Dancing with the Bear: the Politics of Australian National Cultural Policy

Dancing with the bear: the politics of Australian national cultural policy

A thesis submitted to fulfil requirements for a degree of Doctor of Social Science

Deborah Mills

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

The University of Sydney

2020

Statement of originality

This is to certify that, to the best of my knowledge the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes.

I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged.

Deborah Mills

Table of Contents

Table of Figures 8

Table of Appendices 10

Abstract 12

Acknowledgements 13

Preface 14

Chapter One: Introduction 16

“Art in a Cold Climate” 16 Introducing the case studies 18 The limits of my inquiry 18 Bringing two theoretical frames together 19 Thesis structure: key themes and chapter outlines 22

Chapter Two: theory and method 27

Part One: public policy theory 27 What is public policy? 27 The Advocacy Coalition Framework 28 Neo-liberalism, culture, and governance 30 Part Two: critical cultural studies 32 Cultural studies and cultural policy 34 Is it art or cultural policy? 38 Art as excellence: its genius and distinctiveness 40 Art as industry: challenging excellence/confirming culture’s 42 exchange value De-colonising culture: access and excellence as cultural self 44 determination Part Three: cultural citizenship and arts policy modes 46 Cultural citizenship 46 Arts policy modes 47 Part Four: research method 49 Documentary content analysis 49 Elite Interviews 51

Survey 53 Ethics 54 Conclusion: overview of my theory and method 54

Chapter Three: framing Australia’s national cultural policy 56

Neo-liberalism, instrumentalism, and cultural citizenship 56

Creative Nation (1994): instrumentalism and cultural citizenship 56 Creative Australia (2013): instrumentalism and cultural 60 citizenship National Program for Excellence in the Arts/Catalyst (2015): 62 instrumentalism and cultural citizenship Arts policy mode 64 Creative Nation: arts policy mode 64 Creative Australia: arts policy mode 66 National Program for Excellence in the Arts/ Catalyst: arts policy 67 mode Art or Culture? 67 Creative Nation: art or culture? 68 Creative Australia: art or culture? 70 National Program for Excellence in the Arts/ Catalyst: art or 71 culture? How do the policies embody neoliberalism, and 72 instrumentalism?

Chapter Four: policy beliefs, their origins, and 74 interpretations How did cultural policy beliefs develop in Australia? 74 Part One: state and civil patronage of excellence in the arts - 76 values and beliefs Evolving interpretations of excellence in Australia 76 Colonial and post-Federation State and civil patronage 76 State patronage from the 1960s 79 The cultural revolutions of the 1960s and 70s 80 State patronage, policy, and cultural pluralism 82

Contemporary interpretations of excellence 83 Evolving interpretations of access in Australia 86 Cultural deprivation, cultural distribution, and education 86 Socialism and the cultural frame 86 Socialism, cultural democracy, and cultural policy 88 Contemporary interpretations of access 89 Part Two: embodying policy values 92 Background to the Australia Council’s development 92 The Australia Council: artists’ representative or government’s 95 representative towards the arts? Conclusion: beliefs shaping policy, advocacy, and institutions 98

Chapter Five: mapping the arts advocacy coalitions 100 Picturing national arts advocacy coalitions 100 Who are the peak and national arts advocacy organisations? 106 Cross genre organisations 106 Artform based organisations 109 Communities of interest organisations 115 Asserting cultural pluralism 117 First Nations organisations 117 Culturally diverse community organisations 118 Asserting cultural democracy 120 The evolution of Australian arts advocacy coalitions and their 121 interaction What prompts the establishment of arts advocacy coalitions? 126

Chapter Six: Creative Nation 128 The three case studies 128 Part One: mobilisations and cleavages - the struggle for 128 hegemony Policy core values: access and excellence 129 Policy core preferences: arm’s length funding and peer review 132 Part Two: the development of Creative Nation 135 Keating and the arts sector: the woo and the wow! 135 The insiders 137

The Commonwealth Department of the Arts 141 Writing the policy statement 145 Part Three: Creative Nation and policy core beliefs 146 Access 147 Excellence 148 Creative Nation and arm’s length funding and peer review 149 Creative Nation: the aftermath 150 A new paradigm for cultural policy? 152

Chapter Seven: Creative Australia 154 Part One: background 154 New Public Management and the culture wars 154 New priorities in the arts 155 Part Two: mediating the policy debate: the tussles over beliefs 159 Policy commitment and a new policy paradigm 159 The tussle over excellence 162 The tussle over access 165 Arm’s length funding and peer review 169 The legislation 169 Part Three: the development of Creative Australia 171 Tensions in policymaking: the big picture and the funding initiative 171 Working with arts and cultural leaders 174 Joining the dots 175 Finding the money 177 The influence of arts advocacy coalitions on Creative Australia 178

Chapter Eight: power and patronage 182 Part One: The Shock 183 Early rumblings 183 The impact 184 Campaigning 186 Strategy 190 Strategies favoured by arts advocacy coalitions 190 Cleavages 193 Leadership 196

Part Two: interpretations of the policy beliefs, access, and 198 excellence The Arts Minister’s interpretation 198 The Ministry’s interpretation 200 Witness testimonials: an overview 201 Witness interpretations of access and excellence 202 Senate Inquiry findings 203 Part Three: support for policy preferences 204 Arm’s length funding: views of the Inquiry witnesses 204 Arm’s length funding: contemporary views 206 Peer review: views of the Inquiry witnesses 208 Peer review: contemporary views 209 Patronage wins 212

Chapter Nine: Concluding remarks 214

Culture, policy beliefs and neo-liberalism 214 The influence of policy frames 215 Policy core beliefs in excellence and access 215 The policy core preferences of peer review and arm’s length 216 funding Neo-liberalism: the framing and development of Australian 216 cultural policy Policy beliefs and Australian cultural policy: the tussles 218 Policy preferences and Australian cultural policy: the tussles 220 Limitations of the research and future lines of inquiry 221

Appendices 223 Bibliography 285

Table of Figures

Figure 1: Cultural standards by democratic tradition (Adapted from Zapata- 47 Barrero, 2016)

Figure 2: Policy modes for the arts adapted from Hillman-Chartrand and 48 McCaughey (1989), and Craik (2007)

Figure 3: Contemporary interpretations of the excellence policy belief 84

Figure 4: Contemporary interpretations of the access policy belief 89

Figure 5: Classification of all organisations 101

Figure 6: Constituents: all organisations 102

Figure 7: Constituencies: advocacy and service organisations 103

Figure 8: Individual membership and/or subscriber numbers: all organisations 103

Figure 9: Individual membership and/or subscriber numbers: advocacy and 104 service organisations

Figure 10: Number of organisational members: advocacy and service 105 organisations

Figure 11: National advocacy and service organisations: total individual 105 constituents

Figure 12: Arts genre represented: all organisations 109

Figure 13: Arts genre represented: advocacy and service organisations 109

Figure 14: Length of time advocacy and service organisations have been 122 operating

Figure 15: Length of time creative producers have been operating 122

Figure 16: Graphic representation of the frequency of coalition interactions 125

Figure 17: Policy goals in the Discussion Paper and the Policy Statement 162

Figure 18: Australia Council Expenditure 2014/15 financial year (Australia 184 Council, 2016, p. 21)

Figure 19: Strategies for political engagement: advocacy and service 191 organisations

Figure 20: Strategies for political engagement: creative producers 192

Figure 21: Most effective advocacy tools 192

Figure 22: Contemporary interpretations of the arm’s length funding policy 206 preference

Figure 23: Contemporary interpretations of the peer review policy preference 209

Table of Appendices

Appendix 1.1: Interview subjects 224

Appendix .2.1: Matrix of interview subjects 229

Appendix 2.2: Semi-Structured Interview Schedule 233

Appendix 2.3 Introductory Letter Interview 235

Appendix 2.4 Participant Information Statement 237

Appendix 2.5 Participant Consent Form 240

Appendix 2.6 Survey Questionnaire 242

Appendix 2.7: Letter of introduction to survey 245

Appendix 2.8: Selection of survey recipients 247

Appendix 2.9: Survey Respondents 248

Appendix 3.1: Creative Australia funding commitments (Commonwealth of 252 Australia, 1994)

Appendix 4.1: Members of the inaugural Australia Council (Rowse, 1985, 255 Macdonnell, 1992)

Appendix 5.1: Survey respondents by organisational category 256

Appendix 5.2: Arts Action Australia membership 261

Appendix 5.3: ArtsPeak Membership August 2017 263

Appendix 5.4: Key Producers 265

Appendix 5.5: Contact between advocacy organisations 266

Appendix 7:1 Policy by review 271

Appendix 7.2: Submissions reviewed for analysis of responses to Discussion 273 Paper

Appendix 7.3: The National Policy Reference Group Membership 276

Appendix 7.4: Overview of Creative Australia Structure 279

Appendix 7.5: Comparisons between the founding Act for the Australia 280 Council (1975) and the new Act (2013)

Appendix 8.1: Members of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References 283 Committee Inquiry into the impact of the 2014 and 2015 Commonwealth budget decisions on the arts

Dancing with the bear: the politics of Australian national cultural policy Abstract

My research topic is an investigation into the policy beliefs that drive the activities of Australia’s national arts advocacy coalitions. My research question is: how have the beliefs and activities of Australia’s arts advocacy coalitions constrained Australia’s national cultural policy? I apply public policy-making theory (the Advocacy Coalition Framework) and cultural policy theory to this question. My thesis contributes to the scholarship on public policy and cultural policy theory by explaining how cultural policy develops, which has been an under-explored question in both these research fields.

My case studies analyse three national arts policies: Creative Nation (1994); Creative Australia (2013); and Senator George Brandis’ cuts to the Australia Council in 2015 in order to establish his own arts fund. My research includes semi-structured interviews with 45 past and present arts policy advocates, a survey of organisations involved in the mobilisations against Brandis’ intervention and content analysis of key documentation.

My findings are that Australia’s national arts policy is constrained by contests over policy beliefs. These contests take place within the frame of governments’ preference for a patronage policy mode that supports the subsidised arts. This patronage approach and the commodification of cultural policy constrain attempts to develop a broader national cultural policy.

During the period defined by my inquiry the outcomes of these contests over policy beliefs have valorised excellence at the expense of access, designated citizens as consumers of cultural artefacts and strengthened structural inequality within the subsidised arts sector.

Also contested have been the policy preferences that require arts funding decisions to be made at arm’s length from government by an artist’s peers. During the period under inquiry, these contests have often been triggered by governments’ attempts to constrain these policy preferences in the interests of greater control over arts funding.

