in an economic sense in the global arts marketplace that Australia has, that and it's multiculturalism.  And, yeah, it's just a shame.  I often think ‑ it's not ‑ I mean I think we're doing better and better at it but not so much at the government level.  It's kind of more happening from the actual artist and so on. 

ESTHER:   Yeah.  Yeah.  That's right.  And I'm always so heartened by the next generations of artists and arts workers who are either newly arrived migrant or refugee emerging language communities or are several generations who are looking around and saying, "Well, no, this is actually, you know ‑ the Australia that we are creating together is Australia", that regressive political conversation is the minority.  And to take us now into the COVID‑19 discussion, a situation like this, you know, this kind of crisis which has been, you know, the most debilitating thing to happen in our experience, this is very much one of those moments of truth type situations where you think, right, it's a ‑ this is a moment where we can really judge a nation's political leadership.  What are they choosing to prioritise and what are they not choosing to prioritise.  How do they understand how arts and culture work?  If we look at culture more broadly how do they understand the ways in which we connect with each other, express ourselves, you know, the ‑ from a context of identity to the development of, you know, innovation, technologies, audiences, you know, all of those sorts of things.  Australia's Federal Government response to the arts and culture sector has been enormously disappointing and seriously problematic.  It flies in the face of all evidence, the industry has been quite united and clear in communicating what the industry needs are.  So tell us, Jackie, how are other countries responding on that juncture and what opportunities are they realising at the moment in understanding this as one of those, you know, once in several lifetimes where opportunity to really foreground culture at this time?  

JACKIE:   Can I do the screen share thingy. 

ESTHER:   Yeah.  Let's share your screen. 

JACKIE:   I will share my graph. 

ESTHER:   Love it.  

JACKIE:   So screen sharing.  Open in browser.  

ESTHER:   All right.  We are going to press some buttons and hope everyone can see.  As Jackie is sharing her screen please let us know on the chat whether you're able to see that.  At the moment I've got a white screen so far and I've got Jackie in the corner.  Now I can see it says you are sharing your screen.  It's all a bit of an infinite regress, I can see me in the corner.  Kerry is asking can we get a copy of the graph.  Yes, we will make this available in our package for NAVA members tomorrow. 

JACKIE:   Can you see the graph?  

ESTHER:   Can you make it much bigger?  

JACKIE:   Yes. 

ESTHER:   Maybe make it fill your whole screen there and maybe just expand ‑ yeah, expand the dialogue box.  Yeah, that's it.  We've already seen the trend there. 

JACKIE:   Can you see that?  

ESTHER:   How is it everyone?  Yes, goods and can see screen which is great. 

JACKIE:   Can see screen.  Excellent.  For some reason I can hear myself now which is very disconcerting.  

ESTHER:   Yes, the echo coming back on your ‑ because you're sharing everything including your audio. 

JACKIE:   I don't know how to undo that. 

ESTHER:   Let's bear with it and just enjoy the lovely sound of your voice and then we will share it for the length of time it takes to communicate it back and then ‑ ‑ ‑ 

JACKIE:   So this is ‑ so I've been collecting data on what countries ‑ what governments have been doing in response to the impact of COVID on arts and cultural sectors, and this is just a graph I put together on the countries ‑ there are 29 countries that I've found details about who actually have art specific funding packages.  So this doesn't include countries where they've got just social assurance measures because I could not find that. 

ESTHER:   Right. 

JACKIE:   These are countries who do have arts funding announcements, you know, and it also doesn't include six countries that announced kind of mixed packages.  So Canada, Scotland, and Estonia, South Africa Belgium and Germany.  They all had mixed packages, arts and sport and heritage kind of thing.  So from this graph you can see in terms of the total funding packages we've got Austria at the top of the chart, probably Germany is ahead of that.  And Australia is down here ‑ sort of two‑thirds of the way down.  Can you see us there?  There we are.  Now, when we look at per capita which I find sort of a better comparative approach ‑ I also look at percentage of GDP but I'm not going to get into that now ‑ so on this one Australia ‑ sorry, Austria is obviously still head of the charts. 

ESTHER:   Look at that.  That's a massive difference. 

