Secure Artists’ Futures #VoteForArt 2025
Take action to build a future where artists are paid properly, respected, and protected.
There’s been a welcome shift in how the arts are valued in Australia. Public recognition of artists’ vital role in shaping and enriching our communities is growing. Recent policy and funding changes show progress, but for many artists, insecurity remains the reality.
Inconsistent tax rules, unpaid or underpaid work, and limited opportunities put the future of the visual arts at risk. Careers are cut short by structural barriers, while threats to creative independence grow.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
This election, we’re calling on all candidates to commit to policies that secure artists’ futures through income and tax reform, investment in the visual arts workforce, and strong protections for freedom of expression. With the right policy changes, Australia can build a future where artists are paid properly, creative work is respected as work, and the visual arts sector is inclusive, resilient, and thriving.
Artists don’t just reflect our future, they create it. It’s time to secure their future.
What we’re calling for
1. Secure artists’ futures
- Mandate payment of artists’ fees for all government-funded projects, aligned with NAVA’s Code of Practice.
- Ensure superannuation is paid on all artist fees.
- Exempt artist grants, prizes, and fellowships from taxable income.
- Scrap Non-Commercial Loss (NCL) rules penalising artists with secondary incomes.
- Introduce living cost deductions for residencies (1-12 months).
- Fund 200 creative fellowships ($100K/yr for 3 years) to support mid-career artists.
- Pilot a living wage program for artists.
2. Invest in a stronger visual arts workforce
- Boost multi-year funding for small-to-medium arts organisations ($200M/year) to ensure stable jobs.
- Expand career pathways with funding for skills, leadership, mentorship and apprenticeships.
- Support First Nations leadership via a $20M/yr National Workforce Development Fund and expanded Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support (IVAIS) program.
- Strengthen the visual arts from the ground up, invest in arts education and support training pathways for future educators and artists.
- Fund initiatives to close the gender pay gap.
- Improve accessibility through Disability-led initiatives and inclusive hiring.
- Ensure 30% of funding goes to marginalised groups, artists and programs (race, gender, people with disability and/or d/Deaf, and regional).
- Fund a paid apprenticeship program to replace unpaid internships and convert long-term volunteer roles into paid work.
- Require funded organisations to report on unpaid labour.
- Incentivise cultural competency training and structured mentorships.
3. Defend artistic independence
- Keep politics and media out of funding decisions
- Guarantee/Safeguard Creative Australia’s independence.
- Ensure policy is led by the sector, centring artists in decisions.
- Protect artists’ right to freedom of expression in law.
- Regulate AI use of artists' work to ensure consent, attribution, and remuneration.
Take action
- Email your MP: Send a pre-written message (or write your own!) Use our MP letter tool via NAVA's Election Toolkit.
- Ask the hard questions: At candidate forums, town halls, or on social media, ask: “What’s your plan to support artists in the next term?”
- Check the record: Find out how your MP has voted on the arts.
- Track commitments: If a candidate supports our platform, let us know! Email nava@visualarts.net.au
Image credit
Anthony Romagnano, Untitled, pencil on paper, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Arts Project Australia, Melbourne.
ID: A vibrant colour pencil illustration showing five people, three facing the front and two turned away beneath a range of colourful abstract shapes. Overlaid in the top left corner is a monochrome badge with the text: “Secure Artists’ Future: #VoteForArt 2025.”