Acknowledgements

Many people made this work possible. I dedicate this thesis to my friend Dr Sandy Halley: she knows why.

Because in my time in the arts it is the sector which has always come first for me, I will begin with my heartfelt thanks for the energy, commitment and insights of all who helped me with my research by agreeing to an interview and completing a survey. Many of you continued to express interest and support for what I was doing, which I found very helpful and encouraging. I could not have done this without you.

I also thank my two supervisors. I thank Professor Rodney Smith for his forbearance in dealing with an opinionated policy activist and for his efforts in trying to turn me into a scholar. I accept all responsibility for the failings I still have in this area. I am also grateful for his genuine enthusiasm for the arts, not only as a practitioner and a consumer, but also as a scholar of political science. I thank Professor Jennifer Barrett for her inspired suggestion that I undertake my doctoral candidature in the Department of Government and International Relations. Jennifer introduced me to Rodney and my encounter with political science began. It has been an exhilarating experience for me. I also value the insights that Jennifer provided into the writing process. It is a process. I get it. Finally.

I thank my fellow scholars whose generosity in sharing insights, reference material and critiquing my work I appreciated at the time and that appreciation endures.

I thank my family and friends for their understanding, support, and tolerance for my obsession with this work, and for so much more.

Preface

I was prompted to undertake this research because of my involvement in and commitment to arts and cultural policy development over many years. I acknowledge that my interpretation of events is influenced by my career in arts policy and cultural development and my active involvement in arts advocacy coalitions. I worked for the Australia Council (1980-1993) as the Senior Project Officer for the Community Arts Board and later the Director of that Board in its later iteration as the Community Cultural Development Unit/Board. I was also the architect of the Council’s Art and Working Life Program and as Director of the Community Cultural Development Unit also responsible for the development and implementation of the Council’s Arts for a Multicultural Australia program. Both of these programs challenged the concept of a universal artistic aesthetic and actively promoted cultural pluralism within the Australia Council and amongst the many institutions with which the Unit had developed close working relationships: local government; migrant organisations; trade unions, including the ACTU; and arts organisations working with children and young people, people living with a disability, the poor and the dispossessed. In this role I was required to defend the Council’s policies within the Council and beyond as these programs came to the attention of the Coalition’s Waste Watch Committee and incurred the displeasure of Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

All these experiences and others I had both before and after I left the Council have given me a perspective and strong feelings that go with that perspective. However, this project is about more than my story and my perspective. It is about documenting the beliefs and actions of the members of the Australian arts policy subsystem and their impact on national cultural policy. To do this effectively, not only must I come clean about my own beliefs, values and biases, but I must be meticulous and transparent in making the decisions concerning research design and interpretation and scrupulous in the evaluation of the research results I obtain, many of which deal with highly subjective material: values and beliefs.

My interest in discovering the perspectives held by the other people involved in the events I describe in this thesis was and remains authentic. I designed my research methodology to capture a wide range of views. I sought interviews from each of the major political parties as well as from supporters and critics of our two national cultural policies and Brandis’ National Program for Excellence in the Arts. Interviews were sought from people prominent in arts advocacy coalitions who have differing perspectives from each other and from me on the events under consideration. I have been conscious of the need to give them agency in the process and to this end have used a semi-structured interview approach and asked them to review and revise their transcripts as they see fit, ever mindful of my duty of care to do no

harm. My objective here was to gain a diversity of perspectives with which to enrich and/or challenge my research hypothesis and the data I have collected through my literature review and other research. I have also benefited from the guidance and advice of my supervisors; whose penetrating questions encourage reflexivity and deepen my understanding of my own biases.

I have endeavoured to be balanced in my approach but cannot claim that this thesis is an objective account of events. In the first instance, my epistemology does not admit this conceit and secondly the theoretical frameworks, the literature and the research tools have all been selected and/or designed by me, and therefore cannot be said to be without bias. In the case of the interview subjects, in what could be viewed as a kind of double bias, refusal or consent to be interviewed sometimes reflected their opinion of me. To remind the reader of all of this I have written in the first person and in the active voice.

Chapter One: Introduction

“Art in a Cold Climate” Cultural policy is not a priority in Australian political life. Of the 45 Australian national elections since Federation, up to and including the 2016 Federal Election, culture and the arts were mentioned in just 14 of the speeches launching Federal Labor and/or Liberal Party/Coalition campaigns: nine campaign launch speeches in the case of Labor and five in the case of the Liberals. In the 2016 election campaign launch speech by Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten the only reference to the arts was made in the context of Labor’s education policy: “Teaching children to read and write and count. Offering them a chance to take part in music and drama and sport’’ (Museum of Democracy, 2016). Of the eight other Labor campaign launch speeches the arts were mentioned in three by Gough Whitlam, three by Bob Hawke and two by Paul Keating. The most substantial references to the arts in the Liberal Party’s campaign launches were those by John Gorton during the 1969 campaign and Malcolm Fraser during the 1977, 1980 and 1983 campaigns. John Howard’s only reference was during the 1987 campaign when he made a disparaging comment on the Australia Council’s funding for trade union arts programs.

In naming his essay on Australian cultural policy Art in a Cold Climate, Australian journalist, writer and theatre director Keith Gallasch (2005) set out to portray his view of the relationship between the arts sector and the Australian Federal Government’s arts policy advisor and principal arts funding body the Australia Council. His analysis is predicated on the events of 2005 when the Council decided to abolish the New Media and Community Cultural Development Boards and provides a prescient analysis of the events presented in this thesis. With this title, Gallasch created a metaphor for an Australian political and policy climate which was leaving the arts out in the cold, freezing artists out of policy recognition of their role as experimenters and innovators. With its decision the Council also “reversed its own evolution.” (Gallasch, 2005, p. 2).

This climate change has been evident for some time. The signs were clear in the failure of the Federal Australian Coalition Government to implement Australia’s first national policy Creative Nation (1994). It was also evident in the failure by successive Australian Federal governments to institutionalise creative industries policies first put forward in Creative Nation. It was evident in the axing of Australia’s second national cultural policy Creative Australia (2013) by an incoming Coalition Government (September 2013) less than six months after the policy’s release. In 2015 it was evident in the failure to consider the impact on the ecology of the arts

sector when a Coalition Arts Minister’s diverted $110 million from the Australia Council in order to establish his own discretionary fund. It is evident in the significant cuts to arts and cultural funding over the last six years which have attracted meagre criticism from the Federal (Labor) Opposition.

That the arts are on the margins of Australian political life is also evident in the limited interest exhibited by political science scholars in arts and cultural policy as a matter for research and analysis. This should not be interpreted as the lack of significance of arts and culture in the lives of Australians. Even if it is not overt, governments are concerned with the production of cultural citizens and in using cultural policy as a means of regulating the “marketplace of ideas” (Dimaggio, 1993, p. 242) including in policy jurisdictions that may not be recognised as relating to arts or culture such as international relations, communications and digital platforms (Schultz, 2016), and in the construction of national identity and the values attached to it.

My research question is to what extent are these policies constrained by the influence of arts policy networks? I examine how the policy frameworks reiterate the recurring tensions between policy favouring elite cultural forms and attempts to have these frameworks recognise popular and pluralist forms. I also examine how these policies are influenced by Australian cultural networks, including politicians, but also by the exercise of hegemony.

I investigate why and how national Australian cultural policy fails to embrace the broader cultural scope and is limited to the subsidised arts when only a minority of Australian citizens engage with creativity in these forms. I explore the extent to which this this due to the involvement of arts policy networks in these policies’ development and the influence of the dominant values and beliefs held by the more powerful networks. As I demonstrate in the extracts from the interviews I conducted as part of my research, these beliefs are often nuanced and fluctuate in response to the shifts in cultural policy priorities and the requirements of neo-liberalism.

I also investigate why arts and culture are on the margins of political life in Australia. Is it something to do with the way in which our politicians relate to the arts that keeps culture out in the cold? Is this relationship evident in how the policies are framed? What role do arts advocates have in this? These are some of the issues I explore in this thesis.

Arts policy is an area of public policy that is rarely analysed through the lens of public policy theory, so an investigation of the workings of Australia’s arts policy advocates and their impact on cultural policy fills a gap in the literature and is a useful contribution to scholarship. It could

also provide members of Australia’s cultural sector, including its advocates and policymakers, with insights into the policymaking process and their influence on it.

Introducing the case studies I use three arts policy case studies to attempt to find answers to my research question. My case studies cover the Hawke/Keating, Howard, Rudd/Gillard/Rudd and Abbott/Turnbull political eras, a span of 35 years. I focus on the periods leading up to and following the development of Australia’s two national cultural policies Creative Nation (1994) and Creative Australia (2013) and the actions of a Federal Arts Minister in 2015 to establish his own arts fund. Creative Nation was developed by Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating. It was Australia’s first national cultural policy and it incorporated a nascent creative industries policy. Due to a change of government in 1996 many of its initiatives were not implemented. The idea for a second national cultural policy was initiated during Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit. Creative Australia was subsequently developed by Federal Arts Minister Simon Crean during the Gillard Labor Government. The incoming Coalition rejected this policy six months after it was launched. The third policy was manifest in the actions of the Abbott Government’s Federal Arts Minister George Brandis. Diverting funds from the Australia Council, a statutory authority, in 2015 he established the National Program for Excellence in the Arts under his control.

These case studies provide evidence of the different styles of cultural policy favoured by Labor and Coalition governments and provide a means with which to examine the activities of arts policy advocates and their interpretations of key policy beliefs as they tried to influence the national cultural policies which are the subject of this inquiry.

My rationale for selecting the first two policies is that they represent Australia’s only attempts to develop an over-arching national cultural policy. The Brandis decision provides an effective example of the policy impact that was generated by a government’s actions, rather than a published policy. This shock to the subsidised arts sector precipitated a great deal of activity by arts policy advocates which illuminated their own and the Coalition Government’s policy beliefs.

The limits of my inquiry I have restricted my research to Commonwealth cultural policy and to an examination of those parts of the arts sector supported by the Australia Council: the subsidised arts sector. I have done this for three reasons. Firstly my research demonstrates that since the establishment of

the Council’s predecessor, the Australian Council for the Arts in 1968 by the Holt Coalition Government, and the Council’s establishment in 1973 by the Whitlam Labor Government (Gardiner-Garden, 1994, pp. 5-6), the principal focus of Australian national cultural policy has been on the subsidised arts sector rather than the broader cultural and creative industry sectors. I demonstrate that, even when Australian national cultural policies have ventured into areas beyond the subsidised arts, these policy extensions, taken up in some state jurisdictions, have not endured in the Federal jurisdiction in anything other than a rhetorical sense. This can be explained in part by the focus on the subsidised arts in the statutes governing the Australia Council (Chapter Four).