JACKIE:   I know.  They are spending so much money.  This is the COVID funding.  And Australia is still about two‑thirds of the way down.  So that didn't help us much.  Because often Australian Governments will say, "Oh, but, you know, per capita meaning so much", blah, blah, blah, but in this case no.  Okay.  So that's enough of graphs and screen sharing.  And I will ‑ that's on my blog and you can share it with everybody. 

ESTHER:   Great.  Well, Jackie, thank you for showing us that because it's kind of, you know, grim and also no great surprise, is it, because, of course, the only thing Australia has put out at the federal level ‑ oh, Marg ‑ I misunderstood Marg's question.  Apologies.  She was asking whether you've added up what each State Government has put together. 

JACKIE:   No. 

ESTHER:   Only looking at federal government ‑ ‑ ‑ 

JACKIE:   I'm just looking at national governments.  I think I'm still sharing my audio. 

ESTHER:   No.  No.  Oh, it is sounding fine at this end.  But, yes, sorry, Marg to answer your question ‑ I can see why Jackie has done that.  Otherwise you would have to go into every government and also calculate what all their States and provinces are doing which would just be really difficult to find that information.  And, of course,s at the federal level ‑ ‑ ‑ 

JACKIE:   And some cities as well in my blog in the general information from each country. 

ESTHER:   Yes. 

JACKIE:   But I didn't sum it up into the totals, I just did that for the national governments. 

ESTHER:   Yeah, no, fair enough.  So, yes, the only thing Australia has done is that $27 million which was 10 million for ‑ that's the donation into support act.  I hope everyone knows the support act the well‑being help line is now open to all artists and art forms not just live music.  So that's really fantastic.  And then the 7 million for IVAUS indigenous visual arts program which is run by the office for the arts and then the 10 million for the regional arts fund.  But talking about industry that's more than $100 billion in size, 27 million is, of course, not a COVID support package at all.  It's an absolute drop in the ocean.  Does not respond to what the industry has been saying.  Thank you to ‑ yes, thank you to Leya for copying in the article to ‑ Ben Elfin's article today. 

JACKIE:   It's yesterday.  It's a good article. 

ESTHER:   Great.  And how is ‑ how is now your experience of your audio at your end, Jackie?  All restored?  

JACKIE:   Yay. 

ESTHER:   Okay, great.  So then that graph was a clear demonstration of everything we've just been talking about.  So Austria spending a lot because they want to make sure that this crisis doesn't result in an encroaching of German and other neighbouring cultures.  But there's also a whole bunch of other levers that governments can pull when it comes to arts and cultural policy.  One of those we've seen disappointingly pulled in Australia has been the suspension of content quotas for free to air and subscription TV for Australian documentary drama and kids programming.  In Europe, of course, there is a great deal of public subsidy and public broadcasters for specifically that reason so that people aren't just colonised by American things on Netflix.  Is that something that you've had a look at, Jackie ‑ not specifically on broadcast but on, I guess, industry measures around, you know, kind of the distribution of cultural product, to use that expression ‑ I guess it goes back to that Japanese example of building the global demand. 

JACKIE:   Yeah, 800 million Euros.  That still blows my mind.  Yeah, no, I have had a look at that.  And, yeah, it hasn't escaped international attention.  I was reading one of the international federations ‑ I think it was a European one ‑ was commenting on, you know, how all the different things countries have been doing but also how in some instances there have been kind of roll‑backs and they mentioned Australia's removal of local content quota restrictions as one of those examples.  Yay Australia, great example. 

ESTHER:   Hooray. 

JACKIE:   I have seen some interesting things from some countries in that kind of online space trying to aggregate content and disseminate it mostly for their local population.  Like, we do have countries in Europe where a lot of it is to do with self‑presentation and self‑power, and it's about the local pride but it's also about showing a face to the rest of Europe, you know, we're better than you, kind of thing.  But then there are countries who are just doing it for themselves for their own populations.  And I wonder if I can show you ‑ I might try the screen sharing thing again unless it's too terrible.  I just want to show you the Egyptian ministry of culture has got this YouTube channel they've set up.  And they've had 25 million visitors in the two months since they set it up, which is pretty cool.  So there's quite a few ministries that have done that sort of thing, that have set up, you know, like the BBC arts culture in quarantine, kind of an online platform for seeing arts content.  There's ‑ you are sharing your screen.  Does that mean you can see it?  

ESTHER:   There's a little thinky circle that seems to be happening.  Yes, now I can see Egyptian ministry of culture.  What about everyone else?  Can everyone see that?  Let us know in the chat.  Yes, okay.  Lovely. 

