Media Release: The first South Australian arts policy in twenty years?

Today the National Association for the Visual Arts released its Report Card for the South Australian state election.

Each of the parties featured have made modest commitments to support artist, market and industry development, as well as commitments on broader cultural issues. 

"A state's arts and culture policy is what best expresses its confidence in its own potential," said Esther Anatolitis, Executive Director. "Recognising how highly South Australians value the arts, multiple parties have promised to lead a thorough policy development process after the election."

The Report Card has been compiled using publicly available campaign information and election commitments made to date by SA Labor, SA Liberals, SA Greens and SA-BEST parties. 

Speaking in his capacity as host of a multi-party political forum on arts policies held in Adelaide on 7 March (presented by the Arts Industry Council of South Australia and the Adelaide Festival), writer and broadcaster David Marr described the funds committed to the arts as "tiny."

While the SA Liberals, SA Greens and SA-BEST have arts and culture policies available on their websites, SA Labor has not yet released an election platform statement - despite SA Premier and SA Labor leader, Jay Weatherill, also holding the portfolio of Minister for the Arts. SA Labor instead provided NAVA with a series of media releases announcing a range of commitments. However, along with SA-BEST, SA Labor commits to the development of such a policy via a cross-departmental taskforce. 

"The NAVA Report Cards offer a snapshot of policy highlights and election commitments made during the campaign period," said Ms Anatolitis. "Where the Report Card shows a blank space, we welcome party representatives to make public statements on their commitments, or contact NAVA directly."

South Australians go to the polls this Saturday 17 March.

ENDS 

Media enquiries:
Esther Anatolitis 
esther@visualarts.net.au