Australian state and local governments together provide almost 61 per cent of all funding for arts and culture, 87 per cent of which is for recurrent funding (Commonwealth of Australia, 2017). However, narrowing my focus to the Federal sphere and the subsidised arts enables me to go deeper into my application of the theoretical constructs I am employing in this thesis, which is the second reason for restricting my inquiry to the national sphere. My focus on the subsidised arts does not prevent me from questioning the established aesthetic hierarchies which privilege non-commercial arts activities, nor am I indifferent to policies regarding broadcasting, film or the “non-arts” activities to be found in popular culture (Kelly, 2003, p. 190). The third reason for the focus of my inquiry is that my examination of Australian national cultural policy and the sites of my investigation, what the public policy literature refers to as the arts policy subsystem and its advocacy coalitions, provides a rich context within which to examine and critique the values and beliefs that inform Australian cultural policy.

Bringing two theoretical frames together This thesis takes an original approach to Australian arts policy by bringing together two theoretical frameworks that have not been combined in the past. The first theoretical framework is the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). The ACF was developed by American political scientists Paul A. Sabatier and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith (1993) during the late 1980s (Sabatier, 2007, p.9). The ACF focuses on the role of values and beliefs in shaping public policy. It emphasises the role of policy actors in promoting these beliefs as they strive to translate them into “the belief systems of the [policy] designers.” This explains why advocates persist in their efforts, often over decades, to influence the belief systems of policy makers (Jenkins-Smith, Nohrstedt, Weible, & Sabatier, 2014, pp. 166-187).

Through an examination of the literature, relevant legislation, Australian national arts policies, and the activities of national arts advocacy coalitions, I identified four core beliefs informing Australian cultural policy. Two of these were access to the arts and excellence in the arts,

values that were enshrined in the Australia Council’s statute. I also identified what the ACF literature refers to as policy preferences. There are two of these: funding for the arts at arm’s length from government via a statutory authority and decisions concerning arts funding made by an artist’s peers. These policy preferences are referred to as arm’s length funding and peer review in the vernacular of the Australian arts sector. These were the principles upon which the Australia Council and its assesment processes were structured (Coombs, 1981, pp. 252- 254).

Different interpretations of these beliefs are evident within the arts sector and different priorities are placed on the beliefs themselves. This can lead to “intransigent debates” between arts policy advocates (Sabatier 2007, p. 195). ACF scholars believe that negotiations over these different interpretations and priorities can be compromised by what they refer to as the “devil shift”. This is a tendency to “misinterpret and distrust opponents in the policy processes” and perceive these opponents as “more powerful and more evil” than they really are (Fischer, Ingold, Sciarini, & Varone, 2016, p. 309). Another constraint on these negotiations is that individuals behave as “boundedly rational people in the context of advocacy groups”. Bounded rationality is our tendency as humans, due to our “limited cognitive architecture”, to respond positively to beliefs or ideas with which we are familiar and overlook or discard those with which we are not (Jones, 1999, p. 298).

The ACF’s focus is on policy change, driven by policy actors, which takes place “over a relatively long period of time” (Schlager, 2007, p. 298). This feature of the ACF distinguishes it from those public policymaking theories that focus on organisational or institutional behaviour (Sabatier, 2007, pp. 9-10). These actors include all of those that “regularly seek to influence policy” including politicians and their staff, agency officials, interest groups, researchers, and journalists (Sabatier and Weible, 2007, p. 192). These actors together comprise a policy network.

One trigger for policy change identified by ACF scholars is the “shock”. Shocks can be within the control of the policy networks (internal) such as the diversion of funds from the Australia Council in 2015 by Brandis. As Arts Minister he was a member of the arts policy network and it was within his control to do this. Shocks can also occur outside the control of the policy networks (external) such as Paul Keating’s successful leadership coup in December 1991, something over which the arts policy network had no influence. I explore these examples in Chapters Eight and Six respectively. It is these shocks that provide an opportunity for advocacy coalitions to mobilise in order to have their interpretations of policy core beliefs prevail in policy.

Different interpretations of policy core beliefs and the interests of arts policy advocates do not explain why certain activities supported by some arts advocates attract policy support and others do not. Is it that more powerful policy advocates exert more influence or is it that some beliefs in themselves have more influence? The ACF addresses these questions in a limited way. My second principal theoretical framework, cultural policy theory, provides greater insights into these issues.

Cultural policy theory is located within the broader field of critical cultural studies which critiques the values and beliefs about art and culture that have become embedded in western society as a form of cultural hegemony (Smith, Vromen & Cook, 2012, p. 382). These values and beliefs were adopted throughout western nations including by Australian governments and arts advocates. This hegemony included a distinction between “commercial entertainment and subsidised quality” (Rowse, 1985, p. 117) and organised the arts into genres and hierarchies of distinction. These genres were based on western European nineteenth century art forms (music, literature, performing arts and the like) and the hierarchies of distinction reflected the aesthetic criteria developed within those traditions. Australian arts advocates organised around these art forms and, from the 1950s onwards, were mostly drawn from the subsidised or non-commercial part of the arts sector (Rowse, 1985, pp. 6-13). These values become reinforced and sanctified by policy and, in turn, this part of the arts sector and its advocates became framed by the policy. In this way this cultural hegemony was maintained.

Emerging in the 1950s and strongly associated with the New Left (Hall, 2016, pp. 7-8), critical cultural studies challenged many of these hegemonic values and beliefs. Welsh theorist, academic, novelist and critic Raymond Williams was one of the seminal influences on this new policy domain. He developed various interpretations of the term culture. Two of them, culture as: “a whole way of life, material, intellectual and spiritual” (Williams, 1967, p. xvi), and his later formulation “culture as a particular way of life” (Williams, 1981, p. 90) are popular in the literature on this subject. They have been cited in Australia’s national cultural policy statements and associated discussion papers. Critical cultural studies acknowledged that the many different cultures within a society had “an equality of being” even if they were not equal in terms of the power they exerted (Williams, 1967, p. 317).

The concept of hegemony, the production of prevailing meaning and ideologies, helped explain why some ideas and beliefs about art and culture had more influence than others and why some forms of culture were privileged over others. Critical cultural theorists wanted to break down the distinctions between those forms of cultural production “sanctified by traditions of scholarship and patronage” and those forms relating to “popular, transitory” culture (Lewis

& Miller, 2003, p. 4) and create new, more democratic, forms of cultural hegemony. These insights provide a promising way of understanding the conflicts between arts policy advocates over their interpretations of art, culture, excellence and access.

These two theoretical frameworks led me to conceive of my research topic as an investigation into the beliefs and values that drive the advocacy activities of Australia’s arts sector and the impact of these activities on national Australian cultural policy. My inquiry into this topic has challenged many of the assumptions about cultural policy that I acquired in my career as an arts bureaucrat and cultural policy activist. I designed my research question to challenge my ideas and assumptions: how have the beliefs and activities of Australia’s arts sector constrained Australia’s national cultural policy?

Thesis structure: key themes and chapter outlines The key themes of my thesis offer two streams of inquiry: the policy core beliefs and policy preferences themselves and how these reflect ideas and values about art and culture. The second theme relates to ideas about government, how governments view arts support, how arts funding is governed and what role the state ascribes to the cultural citizen.

The first theme relates to the meanings applied to the policy beliefs of excellence and access and the implications that shifts in the interpretation of these beliefs have for national cultural policy. This theme explores the influence of hegemony, understood via Gramsci’s interpretation of hegemony as ideological power (Cook, 2003, pp. 40-41), on the dominant interpretations of the beliefs at issue here. Drawing on the literature and the views of my interview subjects I identify the values concerning art that are revealed in their interpretations of these beliefs (see Appendix 1.1 for details of interview subjects).

The second theme relates to Australian Federal governments’ preferred arts policy modes, the administrative arrangements they have adopted and the role they assign to cultural citizens. Policy modes refer to the different roles that governments adopt in relation to arts and cultural development (Hillman-Chartrand & McCaughey, 1989). In the patronage mode the state supports the arts, sometimes through the agency of organisations functioning at arm’s length from government as occurs in Australia. Neo-patronage, a term developed by Australian cultural policy scholar Jennifer Craik (Craik, 2007, p. 76), supports “elite cultural organisations” insulating them from competition for funding. I present evidence that demonstrates a preference by Australian Federal governments for the patronage and neo- patronage policy modes and how these modes frame arts funding as discretionary (Tabrett, 2013; Schultz, 2015).

In relation to the administrative arrangements for arts funding I explore the background of governments’ decisions to adopt the policy preferences for peer review of arts grants and for decisions about funding to be made at arm’s length from government. I also review the strains on these preferences imposed by government actions during the period under investigation. The second theme also relates to the shifting balance of power between the executive and administrative arms of Australian national government under New Public Management and the impact of this shift on the capacity of the public service to develop and administer policy. And finally, this theme also explores the work of Spanish social and political scientist Ricard Zapata-Barrero (2016) and his insights into how the assumed standards of citizenship within different democratic traditions prescribe certain roles for cultural citizens.

The thesis contains four chapters in which I analyse the broad contours of Australian cultural policy; the theoretical frameworks I employ, my research methodology and the literature on which I have drawn. I explore how cultural policy in this country has been framed. I set out the evolution of Australia’s national peak arts advocacy coalitions and the policy beliefs and policy preferences held by the Australian arts policy network. These chapters are critical to understanding the social and political context in which the beliefs which make up the cultural hegemony framing and informing Australian national cultural policy have been formed and the saliency they have today. They are also critical to providing a context within which to interpret the evolution of Australian national arts advocacy coalitions: the forms they have adopted and the constituencies they represent.

In Chapter Two I identify and interpret the theoretical and methodological context in which this thesis is grounded. The work of this chapter is to demonstrate my knowledge and interpretation of the literature I have reviewed for this inquiry and how this is applied to my interrogation of the research question. It also explains the decisions I made in the design and execution of my principle research methods: content analysis, elite interviews and a survey. I present the two principal theoretical frameworks I apply to my research and analysis: the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) a theory of public policymaking from the discipline of political science; and cultural policy studies located within the broader theoretical framework of critical cultural theory. The ACF provides me with tools to help identify the core elements of Australia’s national arts policy subsystem and their beliefs. The field of cultural policy studies provides me with additional understanding of the role of policy core beliefs in developing and maintaining hegemony.