JACKIE:   So they've got ‑ you know, they set this up a couple of months ago, I think, as far as I understand it, and they've got hundreds of thousands of subscribers and they're getting their stuff out there for their own people.  You don't need to see that.  This is the Polish one which I really like because go Poland, tiny country, squashed up compared to everybody else.  They've got this great website.  I will scroll down.  The games that made us Polish.  There is a lot of nationalism going on.  That will be scary, to be honest, in the coming few years.  I would say there's going to be quite a rise of nationalism which the arts can either help or hinder.  Probably a bit of both.  But ‑ and a cynical sense, that kind of nationalist agenda will ‑ that might be a lever, essentially, of getting more funding for the arts, and then doing what artists always do which is kind of subvert the paradigm.  

ESTHER:   Precisely.  It's kind of ‑ it's interesting.  Part of me has been thinking these last few weeks, you know, we've got a Prime Minister who is, you know, quite chauvinistic in that bland kind of sense.  What's the catch phrase of his?  It's on the tip ‑ how good is Australia.  You know, this very bland kind of make America great kind of notion.  But when he says how great is Australia, he's not actually ‑ you know, it's entirely a rhetorical question.  He is not actually interested in a response from the people who make Australia great, the people who create Australia's future and who, of course, are creating work that gives Australia a global reputation, you know, we've got as we all know and as many of you here are represented, we've got artists and arts organisations in our regions, in our cities who have bigger global reputations and profiles than they do in Australia.  You know, there are organisations who, you know, I'm sure artists could, you know, in Poland could probably name whereas our Prime Minister could not.  On the one hand as you say Jackie it's probably a good thing that arts and culture have not been co‑opted for that kind of nationalistic purpose.  On the other hand if we reflect back a few years to some of the really problematic things that Tony Abbott as Prime Minister and then not as Prime Minister used to say about the public broadcasters particularly about the ABC, the ABC is doing such an incredible job especially right now and have been for some time, but of course the government have long felt threatened by them and have wanted to cut their funding in different ways and unfortunately have succeeded in cutting their funding in different ways.  Certainly, you know, the arts industry is also successfully on a range of measures, we're also really shit at self‑exploitation which means we keep creating more with less, but it almost means, you know, in some sense they don't need to engage on a nationalistic level.  What Tony Abbott used to say about the ABC is, "Oh, they really" ‑ when they were being critical of government he used to put on Tony Abbott's pouty face and saying, "They're letting the side down.  They really should be team Australia.  They really should be cheering for us."  Confusing a public broadcaster for a state broadcaster. 

JACKIE:   That's right.  That sort of state craft versus just robust democracy. 

ESTHER:   Yeah.  Yeah.  

JACKIE:   Two different things. 

ESTHER:   Very different things.  And so then if we reflect back on everything that we've just talked about, we've looked at some of the principles by which countries around the world invest in the arts and value the arts;  we've talked about the lack of a written policy in Australia and the way that that sometimes manifests, we've talked about just now the dollar differentials between what Australia is spending, what other countries are spending during this crisis, and, again, some of the principles by which they do that.  Let's now zoom back in on Australia.  What does that global context tell us about what Australia's arts and cultural policy is?  So if we can judge it ‑ if we can judge it by its absence and with all the examples that we've just given, what is our arts and cultural policy in Australia at the moment?  

JACKIE:   You're asking the wrong person.  Like, if anyone has an answer to that, like, let us know. 

ESTHER:   Who has got an answer to that. 

JACKIE:   I do think that Australia ‑ like, to be fair, we do have strong bipartisan support for funding the arts and culture, you know, ever since the AUSCO was set up as the trust whenever it was ‑ 60 years ago ‑ more than that ‑ anyway.  So Australia at the national level does support arts and culture ‑ actually, support ‑ acknowledges that it's an appropriate area of government intervention.  I will say that.  Acknowledges that it is an area of public good where there is a market failure, and government should, therefore, intervene to support it.  I don't think Australia has much more of articulation of a policy than that.  Like, there's not a strong cultural diplomacy aspect to our arts and cultural policy.  A lot of our cultural policy is driven by the very dedicated bureaucrats and peak sector body people like yourselves and artists, a lot of it is driven from this push towards equity and cultural democracy and cultural representation and diversity.  That's not coming from above;  that's coming from below.  So cultural policy in Australia is very much shaped by the people in the cultural sector.  And I guess that's why it becomes problematic in Australia when the cultural sector is not representative of the Australian population.  You know, when the leaders are not by and large still white. 