I review a selection of literature on cultural policy and ideas about government’s role in arts and cultural policy, the scope of that policy, and the influence of ideas about art that challenged

traditional interpretations of excellence and access. The literature on neo-liberalism reveals its influence on the commodification of public policy. By this I mean the direction of policy into serving economic and social outcomes, regardless of that policy’s domain (Gray, 2007). I also examine the impact of managerialism on the administrative arm of government as the increasing influence exerted by ministers and their staff on policy development fuels the growth of lobbying in policy development. I apply these understanding to the case studies.

In Chapter Three I present the framing devices used in cultural policy and apply these to an analysis of the three national cultural policies under consideration. The work of this chapter is to expose the assumptions that these policies make about art, culture, and the role of government in cultural development: assumptions that my research question proposes are shared by national arts advocacy coalitions. I argue that these frames create a form of hegemony that prescribes the kind of national cultural policy that Australia is allowed to have. I look at the significant impacts that neo-liberalism has had on cultural policy, including the role assigned to cultural citizens. I extend the discussion on art and culture begun in this chapter by applying it to the three national cultural policies. I then examine the various arts policy modes used by governments and argue that, in relation to Australian national cultural policy, the dominance exerted by the patronage mode keeps culture on the political and policy margins.

In Chapter Four I trace the evolution of the policy core beliefs within the Australian national arts policy system during the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century drawing on the work of cultural policy theorists, historians, and artists. The work of this chapter is to illuminate the assumptions and values underpinning the policy core beliefs of excellence and access and the policy preferences of arm’s length funding and peer review. As these policy beliefs form the basis of the struggles over the priorities in national cultural policy, these historical insights are helpful in interpreting the dynamics of the policymaking process for national cultural policy. I provide a perspective on the saliency of these values by drawing on an analysis of my interview subjects’ interpretations of the policy core beliefs. In this chapter I discuss the evolution of the ideas influencing the policy core preferences of arm’s length funding and peer review and this discussion continues in the case study chapters.

In Chapter Five I provide a picture of the national arts advocacy organisations that were active during the periods covered by my case studies. This is significant because the ACF operates on the assumption that it is coalitions of advocacy groups that determine public policy. The work of this chapter is therefore to give the reader an understanding of many of the actors involved in the struggles over cultural policy’s beliefs and thereby provide a useful introduction

to my case studies. Drawing on my survey data I provide an analysis of who these arts advocacy organisations are, who they represent, how long they have been established and the significance of their interactions with each other. I also provide more details on the peak arts advocacy organisations operating in the periods covered by my case studies, including those who were not among the survey respondents.

The three case studies, Creative Nation (1994), Creative Australia (2013) and the National Program for Excellence in the Arts (2015), allow me to apply the analysis developed in Chapters Two to Five. The focus of Chapters Six to Eight is on the dynamics of the policymaking process with a view to interrogating my research question: the extent to which national cultural policy is constrained by the activities and beliefs of Australia’s national arts advocacy coalitions. To this end I provide information on the policy and political context in which these national policies were created; a description and analysis of the policymaking process; the efforts of national arts advocacy coalitions to influence the policy: and an analysis of each policy’s interpretation of policy core beliefs and policy preferences.

In Chapter Six I document the emergence of Australia’s first national cultural policy, Creative Nation (1994) and the parallel maturation of Australia’s arts policy networks and arts advocacy coalitions. This national cultural policy was significant not only because it was the first but because it was also an economic policy. I argue that this reframing of cultural policy was eclipsed by the dominant arts policy mode of patronage and I explore the reasons for this. I describe the mobilisation of Australia’s arts advocacy coalitions during the years of the Fraser and Hawke Governments when emerging alliances and cleavages formed the background against which Creative Nation was developed. These mobilisations reveal the power relationships involved in the struggles over policy core beliefs and the different interests of the members of Australia’s arts policy subsystem. This case study reveals the power that “actors in positions of legal authority” have in determining policy outcomes (Sabatier, 2007, p. 203). I describe the activities of some of the individuals and organisations who were trying to influence the policy including Keating and his inner circle of advisors and their associates and other insiders and outsiders (Halpin, 2012). I also examine the extent to which the policy’s interpretations of the policy core values and policy preferences reflect those of the national arts advocacy coalitions and therefore the extent to which Creative Nation is constrained by their influence.

In Chapter Seven I analyse the development of Australia’s second national cultural policy Creative Australia (2013).This was an ambitious policy, seeking to create a new policy paradigm: a rational and national policy that would bring arts and cultural policy in from the

margins of public policymaking by making connections with other government portfolios. These ambitions also extended to a significant investment by the Department for the Arts in consultation and engagement with the arts and cultural sectors in the policy’s development. My analysis of the policymaking process examines the impact of the mediators involved in the development of the policy including Ministerial and Departmental staff and other experts appointed by Minister Crean. I also examine the interpretations of the policy beliefs and preferences applied to Creative Australia. I analyse the extent to which it reflects these mediating influences. I examine the attempts to create a whole-of-government approach to cultural policy within the context of the impacts of New Public Management on the administration’s capacity to respond to this challenge.

In Chapter Eight I examine the policy inherent in the National Program for Excellence in the Arts, a program created using money cut from the Australia Council. I explore this within the context of changing ideas about the governance of arts funding and the status of Federal arts policy in Australia more generally. I examine the operations of the arts advocacy coalitions at this time through their mobilisations against this initiative over a two-year period which resulted in a Senate Inquiry, a change of minister and a return to the Council of the balance of the funds. Submissions and testimonies to the Senate Inquiry hearings and the final report of this Inquiry provide data for content analysis of the interpretations of policy core beliefs and policy preferences (arm’s length funding and peer review) by the Government and the arts advocacy coalitions during this period. I complement this account by providing a contemporary interpretation of these policy preferences drawn from the material provided by my interview subjects. This narrative is accompanied by an analysis of the extent to which the efforts of national arts advocacy coalitions influenced or constrained this evolving national cultural policy.

In Chapter Nine I review my main findings and identify any gaps in my research and analysis and identify possibilities for future research.

Chapter Two: theory and method

My objective in this chapter is to identify and interpret the theoretical and methodological context in which this thesis is grounded. The chapter is in four parts. In Part One I discuss public policy theory including the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). I also discuss the doctrine of neo-liberalism and its impact on arts policy development and administration. In Part Two I discuss the policy domain of critical cultural studies theory and its influence on cultural policy theory. This field challenges some significant values associated with culture and art, and long held beliefs in excellence and access that are still salient in Australian cultural policy. Political science and cultural policy studies are not academic policy domains that usually speak to each other. Two areas of the literature in which these domains do come together are those dealing with the arts policy modes used by governments (Hillman-Chartrand & McCaughey, 1989) and the work by Spanish social and political scientist Ricard Zapata- Barrero (2016) which examines how different democratic traditions frame cultural citizenship. I discuss these in Part Three of this chapter. In Part Four I provide information on the research methods I have employed in relation to content analysis, interviews, and my survey.

Part One: public policy theory

What is public policy? Policy can be understood in different ways. One interpretation is that it is a means of managing the conduct of populations and the strategies needed to achieve this (Foucault 1991, p. 96). In the 1960s, French philosopher Michel Foucault’s ideas on governmentality were based on his argument concerning the separation of contemporary forms of governance from the “institutions of sovereignty” (Foucault, 1991, p. 97). The objective of governance was no longer to maintain sovereignty through the rule of subjects, or even, necessarily, a particular geographic realm. The objective of governance became to “rationally shape human conduct [for which there is] a multiplicity of rationalities, of different ways of thinking, of making calculations, of defining purposes and employing knowledge’’ (Dean, 1999, p. 11). This approach to governance required a new kind of knowledge on how to determine and realise particular objectives in relation to this conduct of conduct (Foucault, 1991, p. 96). One of these areas of governmentality is cultural policy and its role as “the site for the production of cultural citizens” (Lewis & Miller, 2003, p. 1).

American sociologist Paul DiMaggio’s concept of policy includes “unintended but systematic consequences of government actions as well as action towards identified ends” and in this

sense he expands Foucault’s interpretation signalling both the acknowledged and unacknowledged policy domains for cultural policy. Dimaggio defines cultural policies as “those that regulate ...the marketplace of ideas” including “values, styles and genres” determining which of these are admitted and permitted to flourish and those which are not within, for example, the policy domains of education, culture, the arts, broadcasting and science (Dimaggio, 1993, pp. 242-244). American political scientist Thomas Dye’s approach to defining public policy is:

whatever the government decides to do or not to do...Realistically, our notion of public policy must include all actions of government and not just stated intentions (Dye, 2005, p. 3, original emphasis).

Dye’s rider regarding all actions is important as my third case study on the Brandis intervention analyses the impact of an unwritten policy that was not officially documented until well after the announcement of a new arts fund. Interpretations of this policy relied on the actions and statements of the Federal Arts Minister and arts policy advocates (see Chapter Eight). My concept of cultural policy takes these different theoretical perspectives into account: the overt and implicit objectives of policy: the intended and unintended consequences of that policy; the need to consider what government’s do or do not do as well as their stated intentions; and the unacknowledged policy domains in which cultural policy is manifest.

I propose that the principal objective of national cultural policy is the production of cultural citizens and the various actions that Australia’s Federal Government takes, or does not take, in order to achieve this. This objective may not always be overt and may instead, in the case of Australian national cultural policy, be implied in the objectives to do with asserting the cultural distinctiveness, independence and cohesiveness of Australia (Throsby, 2006, pp. 2- 4) and may be evident in policy domains other than the cultural. How do ACF scholars believe that public policy is developed?

The Advocacy Coalition Framework ACF scholars believe that the policy subsystem is “the primary unit of analysis for understanding policy process” and it is within the policy subsystem that most policymaking occurs (Jenkins-Smith et al. 2014, p. 184). By the policy subsystem they mean all of those that “regularly seek to influence policy” (Sabatier and Weible, 2007, p. 192). The members of the policy subsystem form advocacy coalitions which are distinguished from other kinds of associations by the fact that they share beliefs about policy and “engage in a nontrivial degree of coordinated activity over time” (Stritch, 2015, p. 438). ACF scholars believe that it is the

influence of advocacy coalitions that is “instrumental in understanding policy change” (Nohrstedt, 2010).

The advocacy coalitions work within a set of what ACF scholars refer to as policy core beliefs and policy core preferences. According to ACF scholars, it is these beliefs which inform how public policy is framed and the work of the advocacy coalitions is to try and get policy makers to incorporate these beliefs into policy. Policy core beliefs “span an entire policy system...deal with fundamental policy choices [and] are very difficult to change.” (Sabatier, 2007, p. 194). I have identified two policy core beliefs informing Australian cultural policy and the activities of Australian national arts advocacy coalitions. These are access to the arts and excellence in the arts, values that were enshrined in the Australia Council’s statute.

ACF scholars define policy preferences as “beliefs that project an image of how the policy subsystem ought to be” (Sabatier 2007, p. 195). The ACF requires that policy preferences relate to an entire policy subsystem, are “highly salient, and have been a major source of cleavage for some time.” (Sabatier 2007, p. 195). My research provides evidence that Sabatier’s criteria apply to two policy core preferences within the Australian national arts policy subsystem. The first of these is that arts funding should be at arm’s length from government, which in Australia is achieved via a statutory authority: the Australia Council. The second of these is that decisions about arts funding should be made by an artist’s peers.

ACF scholars note that policy subsystems leak into and overlap with other policy subsystems, although key criteria identified by Sabatier require that they should share a focus on “the substantive and geographic scope of the institutions that structure interaction” (Sabatier, 2007, p. 193). These phenomena are characteristic of the Australian national arts policy subsystem which has a national focus on the subsidised arts, shaped by the focus of the Australia Council and its statutes. These limits on the scope of the policy subsystem in turn shape the advocacy coalitions which emerge in the shadow of these phenomena and they, in turn, reinforce the scope of the policy subsystem.

The ACF has some constraints, as the work of scholars has uncovered. American political scientists Edella Schlager and William Blomquist draw attention to what they identify as a weakness of the ACF in its assumption that the “belief systems of the individual members of an advocacy coalition are...homogenous” and that the interests of the members may “conflict, even while they continue to share a core set of beliefs”. They assert that these kinds of conflicts over interests “often contribute to policy change” and that the ACF fails to acknowledge this

important detail (Schlager & Blomquist, 1995, p. 661). I explore this insight in my case study chapters.

American political scientist Sarah Pralle (2003, p. 234) explains how beliefs have influence beyond their meaning by shaping the identity of the advocacy coalitions and the choice of their mobilisation strategies. Pralle argues that beliefs also constrain the ability of advocacy coalitions to canvas all options for policy venues: the administrative sites where a policy may have been generated and through which it is interpreted, for example the Commonwealth Department for Communications and the Arts and the Australia Council. Her observations helped me frame my research hypothesis. American sociologists Robert Benford and David Snow, in their examination of the framing processes used by social movements (2000), provide further insight into the influence of beliefs. They refer to members of these movements as “Signifying agents actively engaged in the production and maintenance of meaning for constituents, antagonists and bystanders or observers.” They refer to this process as framing, defined as the production of “shared meanings” [about] ““what is going on” or “should be going on”” within the movement (Benford & Snow, 2000, pp. 613-614). These shared meanings form the basis of problem definition, locating the source of the problem, solutions to the problem and strategies and tactics for recruitment and mobilisation (Benford & Snow, 2000, p. 615). Framing, used in this sense, is also a feature of what Sabatier refers to as policy preferences (Sabatier, 2007, p. 195) and is evident in the mobilisation strategies used by arts advocacy coalitions in response to the Brandis intervention in 2015 (see Chapter Eight).

Neo-liberalism, culture, and governance The literature on neo-liberalism is important to my research as this ideology has been a dominant feature of the Australian political landscape for over thirty years (Battin, 2012, p. 299). It is a significant context for the production of Australia’s national cultural policies under investigation in this thesis. Neo-liberalism is defined as an ideology that preferences small government and market forces (Smith et al., 2012, p. 384). It influences how governments frame and develop policy and how they frame the role of the citizen in relation to public policy. This understanding, when applied to Australia’s national cultural policy, sheds further light on Australian cultural policymaking processes.

An instrument of neo-liberalism is managerialism as it is referred to by scholars. It was introduced to Australia by the Hawke Government (Halligan & Power, 1992, p. 244) and has been perpetrated by Federal governments since then. Essentially the doctrine of managerialism directed the role of the public service to what could be “tightly defined and controlled”, towards administration rather than management (Halligan & Power, 1992, p. viii).

This was accompanied by an increase in the power of the political executive, (ministers, their staff and the Cabinet) (Halligan and Power, 1992 p. 257), who assumed more control over management and “displaced the bureaucracy as the director of public action” (Halligan and Power, 1992 p. 2). These changes have been attributed to the incoming Labor Government in 1983 and its desire to exert more control over a public service it perceived as loyal to the previous Coalition Government (Halligan, Miller and Power, 2007, p. 244). New Public Management (NPM), as it came to be known, introduced practices consistent with a market orientated approach including outsourcing policy and service delivery functions previously the responsibility of government departments and agencies, and encouraged the application of private sector methods to public sector management (Halligan, Miller & Power, 2007, p. 6; Halligan & Power, 1992, p.4, pp. 23-24, p. 244, p. 251).

The emergence of neo-liberalism and managerialism in the mid-1980s had a significant impact on how both Australian Labor and Coalition governments frame policy. English cultural policy studies scholar Clive Gray describes how neo-liberalism heralded the shift from an intrinsic to an extrinsic policy perspective and was behind the instrumentalisation of all government policy including arts and cultural policies. He argues that this was due to neo-liberalism’s commodification of public policy, the impact of “globalisation” and economic and social changes (Gray, 2007, p. 203). Gray argues that these impacts have resulted in the demand for public policy that delivered outcomes which addressed these issues in ways which were not always directly related to a particular sector’s sphere of interest (Gray, 2007, p. 205).

Gray is describing a phenomenon that is widespread. Australian arts and cultural policy scholar Josephine Caust argues that in Australia neo-liberalism’s emphasis on arts policy’s economic value has overshadowed thinking about the arts as a public good with intrinsic value to society (Caust, 2003, p. 52). Gray is suggesting more than this. He refers to the “attachment” strategies” adopted by a weak arts sector lacking political status and how these strategies involve arts organisations and government arts agencies promoting the role of the arts in addressing the concerns of other sectors (Gray, 2007, p. 208). Over time, such attachments could erode the support necessary to develop a vibrant and sustainable cultural sector.

Managerialism determines how public policy is made. My case studies discuss the direct involvement of the political executive in the framing of Australia’s two national cultural policies and Brandis’ National Program for Excellence in the Arts. They also reveal managerialism’s influence on the capacity of the public service to initiate cultural policy research and policy development. Australian political science scholar Maria Maley (2000) analysed the policy role of ministerial advisers during the Keating Government (1991-1996). She identified distinctive

policy functions including agenda setting and negotiating policy options and trade-offs (Maley, 2000, pp. 455-465). Maley attributed advisors’ influence to their location at the crossroads of policymaking: they see who comes and goes and act as a link between the different policy actors: ministers, bureaucrats and interest groups. She noted that they: “carry not only the authority of the minister but also the power to control information flowing to the minister” (Maley, 2000, pp. 468-469).

Interest groups have become increasingly significant in shaping public policy. Public policy scholar Mark Considine has noted the rise of the significance of “social movements, quasi- public actors such as non-profit agencies and coalitions of interest” in shaping citizen involvement in a range of public policy initiatives. He noted Sabatier’s contribution in illuminating the role played by values in mobilising these coalitions (Considine, 2005, pp. 125- 126). The increase in lobbying by special interest groups has also been identified (Keating and Weller, 2000, p. 51; Christensen & Laegreid, 2011, p. 11). Using health as an example, former senior Australian public servant and diplomat John Menadue argues that these influences mean that policy debate “is not with the public about health policy and strategy; it is about how the Minister and the department manage the vested interests.” (Menadue, 2015, p. 5).

Part Two: critical cultural studies

Cultural policy studies grew out of the field of critical cultural studies. Both have an interest in the broader concept of culture as a way of life and in situating the arts within this broader intellectual framework. Within the Australian context, Tony Bennett, a cultural theorist and sociologist now living and working in Australia, describes this interest as: “A commitment to examining cultural practices from the point of view of their intrication with and within relations of power.” (Bennett, 1992, p. 23). By this Bennett is referring to the political dimension that this field of scholarship brings to an examination of culture and cultural policy.

Jamaican born, an Oxford educated scholar of English literature, and a Marxist, Stuart Hall is credited with being one of the founders in the early 1960s of what later became known as the field of critical cultural studies (Hall, 1989). This field was “intimately connected with the birth of the New Left in the mid-1950s” and Hall and his colleague Richard Hoggart saw culture as means through which they could analyse capitalism in postwar England (Hall, 2016, pp. 7-8). Culture for Hall was something that interacted with politics, ideology, the economic and the social and as such was a means of “anticipating social change” (Hall 2012). Hall’s

interpretation of culture owes a lot to the work of Hoggart, another graduate in English literary studies and an important influence on this emerging field. Hoggart’s work The Uses of Literacy (1957) was a study of the post war changes in British working class cultural and social life as a result of exposure to mass media (Connell & Hilton, 2014, p.1). It made an impression on Hall for its descriptions of “the culture we never see, the culture we don‘t think of as cultivated” (Hall, 1989, p. 9) and the argument that culture’s expression in people’s everyday lives was a proper field of study and “worthy of the same academic rigour previously reserved for the established literary canon”. It was a radical position for a member of the academy to advance at the time (Connell & Hilton, 2014, p.1).

Another important figure in the development of this approach to the analysis of culture was Welsh Marxist, theorist, academic and writer Raymond Williams. In the late 1950s he produced a seminal work, Culture and Society, in which he analysed the works of various English literary figures from within the mid eighteenth to the early twentieth century western European literary canon, (hereafter referred to as the Canon), to reveal their different interpretations of the terms “industry, democracy, class, art and culture” (Williams, 1967, pp. xiii-xvi). Williams noted that the evolving interpretations of the meanings attributed to art and culture were a response to political, social, and economic forces. Here Williams was signalling that these evolving interpretations of culture operated as “a special kind of map” of these changes (Williams, 1967, p. xvii), a conclusion which explains the interest Williams generated in English critical cultural theorists such as Hall. In a subsequent work, Williams further identified three “active categories of usage” of the term culture, one of which, “culture as a particular way of life” (Williams, 1981, p. 90), had a significant influence on the nascent field of cultural studies (Hall, 1989, p. 15). These insights provided by Hoggart and Williams helped embed critical cultural studies as a field of study which:

Bypasses hierarchies of value by exploring the significance and meaning of culture, whether it is popular, transitory, or sanctified by traditions of scholarship and patronage (Lewis & Miller, 2003, p. 4).