ESTHER:   Yeah. 

JACKIE:   Some of my best friends are white, you know what I'm saying. 

ESTHER:   Likewise. 

JACKIE:   But you know what I mean.  That is ‑ ‑ ‑ 

ESTHER:   Yes. 

JACKIE:   So unless you do have strong leadership from above it's going to come from below.  And it has pros and cons, really.  In Australia we lack kind of the collective action sort of trade union style of activism that you see influencing cultural policies in other countries, and influencing policies in Australia and other workforces, it's so hard to do that, and, you know, places like NAVA do some of that but, you know, you're not exactly supported to in Australia.  It's like collective action is not really like yay collective action in Australia.  I look at the latest potential reforms to industrial relations.  Anyway, so ‑ ‑ ‑ 

ESTHER:   Yes. 

JACKIE:   ‑ ‑ ‑ that's a thing as well which I think is ‑ could potentially be an area of opportunity in that kind of cultural policy space but, again, not top‑down, bottom, grass roots led and possibly with some supports from some very dedicated bureaucrats that you have working in this country to support collective action.  So, you know, collective schemes for portable long service leave and social insurance for artists.  That is something that government doesn't have to prescribe, that you could potentially set up as each State Government has done in the community sector and the construction sector, arts could try and do something like that as well.  So, yeah, in answer to your question we don't have ‑ we don't have a multicultural policy, our First Nations policy is not really an arts and culture policy, it's a "I'm saying sorry without actually saying sorry" kind of policy. 

ESTHER:   Yeah, yeah. 

JACKIE:   There's no kind of cohesion around any of that.  There's no state craft to it.  There's not ‑ there is like within ‑ when I say state craft I mean at the national level.  Sorry, I just painted a really bad picture.  But the flip side is that the cultural policy, if you like, comes from us.  It comes from the sector.  So far because there are so many good people it's ‑ that's kind of been okay but it is risky.  It's a risky scenario. 

ESTHER:   Okay.  Well, the group so far has just elected Wesley Enoch Prime Minister and can I say what a great development.  I think Australia's going to be all the richer for this very important appointment.  We can all look forward to a bright fulfilling future.  Wesley's presence on our board is truly inspirational and I think his voice in Australia is very, very welcomed.  I believe Wesley is cohosting the First Nations awards ‑ not just visual arts, the First Nations art awards tonight.  So you can get more of your Wesley Enoch fix on that, but also Wesley and Nadeena Dixon were our guests on this NAVA Advocacy Program a few weeks ago.  So you can see the ‑ you can see the ‑ you can play back the video of that by going to that page on our website.  

Another way of asking that question of what our policy ‑ and someone has posed the question a bit further up ‑ which is how would someone who is not Australian view Australia's cultural policy.  And I guess that would depend on where they're from and the lens that they're bringing but certainly as, you know, an artist visiting Australia, you could be quite confused as to what the feeling is.  Caroline has got to go.  Thank you, Caroline.  See you next time.  You can be quite confused as to what that is particularly because there are such differences between States.  Some of our States are very internationally focused, aren't they?  

JACKIE:   I think ‑ not being a migrant to Australia ‑ I was born in Australia ‑ but I feel like internationals ‑ you guys who are internationals could speak to this better than me but you probably confuse our cultural policy with our tourism policy.  Like really Australia's international face ‑ ‑ ‑ 

ESTHER:   Yeah. 

JACKIE:   ‑ ‑ ‑ is a tourism face. 

ESTHER:   Yeah. 

JACKIE:   It's very much about the beautiful landscape, and, you know, the kind of tourist experiences that you can have here.  Yeah, I mean, that's a starting point for a public ‑ for an outward facing kind of face of Australia. 

ESTHER:   Mmm. 

JACKIE:   I hope people don't think of Neighbours but. 

ESTHER:   Oh, God. 

JACKIE:   It's highly likely. 