The writings of Hall and Williams reveal that the field of critical cultural studies had a difficult relationship with Marxism. In part this could be due to discomfort with the economic determinism of Marxism as it was then understood, and some of the concepts attributed to it including false consciousness and the rigid alignment of class and ideology (Hall, 2016 pp. 54-73, 74-96 and 97-126; and Williams, 1967, pp. 319-328). The works of the Italian neo- Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci refreshed the discourse of Marxism including within the critical cultural studies milieu (Hall, 2016, pp. 50-53). For Hall, Gramsci’s notion of hegemony

as cultural power, meant “the power to define, to make things mean” and included the social, cultural and educational institutions that familiarised the population with these dominant meanings (Denning, 2004, p. 88). Critical cultural theorists Steven Best and Douglas Kellner explicitly define cultural hegemony as the result of a “struggle for [the] production of meaning and ideology.” (1991, p.26). This premise that hegemony is the result of struggles over meaning provides significant insight into the influence of cultural hegemony on the various interpretations of the policy core beliefs within the arts policy subsystem. In Chapters Six to Eight I discuss the extent to which cultural hegemony restricts or expands the parameters of Australia’s national cultural policies. So, what does this theoretical field suggest about the involvement of the state in cultural policy?

Cultural studies and cultural policy The field of critical cultural studies has implications for cultural theorists, as Australian researcher and cultural policy theorist Stuart Cunningham explains: “the command metaphors of resistance and opposition” inherent in critical cultural studies construct the state’s involvement in cultural policy as another means of “wielding gross forms of political power for short-term ends” (Cunningham, 1992, a p.9). Cunningham is explaining why some cultural scholars are reluctant to engage in the development of cultural policy. Jim McGuigan, a critical cultural studies researcher and theorist working in the United Kingdom, is critical of the “gulf between the political pretensions of cultural studies and its practical effects” (McGuigan, 2003 b, p. 28). Bennett’s concerns relate to what he describes as the “institutional indifference” of this field (Bennett, 1992, p. 29), by which he means the failure of the discipline to produce theory that is capable of influencing the behaviour of the policy makers and those charged with the administration of cultural organisations and institutions (Bennett, 1992 p. 23). At the time Bennett outlined his position as an adherent of Foucault and attributed this failure to the influence of Gramsci on English critical cultural studies (Bennett, 1992, pp. 29-31). This interpretation was rebutted by English cultural studies scholar Paola Merli who argued that her analysis of Gramsci’s writings establish that he regarded culture and its institutions as important in imagining the possibility of a new culture and in this way contributed to new cultural hegemony (Merli, 2013, p. 453).

McGuigan, Cunningham, and Bennett are each expressing dissatisfaction with the extent to which critical cultural studies has engaged with cultural policy and suggesting reasons why this is the case. Their point on the perceived disengagement by some cultural policy theorists from cultural policy may help explain the failure of national Australian cultural policy to support the active engagement in cultural development by Australian citizens, to recognise diverse

cultural traditions and to extend the policy’s scope beyond the subsidised arts sector into the realm of culture; matters of central interest to this inquiry.

Cunningham and Bennett have clear objectives in mind in relation to cultural citizenship when they advocate for this greater engagement with cultural policy. Cunningham reflects on the failure of critical cultural studies to contribute to the “mobilisations of citizenship” and the need to move away from the “command metaphors” I referred to earlier: “towards those of access, equity, empowerment and the divination of the opportunities to exercise cultural leadership” (Cunningham, 2003, p. 21). Cunningham’s call for cultural leadership in effect challenges the Foucauldian perspective that governmentality employs knowledge to subjectify the population. He is suggesting that critical cultural policy theory can, and in fact should, frame an argument on how the population can be empowered. In his subsequent article on the political rationality of museums Bennett infers another challenge to this aspect of Foucauldian discourse when he suggests that a more specific study of cultural institutions, in this instance the museum, would reveal an objective:

not to know the populace but to allow the people, addressed as subjects of knowledge rather than as objects of administration, to know; not to render the populace visible to power but to render power visible to the people and, at the same time, to represent to them that power as their own (Bennett, 2003, p. 186).

Bennett and Cunningham are proposing that the cultural policy project can and should recognise the political nature of culture and its potential to create particular kinds of cultural citizens. I agree with the agency of their position and, as I later explore, their analysis provides important insights when interpreting the notions of cultural citizenship in Australia.

For Bennett both Kant and the French philosopher, sociologist and anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) have had a critical influence on the notion of excellence and who is and is not permitted to exercise the judgement of taste (2013, p.115-122). Bourdieu refers to the way in which cultural capital uses:

symbolic goods, especially those regarded at the attributes of excellence [as] one of the key markers of class and also the ideal weapon in strategies of distinction (Bourdieu, 1994, p. 66).

Bourdieu’s structuralist ideology is apparent in this statement with the links he makes between cultural capital and class. His idea of cultural capital, with its inferences of status and “natural

good taste” (Bourdieu, 1994, p. 66), is relevant to my research topic as it contributes to my analysis of how the various interpretations of the policy core belief in excellence enfranchise some cultures and disenfranchise others. He also draws attention to the belief in the inherent taste of the cultural and social elites recruited by the Australia Council to make decisions on which of their peers should be allocated funding (Chapter Four).

Bourdieu’s arguments in relation to cultural capital and its functions rely on the conclusions he draws from surveys he conducted in France in 1963 and in 1968. These results informed his idea of the relationship between the “cultural goods consumed and the way they are consumed” and what he terms “educational capital (measured by qualifications)” and “social origin (measured by father’s occupation)” (Bourdieu, 1994, p. 13). He argued that “the function of cultural capital [is the] maintenance and extension of social status” (Bennett, Emmison & Frow, 1999, p. 263) as cultural capital forms a way of distinguishing those with higher levels of educational and social capital from those with lower levels. He does not imply a direct relationship between types of educational institutions and education in aesthetics. Rather he proposes that certain educational institutions impose “cultural practices that it does not teach and does not explicitly demand” in order to develop the attributes in its alumni that give them the status associated with their educational qualifications, thereby ensuring access to high “social positions” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 26). Thus, a father who controls the means of production and exposes his children to certain educational institutions equips them with distinctive ways in which to “perceive, classify and memorise” some forms of cultural experiences over others. This in turn is a “guarantee of the capacity to adopt the aesthetic disposition” which is a feature of the upper classes (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 28). His connection between class and cultural capital has been challenged.

Having undertaken their own Australian research on this subject in 1994/5 Bennett, Emmison and Frow propose two reasons why they cannot support Bourdieu’s arguments stipulating the relationship between cultural, educational, and economic capital (Bennett, Emerson & Frow, 1999, p. 261). They are critical of Bourdieu’s “indifference towards popular culture”. They propose that the culturally diverse nature of Australian society and the influences of globalisation on culture render Bourdieu’s use of a “single structure of value” for the classification of artistic genres inappropriate and that their surveyed Australian population reveals a “plurality of scales of value” (Bennett et al., 1999, p. 268). Their second objection is the relationship Bourdieu established between cultural capital and the dominant class. They explain how they have approached this issue:

Unlike Bourdieu, however, we do not assume that the employer classes and the classes of professionals and managers are fractions of the same class; we posit that they have different social interests predicated on the difference between the possession and administration of capital. Managers and professionals...are differentiated in part by their relation to the division between the private and public sectors. (Bennett et al., 1999, p. 268).

Instead they endorse Di Maggio’s rejection of the possession of cultural capital as synonymous with membership of “tightly bounded status groups” and support Di Maggio’s reinterpretation of the term cultural capital:

A privileged indicator of a more general capacity and inclination to familiarise oneself with whatever cultural currency is valuable in the contexts in which one functions (Bennett et al., 1999, p. 263).

Their challenge to Bourdieu’s classifications of class and his “single structure of value” rejects a direct relationship between the ability to interpret particular forms of cultural expression (cultural capital) and class as defined by Bourdieu. However, Bennett and his colleagues acknowledge that different aesthetic dispositions exist and that they relate to “the class- forming effects of education”, wealth, age, gender, and “urbanity”. They also appear to acknowledge that these elements all contribute to what Bourdieu terms the “degree of erudition” necessary to engage in “artistic contemplation” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 30) by concluding that they contribute to the extent to which Australian’s participate in either “inclusive” or “restricted forms of cultural practice”. Here they are referring to the educational, geographical, and economic restrictions on access to cultural experiences in Australia (Bennett et al., 1999, pp. 268-269). I accept their rejection of the association of cultural capital with the class stratifications used by Bourdieu. I accept what they refer to as the “nexus of class and culture” and their hypothesis that it is: “economic capital and social capital that play the major role in the generation and reproduction of class inequality in Australia.” (Bennett et al., 1999, p. 268). However, I also allow that a more privileged aesthetic disposition has a role to play as a strategy of distinction and as a means of extending social status (Bourdieu, 1994, p. 66). The authors refer to economically dominant groups, which do not define themselves as cultured, attending “prestigious and expensive” theatre, ballet and opera performances as a means of conspicuous consumption (Bennett et al., 1999, p. 265) but surely it is also a way of marking their cultural sensibility and thereby extending their social status.

Is it art or cultural policy? National Australian cultural policies do not provide a broader cultural framework within which to locate their strategies for the arts and are limited in their scope to arts policy (Throsby, 2009, p. 4). They also “elide crucial differences between the terms culture, arts, heritage, and cultural heritage” (Museums Australia, 2011, p. 9, original emphasis). This is an issue of consequence as the use of terminology reveals what activities are included, what are off limits and who benefits from these inclusions and exclusions in national cultural policy.

There are arguments advanced against framing arts policy within national cultural policy. Parliament of Australia social policy researcher John Gardiner-Garden notes that governments appear to be squeamish about the connotations of cultural policy with its implications of authoritarianism and political intervention (Gardiner-Garden, 1994, p. 8), a perception neatly summed up in this statement by Barry Cohen, Arts Minister in the Hawke Government:

One of the things I didn’t want to do was have a cultural policy. It sounds like the Soviet Union (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 396).

Craik asserts that when considering the scope of how culture is defined that the: “breadth of this array means that cultural policy becomes almost indistinguishable” from other policy domains such as housing, health and so on and that: “the strategy runs the risk of losing its specificity in that mix” (Craik, 2005, p. 11). McGuigan judges that Hall’s “expanded notion of culture is too expansive for...practical purposes” (McGuigan, 2003, p. 23). These critiques are dealing with the political and administrative difficulties that their authors associate with a cultural policy framework. The failure of the architects of Australia’s national cultural policies to respond to advice from some arts advocacy coalitions to adopt a broader cultural framework (see Chapters Six and Seven) suggests to me that they shared these concerns. However, a stronger clue on the reasons for governments’ aversion to cultural framing could lie in some of the arguments advanced in its favour.

In responding to the Discussion Paper informing the development of Creative Nation (DASET, 1992), English and Australian cultural policy theorist and researcher Colin Mercer, acknowledges the difficulty Anglo-Saxon societies have with the notion of a cultural ministry and points out that countries which separate culture and government, the UK, the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, “share some of the lowest per capita rates of cultural funding of all democratic societies” (Mercer, 1992, p. 41). He also suggests that this separation:

effectively maintains current organisational and policy frameworks and hence allows no space for one definition - ‘way of life’ to trouble the other – ‘intellectual and artistic activity’...and provides a blanket argument for the support of arts activity as narrowly defined. In so doing, it fails to create the imperative for the exploration of the actual potential of the cultural realm in the life of the nation (Mercer, 1992, p. 26).

Mercer raises three issues: the low status afforded to the arts as a standalone sector when compared with jurisdictions that adopt a cultural frame; the impact that an integrated policy would have on government arts agencies; and the challenge, which he presents as an opportunity, that integration would pose for established hierarchies of distinction. He also proposes a way in which to define the scope of the Commonwealth’s role in culture and cultural resources to encompass:

‘the arts’ as traditionally defined and received but also enable strategic and long term connections to be made with economic and social policy objectives (Mercer, 1992, p. 27).

Australian researcher and cultural policy theorist Stuart Cunningham argues that cultural policy is necessary in order to examine the distribution, consumption, and significance of popular culture to people (Cunningham, interview, 26 June 2017, p. 7). These views can be interpreted as ideological. The frame of culture, particularly as understood by these scholars, can promise a more pluralist and democratic approach to cultural policy: a frame that embraces many different cultures, including popular culture, and does not require that cultural policy be restricted to non-commercial creative activity.

Julianne Schultz, cultural policy commentator and editor of the Griffith Review, argues that limiting cultural policy to arts policy:

means that the sector is framed in the wrong way – one which means it is not treated as seriously as other areas that account for comparable amounts of economic activity (Shultz, 2015, pp.210-211).

Schultz makes the argument that the framing of the arts as recipients of patronage hampers their development and keeps them on the margins of public policy. This raises the question of whether the Commonwealth’s arts agencies prefer it that way. Those supporting the benefits of a cultural policy are signalling as advantages what Commonwealth arts agencies and powerful arts advocacy coalitions may regard as anathema: changes to administrative

arrangements and a challenge to established hierarchies of distinction, issues I explore further in Chapters Six to Eight. Mercer pointed out that the Commonwealth’s engagement with culture was represented in eight portfolios (Mercer, 1992, p. 29). He also argued that for most people the private sector is where “culture is made, defined and consumed” and that the preoccupation of the arts policy network with the subsidised arts:

does not provide the basis for effectively addressing and encompassing the rights, needs and expectations of audiences, participants and consumers (Mercer, 1992, p. 32).

However, while there are clues in the proposals from the adherents of integration as to why cultural framing is not popular with government arts agencies there are also contradictions in their proposals. Schultz agues the need for autonomous domains for both cultural and arts policy (Schultz, 2015, 210-211) and in this sense she is highlighting the distinctiveness of the arts. Mercer and Throsby both argue for linkages formed under a cultural policy framework between the arts, sciences, local history, education and communications and how these linkages would benefit all of these policy domains (Mercer, 1992, p.25) and also support the development of cultural industries (Mercer, 1992, p. 37; Throsby, 2018). However, in his proposal for an integrated cultural framework Throsby distinguishes the “core creative arts” from other “core and related cultural industries” (Throsby, 2018, pp. 10-11), distancing the arts from commercial activity. It appears that the saliency of these hierarchies of distinction between art and non-art and commercial and subsidised art are what helps inform the views of both supporters and detractors of a broader cultural policy framework.

Art as excellence: its genius and distinctiveness This section is an introduction to some of the literature on how shifting western ideas about art and culture reveal the values attached to the various interpretations of the policy core values in Australian national cultural policy. Literature on the development of civic patronage of arts and culture in Australia in the late nineteenth and twentieth century provides further insights into the influence of political and social movements on ideas about art and culture.

Within the policy core belief of excellence lie many values. A study of these values can clarify the meanings attached to this policy belief. Kant (1724-1804) argued that “Genius is that innate mental aptitude...through which nature gives the rule to art”. He states:

Genius is a talent for producing that for which no definite rule can be given and not an aptitude by way of cleverness for what can be learned according to some rule; and that

consequently originality must be its primary property (Kant, 1987, pp. 168- 169, original emphasis).

Contemporary values associated with excellence distinguish between subsidised or non- commercial art and commercial art (see Chapter Four) and this can be traced back to Kant and his belief that art was something “good in itself” (Kant, 1987, p. 46), not the means with which to pursue an end.

As Williams observed in his work on the evolution of the different meanings attached to words like art and culture:

The arts – literature, music, painting, sculpture, theatre – were grouped together...as having something essentially in common which distinguished them from other human skills (Williams, 1967, pp. xv-xvi).

This value of distinctiveness highlighted by Williams is still salient (see Chapter Four).

Writing in the 1950s Williams identified how during the late eighteenth and nineteenth century population growth, urbanisation, industrialisation, and unionism led to the belief in how:

The masses, on evidence, formed the perpetual threat to culture. Mass-thinking, mass suggestion, mass-prejudice would threaten to swamp considered individual thinking and feeling (Williams, 1967, pp. 297-298).

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, technology made it possible for many people other than the owner of an original work of art to view and appreciate its replica. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), a member of the Frankfurt School, interpreted this phenomenon as removing the private “act of viewing” previously associated with the “exclusive ownership” of that artwork and eroding “A form of social authority which was based on privileged access to rarefied exposure” (Rowse, 1985, p. 64). Benjamin’s observations about mass culture do not in fact suggest that the artwork itself was compromised, but rather that the social and political circumstances in which it was viewed and appreciated had changed. Benjamin’s colleague, T. W. Adorno, referred to the German concept of culture as something “untouchable which cannot be tailored according to any tactical or technical considerations...the manifestation of pure humanity” (Adorno, 1991, p. 108). This resonates with Kant’s views on the exercise of taste which did not depend on the laws of nature but on the unmediated engagement with the self (Kant, 1987, pp 48-49). Bennett interprets Kant’s meaning as:

the conception of self-governance as a practice of freedom – opening up a place within the self – a space for self-reflection and reform (Bennett, 20-13, p. 17).

Adorno was outspoken in his “critique of mass culture as a product of a culture industry” on the grounds that these were the products of capitalism and as such were developed for their instrumental value thus becoming subject to “the drift” of capitalism’s development “towards domination” (Bernstein, 1991, p. 1, 5 and 3). In this Adorno infers how:

The culture industry’s effective integration of society marks an equivalent triumph of repressive unification in liberal democratic states to that which was achieved politically under fascism (Bernstein, 1991, p. 4).

American philosopher J. M. Bernstein interprets Adorno’s critique as a commentary not just on the use of mass culture as an instrument of totalitarianism but also a commentary on its impact on “the collapse of the difference between culture and practical life” (Bernstein, 1991, p. 21). Bernstein suggests that Adorno’s views on this subject make sense in the context of post modernism where the diminution in the status of “high modernist art” was one consequence of the loss of its availability to only “’the elite few...the price paid for distance from commodification” (Bernstein, 1991, p. 21). For Adorno, the commodification of art removed its capacity to offer “reflective comprehension of the present in terms of a redeemed future” as it was now subject to the demands of consumers (Bernstein, 1991, pp. 9-10). In the late twentieth century in Australia the value of privileged access to cultural excellence observed by Benjamin persisted and was positioned in stark contrast to what Gaye Hawkins, Australian cultural and media studies scholar, refers to as “the stupefying effects of mass culture” (Hawkins, 1993, p. 19).

Art as industry: challenging excellence/confirming culture’s exchange value The emergence of the concept of cultural and creative industries in Australia and elsewhere during the 1980s challenged traditional ideas about art. While the focus of my thesis is an examination of those parts of the arts policy subsystem which deal with the subsidised arts sector, this body of literature is important for the insights it provides into the different rationales informing this development. One rationale was rooted in the belief that an industrially based cultural development model would be able to move beyond the aesthetic hierarchies of distinction that applied to the Canon. Another rationale marked a turning point in an Australian government’s framing of cultural policy. That cultural policy should contribute to non-cultural

ends was not significant, Australian national cultural policy had long had a role in nation- building (Chapter Three), but the recognition of cultural industries in this policy was important.

The reframing of the arts and media as cultural industries appeared in the UK in the early 1980s when the innovative administration of the Greater London Council, operating from a neo-Marxist theoretical perspective, categorised government support for the arts as subsidies for elite forms of cultural expression. It adopted an industrial development model which supported “the forms of culture which the majority of people now use” (Mulgan and Worpole, 1986, pp. 13-14). The notion of cultural industries had quite different origins in the Australian context and was significant in Australia for different reasons as Australian political scientist Carol Johnson explains. Johnson argues that Keating’s coupling of arts and culture with the communications and the knowledge economies in Creative Nation (1994) was “compatible with the government’s economic and social objectives” and that “for Keating, cultural matters became inseparable from the economic” (Johnson, 2000, p. 125) and culture became appreciated for its extrinsic as well as intrinsic value. Eleven years after the demise of the Greater London Council in 1986, Tony Blair’s New Labour government incorporated Keating’s ideas on cultural industries into Britain’s creative industries policy (Throsby, 2009, p. 7; O’Connor, 2016, pp. 9-19).

Throsby observes that this framing of the arts and the economy was supported by some members of the arts policy subsystem (Throsby, 2008, p. 3). Arts as industry and, more particularly, the reduction of this concept to the “obsessive preoccupation with the financial contribution of art and culture to the economy” (Throsby, 2018, pp. 10-11) was also vigorously opposed by others in the arts policy subsystem. Schultz describes how:

in trying to find an economic language and justification for the arts, creativity and culture all of a sudden, the other stuff got pushed aside. (Schultz interview, 15th March 2017, p. 3).

Both Throsby and Schultz are referring to the widespread attempts within the Australian national cultural policy subsystem to justify government expenditure on the arts in economic terms. Cunningham reflected how this amounted to an attack on the distinctiveness or the “special or exceptional difference” of the arts (2006, p. 4), arguments which resonate with Williams’ observations on the distinctiveness of the arts. Donald Horne, public intellectual and former chair of the Australia Council, objected to the “economisation of culture” (2002, pp. 2- 3). Sue Beal, former Assistant National Secretary of Actors Equity, was another who objected to the commodification of art (Interview, 18th May 2017). These views resonate with the values

which distance art and culture from commercial activities (Kant 1987, pp.163-164; Bourdieu, 1984, p. 54). The intensity of the debate within the arts policy subsystem on the issue of cultural industries and its association with the economisation of the arts can be better understood in the context of these long-held values and beliefs.