ESTHER:   Although I was born here I am twice a migrant to Australia.  When I was quite little we moved back to Greece forever, then we came back and then moved to Germany and also returned.  I have had that experience particularly working in Germany where ‑ again as we talked about, you know, half a billion dollars that they've spent so far during this time, it really is a whole other planet in terms of that broader policy context.  But it's also looking at now if we go to a couple of those places in the English speaking world, particularly the US where there is no national ministry, there's no Minister for the arts.  But we've got a question from Sharon who has also been reinforced by Louise about your view, Jackie, on the role of philanthropy in shaping the arts.  Of course in the US there is a massive philanthropy culture that also infuses organisational governance.  It's not unusual in a board in an American organisation to have 30 or 40 board members who are overseeing the organisation but they are also, you know, it's that give, get or get off.  They are major contributors.  Of course, in other countries where philanthropy, patronage, the expectation that you contribute a great deal but you might also have a policy voice.  What's your kind of global benchmark sense on the role of philanthropy in shaping the arts around the world. 

JACKIE:   Yeah, I think the States is the obvious example where philanthropy has the biggest impact, individual philanthropists have had a huge impact on their arts and cultural landscape.  Europe not as much.  It's not that they don't have a tradition of philanthropy but they have such a strong position of public support that philanthropy is kind of less impactful but still big, you know what I mean?  Australia, again, less ‑ most of the philanthropy in the arts has come from European migration to Australia.  

ESTHER:   Yes. 

JACKIE:   Like fantastic.  As far as ‑ yeah, I mean, I haven't done a study of that but that's my ‑ that's what it seems like just thinking about the bulk, yeah, of arts giving. 

ESTHER:   Yes.  Particularly those post war. 

JACKIE:   Post war migrants, yeah. 

ESTHER:   Who had directly experienced the Nazi regime and that has led to, yeah, a range of ‑ the impact of war European migrants is absolutely the bulk of Australians. 

JACKIE:   Yeah.  I would say in Australia the role of philanthropists in shaping the arts and culture obviously through where they spend their money but also who they talk to in terms of the corridors of power, kind of thing, who they can communicate with, because the government is still the biggest funder in Australia, you know, of the arts.  

ESTHER:   Yeah. 

JACKIE:   So ‑ the other thing is, just I wouldn't think of philanthropists as like the white knight of the arts either because it's great, we want more philanthropy, absolutely, but you get into that murky area that the US has where arts and culture becomes, you know, it's a commodity as opposed to in Europe ‑ not that Europe is the best at all but arts and culture is a bit more like the commons. 

ESTHER:   Yes. 

JACKIE:   Just part of life kind of thing.  Not for everybody because there's obviously class disadvantage but just a different kind of vibe to it.  And philanthropy comes with a lot of status and legacy stuff which is fine but then there's that weird sort of gift/debt relationship that can be set up.  I have no problem with philanthropy, it's great but I still think arts should get most of its support from the public purse because that just keeps it as a creative commons, as a cultural commons for people.  As like the culture part of the arts and culture. 

ESTHER:   Yes.  Yes.  And the public good.  I mean, I'm, of course, culturally obliged as a Greek person to make constant reference to how key words come from the Greek language and then apply them in some kind of relevant way but philanthropy, of course, means a love for other people, and one of the reasons why that culture of government support for the arts ‑ thank you, Marissa, thank you, Michaela.  One of the reasons why the government support is so big in Europe is because the government is seen as a philanthropist, that this is a public good, and that is, you know, it's historical, absolutely, but it's, you know, regardless of left, right, whatever, regardless of the government that's in power ‑ and obviously there are issues around art propaganda, etcetera, etcetera, but, yeah, it is a culture that I very much wish that Australia could emulate.  

Now, we're heading into the last 15 minutes.  Our conversations in another advocacy program always fly by.  So I'm going to talk a little bit about what's coming up next, so that we can then spend our last 10 minutes making the very most of Jackie's time with us.  

So I'm now going to share my screen and I'm very much hoping that that is going to come across ‑ I'm going to update the handbook for weeks 5 to 8 very soon.  Again, this is our handbook which is available for NAVA members, and speaking of philanthropy with thanks to the generosity of Daniel Besen is how this program is even possible.  I have there on the ‑ looks like the eighth page of the kit there is a very brief history of arts policy in Australia.  This is partly your homework for next week is to make sure if you're a NAVA member that you've gone and downloaded this kit, which I will update before then as well.  There's a couple of new things, including Jackie's diagram.  So I'm noticing people posting there.  We will have that information up there.  

Again, thank you to Leya for posting the link to the advocacy kit which is this handbook.  The 2020 Advocacy Program Handbook is available just for NAVA members because if we ‑ if we didn't, NAVA members would scold me enormously.  This program, of course, is available ‑ our talks ‑ and they're available on the website freely to everyone.  And Angela is pointing out the invisible budget for the other two months in terms of becoming a NAVA member.  It starts from $7.50 a month which is the cost of a couple of coffees or very elaborate doughnuts someone was telling me the other day.  There are doughnuts that cost between 7 and $10 each.  I was not aware of this.  If you forgo these doughnuts you can hop on and access all our information, best practice through the COVID practice and all the various other benefits of being a NAVA member.  

Next week we're going to look at achieving policy goals ‑ you may recall at the end of last year there was a government restructure and the department of communications and the arts has been lodged in with a range of other portfolios, actually quite a good set of portfolios.  It's there among regional development and other great colleagues.  Unfortunately, they dropped the name of the arts off the portfolio title.  And though this restructure happened, only five public servants lost their job and learnt about this through the media, unfortunately.  One of those to lose his job was Mike Mrdak AO.  The former secretary of the former Department of Communications and the Arts.  So last year's government restructure rendered the arts invisible in the name of its new portfolio.  How might this impact on achieving policy outcomes?  And what was the top priority ‑ what were the top priorities for the former department's former secretary before he unexpectedly lost his job.  That's the question that we're going to be asking next week.  So zooming right back into Australia and looking at ‑ if we look at what's happened since that unexpected restructure of ‑ it must be November/December last year now, if we look at, you know, the challenge that our colleagues at the Australia Council and at the Office For the Arts have been facing in supporting their colleagues across government in understanding what's needed for the industry at this time, it's difficult not to draw the conclusion that the department has been rendered more invisible.  So we will hear from Mike next week.  Thank you to Jackie for posting the link to your blog post with the graphs and the various details.  And thank you to Anna for posting the link to the currency house recording of Phillip Parsons lecture on the complex state of arts funding.  There has been a lot of work that's been done this year in particular by a lot of commentators on arts funding in Australia and what's next.  And, of course, a lot of the what's next is up to all of us.  To bring us back to the COVID‑19 conversation which, you know, I know we all adore, I'm going to share my screen and ‑ which I believe is that button ‑ yes, open in browser.  And I want to share one chrome tab and it's that one.  And I'm pressing the button now.  Hopefully you can see that.  So let me know in the chat if you can.  What we've got there is NAVA's draft submission to the COVID‑19 Senate inquiry.  Now, tomorrow, Thursday the 28th of May, is the deadline for the federal ‑ the Senate inquiry into the Australian Government's response to the COVID‑19 pandemic.  We've got some information here on how to write a submission to an inquiry.  We've got our draft submission there for you to download as a word document or you can scroll right down and read the draft submission.  It's in ‑ it's quite lengthy.  It is quite lengthy.  I've got to revise this by tomorrow.  It is quite lengthy.  It's in three sections.  Gaps in the Australian Government's COVID‑19 response to the creative industries, the lost opportunity for a creative industries‑led approach to economy‑wide recovery;  and priorities to enrich Australia's cultural life.  

So please use as much or as little of this as you like in preparing your own submission from your point of view.  There's some helpful guidance here which also quotes from the Australian Parliament's advice on how to make a submission to a government inquiry, clearly addressing things, being concise, giving a brief introduction about yourself and telling us about your practice or your organisation and how this has affected you, perhaps given what in effect will be a case study from your point of view.  

And in particular, avoiding not just things that are overly complex, but things that criticise people because then if it looks like your submission might defame someone, then it's not likely to be considered or published, but also as we say in the NAVA advocacy program handbook, what are some great ways to do good advocacy and what makes for great advocacy, it is very much about putting forward your vision with confidence and positivity, being constructive and compelling, without attack or complaint, which can undermine your great arguments.  And to be really clear here, it's really important that we're critical.  The draft submission that we've put together is very critical.  It talks about some serious failures in the Australian Government's response so far, things that could have been done differently.  

But we can talk about problems and failures without being ‑ you know, without sort of resorting to insult and attack because when we do that people switch off to the kinds of things that we're saying.  So that's the draft submission.  It's on the NAVA website.  It's gone out to all NAVA members and subscribers in the NAVA news today.  And it is right there.  So that is part of your homework for ‑ in fact, well, for tonight for overnight is to write a submission and to ‑ and to send that in by tomorrow.  The other thing that we're going to start to look at ‑ and curious to know who has contacted their local MP or their MP ever since we discussed this last week because the Parliament is going to sit next the week after next.  And we've all got a lot of work to do in the next two weeks to make sure that the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg is completely across what all the issues are.  But the immediate homework is write your submission and send that in by tomorrow.  Then also the homework for next week is to connect with your local member, use The Australia Council Electorate Profile Tool.  Good on you, Adam.  Adam has connected and sent a copy of my article.  Thanks, Adam.  We've got, you know, the entire NAVA website is full of that cheat sheet stuff on what to say.  Also the important thing is to start to build that relationship.  Simply get in touch, give them a call, tag them into social media and say, "I'm an artist" or "I run an organisation" or "I'm a member of a certain organisation and these are key issues for me at the moment."  When Parliament sits again the week after next I want you to raise these things.  I'm from your electorate, this is how my studio, my gallery, organisation is struggling.  That could change if policy is changed in this particular area.  You will find a list of those priorities in the draft submission.  

So we've just got a few minutes.  I'm going to remind myself how to shift our views that you can see ‑ thank you, Leya.  I think Leya has done that.  Got a few minutes left.  Has anyone got some final questions for Jackie or Jackie, any final insights from you in the range of things we've just talked about?  I'm so grateful for your perspective tonight.  

JACKIE:   No, it's been a pleasure.  It's been a good chat.  Do I have anything to add?  I would say that in the next little while, like some of the ‑ ‑ ‑ 

ESTHER:   What does the future look like. 

JACKIE:   Yeah, what does the future look like.  I mean upsurge in nationalism, recession reconditions, local versus global.  It's not all bad though.  I think artists are going to be hard pressed but we're going to be really more essential than ever if we want a peaceful integrated society.  I don't know if government will fund that.  I don't know if they will recognise that but just, you know, sort of person to person ethical responsibilities, artists are going to be really important in that, really integral.  There might be scope in terms of leveraging the role of artists in ‑ I wouldn't call it social cohesion for this current government but maybe stability, security, cultural security maybe.  Because there will be a big emphasis on, you know, food security, med tech security, advance manufacturing security, so why not cultural security, throw that in the mix.  Yeah, you might be able to leverage that for advocacy purposes.  

ESTHER:   I think that's a great way of putting it.  Especially considering on the one hand at a very pragmatic level as we were saying earlier in the absence of international tourism, when we look at the way that we engage and connect with each other, the States will be competing with each other for tourists in each other's States that means the shows, the event you're going to see.  In a situation where live performance will not be able to return in numbers and the visual arts will be leaving in terms of self‑directed experiences.  That's going to be really important for so many people. 

JACKIE:   Yeah.  I think one of the main reasons people attend arts as you would know is social.  It's actually about social interaction and it's about identity.  It's about seeing themselves and feeling seen.  So if you can capture those things and, you know, bring people back to the live and the tangible in a safe way, you will be doing people a great service.  But there will be a real issue around inequity after all of this because Australian companies are forced to be so reliant on private ‑ you know, on earned income ‑ ‑ ‑ 

ESTHER:   Yeah. 

JACKIE:   ‑ ‑ ‑ there's going to be inequities in terms of who can access the live experience.  So, you know, not to paint too grim a picture, but artists are going to have to just work harder than ever.  Because we're going to be more important than ever, even though people won't be necessarily valuing it with money.  But it's times like these you need your artists to speak the truth and to keep people sort of spiritually safe. 

ESTHER:   Absolutely.  Absolutely.  Jackie, thank you so, so, very much for joining us this evening.  And echoing what Renu and others are saying thank you for the solid research and analytical work.  And we will be sharing all of that as well.  This has been, yeah, another great, great session.  So everyone, thank you.  See you again from 4 o'clock next week, Australian eastern standard time.  And if you've got the time this evening, don't forget from 6 o'clock is the First Nations Arts Awards as well.  So big thank you Jackie and good night everyone.  

JACKIE:   Thank you.  

ESTHER:   Bye.  Bye, everyone.  

(End)