Justin O’Connor, an English cultural economist now working in Australia, presents a dystopian vision in which “we have a recipe for the collapse of culture into individual consumer preference”. He believes this would betray culture’s origins as providing a means with which we can shape how “we can live together and what the quality of our collective experience should be” (O’Connor, 2016, pp, 56-57). O’Connor mourns the loss of the appreciation of the value of culture, its contribution to our sense of self, place and community and its replacement with culture as a commodity. Adorno objected to the “aestheticisation of social reality” and lamented the “threat to enlightened reason...sensuous particularity, rational ends, individuality and authentic happiness” posed by the commodification of art (Bernstein, 1991, pp. 22-23). This field of theoretical inquiry presents a key dilemma for cultural policy, particularly in the age of neo-liberalism: how to bring art in from the margins of politics and public policy and have it recognised as an essential part of the state for its intrinsic value. In the present public policy context in Australia this ambition is a contradiction in terms.

De-colonising culture: access and excellence as cultural self determination In this section I trace the challenges to the interpretations of the policy core beliefs of access and excellence that occurred from the mid-1950s and mirrored the changing social and political circumstances of that time globally and within Australia. H. C. Coombs, the Australian economist, founder of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust (AETT) and inaugural chair of the Australia Council, believed that the arts were “elitist...and enjoyed by relatively few” and noted the statutory obligations of the Australia Council to “widen access to, and understanding...of the arts in the community” (Hawkins, 1993, p. 11). Combs believed that the way to counter this elitism was to distribute the civilising influences of arts and culture through programs designed to improve the access of the uninitiated to the arts. Rowse depicts a kind of hierarchy of audiences envisaged as those “to whom greater capacities are attributed” than those possessed by mass audiences (Rowse, 1985, pp. 62-63). From the 1940s until the 1980s those associated with the AETT developed many of Australia’s performing arts institutions and they believed:

that to subsidise excellent performances and works of art would benefit everyone in society. Subsidy helped widen the audience for the arts audiences...those Arts already subsidised stood at the apex of a common Australian culture...cultural difference would

tend to be hidden and access and participation would be conceived as problems of distributing existing goods. (Rowse, 1985, p. 38, p. 51).

Rowse and Hawkins both describe how these beliefs drew on the notion of a homogenous national cultural identity (Rowse, 1985, p. 37: Hawkins, 1993, pp. 72-73) and how the policy core belief in access was interpreted as the distribution of the Canon to people who were culturally deprived.

Part of the Australia Council’s policy obligation to provide access to the arts was to overcome this cultural deprivation by exposing the population to the Canon of established works of excellence (see Hull, 1983, p. 315). The patronage of arts and culture by the labour and socialist movements from the 1880s emerged during the late nineteenth and twentieth century (Kirby, 1992, Burn and Kirby, 1985) and attracted audiences. These audiences did not shun the Canon, nor was there a strict class alignment to particular cultural traditions. Cultural patronage by the labour and socialist movements was much more eclectic and helped to uphold the old values whilst generating new ones (see Chapter Four). With these new values the distinctions between the artist and the audience became less clear as the former was often recruited from the latter. The distinctions between professional and amateur artist became blurred as the creative potential of all people became recognised and supported by these movements and the notion of the individual artist/genius became complemented by the practice of theatre ensembles and professional and amateur artists collectively creating art (Harper, 1984, Milne, 2004, Mackinolty, 1977, Hogg, 2011, Kenyon, 1995). These alternative values relating to art and culture were further developed with the mid twentieth century development of post modernism and New Left ideology and the hierarchy of distinction valuing subsidised culture over commercial was also challenged (Mulgan & Worpole, 1986).

The New Left and the social and political upheavals of the 1950s and 1960s encouraged “both the denunciation of the dominant culture, as ideological state apparatus...and the theorizations of cultural revolution” (Denning, 2004, p. 8). In Australia these revolutions were apparent, for example, in the mobilisation of Indigenous Australians in order to assert their land rights and their right to cultural self-determination and by feminism’s exposure of the structural inequality experienced by all women, including in the arts sector. As scholars in multicultural studies have argued, during the Whitlam era (1972-1975) “the maintenance of a uniquely Australian character and way of life was contingent upon a degree of racist exclusionism” (Castles, Kalantzis, Cope & Morrissey, 1988, p. 58). However, the “doctrine of integration” did enable ethnic groups to mobilise politically against this doctrine and around the issue of culture. The

injection of Commonwealth funding for migrant community workers increased their resources to do so (Castles et al., 1988, p. 62-63).

The New Left’s framing of specific communities of interest not only in terms of their class but in terms of the form of their oppression, for example Indigenous peoples and others experiencing colonisation of their cultures, helped create an awareness of cultural pluralism. This awareness led to the assertion of their rights to have their cultural traditions acknowledged and supported (Rowse, 1985, p. 54, Hawkins, 1993, pp. 72-75). This in turn demanded that artistic virtuosity be defined according to the standards of a breadth of cultural traditions and not solely by the standards of the Canon.

The New Left also provided a new paradigm that displaced the colonisation of cultures by the dominant culture with the assertion of citizens’ active participation in creativity as a means of social and political change (Watt, 1991, pp. 62-63; Hawkes, 2002, p. 12). This shift was supported by the recognition within parts of the academy, parts of the arts sector and parts of the Australia Council that art was not neutral: that what was considered art and, either by implication or explicitly, non-art was politically and socially defined (R. W. Connell, 1983, p. 297, Hawkins, 1993, pp. 72-74). In turn, these changing perspectives were reflected in the shift in the Australia Council’s Community Arts Board’s policy away from the notion of cultural deprivation towards a reframing of community arts as “a community’s active intervention in its own cultural destiny, not as a way to increase consumption of other peoples’ culture” (Hawkins, 1993, p. 75).

Part Three: cultural citizenship and arts policy modes

Cultural citizenship Spanish social and political scientist Ricard Zapata-Barrero (2016) is interested in the “assumed conception of citizenship” that is “behind cultural policy programs” (Zapata-Barrero, 2016, p. 536). His work provides a link between the scholarship undertaken in the fields of citizenship studies, cultural policy and diversity studies. He asserts that the literature is preoccupied with “the plurality of the meanings of ‘culture’” and not sufficiently concerned with “the plurality of democratic citizenship” and how different “democratic citizenship traditions” frame the role of cultural citizens (Zapata-Barrero, 2016, p, 547). He identifies the dimensions of “democracy/equality” and “Identity/nationality” as the “key” drivers” of how cultural citizenship is defined by the state, (Zapata-Barrero, 2016, pp. 539-540). Figure 1 below

intervention by governments in a manner consistent with the architect policy mode (Hillman- Chartrand & McCaughey, 1989, pp. 65-66). This intervention occurred repeatedly in Australia from the 1980s and by 2000 formal multi-lateral, Federal and State government arrangements had been developed through the Australian Major Performing Arts Framework (see Chapters Six and Seven).

Overall, I would characterise the policy approach of Australian Federal governments to cultural development as patronage, with a neo-patronage policy approach reserved for its treatment of the major performing arts organisations.

Part Four: research method

My thesis is informed by an interpretative framework and a constructivist epistemology and my research methodology has been developed to ensure a consistency with the assumptions embedded in these concepts. My research method is qualitative and interpretive seeking to investigate the meanings attached to the policy beliefs that shape Australia’s national cultural policy. I have applied three principle research tools: documentary content analysis, face-to- face semi-structured interviews and a survey.

Documentary content analysis I have used content analysis as my method of review for a number of different types of documents: the transcripts of my interviews; the documents created by government arts agency staff during the policymaking process including discussion papers; Hansard records of the hearings and submissions to the Senate Estimates Committee meetings of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Reference Committee inquiry into the Impact of the 2014 and 2015 Commonwealth Budget decisions on the Arts (hereafter referred to as the Senate Inquiry); and other documents generated by members of the arts policy subsystem during the policymaking process. I have examined these texts for two categories of interest. The first theme relates to the narrative about the policymaking processes and mobilisations associated with the three cultural policies which are the subject of this thesis. The second theme is the interpretations of the policy core beliefs of access and excellence and policy preferences of arm’s length funding and peer review.

In relation to the policy core belief of excellence I identified three interpretive themes: traditional, contemporary; and pluralist. The traditional interpretation relates to the Canon and the creative output of the major performing arts organisations. The contemporary

interpretation acknowledges the value of a wider body of creative output but still adheres to western cultural traditions. The pluralist interpretation acknowledges that virtuosity can be interpreted according to different criteria depending on the artistic genre and its cultural tradition. In relation to the policy core belief in access the interpretive themes are distributive, educational and democratic. The distributive interpretation of access favours exposing the populace to established works of excellence and broadening audiences for art. The educational interpretation provides arts education to the wider population enabling them to engage critically with their own and other cultures’ traditions and contemporary creative practice and to broaden audiences for art. The democratic interpretation supports a community’s participation in developing its own culture, rather than relying on the consumption of other peoples’ culture.

For the policy preferences the interpretive themes were uncompromising support, qualified support, and ministerial fiat. I developed these codes following my analysis of the policy statements and relevant legislation and then applied them to the documents I have described. I did not apply a statistical analysis to this data as the responses cannot be given equal weight. To supplement the information I obtained from the survey results and my interviews with material on the history and advocacy activities of arts advocacy organisations, I gathered information from their websites on their history and advocacy activities.

Other documents I analysed included the feedback received on Creative Australia’s Discussion Paper. This was prepared by the Department of the Arts as part of the consultation undertaken during the policy’s development. There were over 2,000 survey responses and 450 formal submissions received (Australian Government, 2013, p. 123). Trove yielded 305 submissions from organisations and 104 from individuals: a mixture of on-line survey responses and submissions. In some cases, authors withheld their permission for their submissions to be made public. In selecting 104 submissions for content analysis (see Appendix 7.2) my criteria were that no individuals were included; and I selected responses from national bodies in the first instance and then from those organisations that my research indicated were under-represented in the national cultural policy discourse at that time. I excluded those submissions that concentrated solely on advocating for their organisation rather than addressing the issues raised in the Discussion Paper. Consistent with my epistemology and methodology, I did not attempt a statistical analysis of the content of the documents. I will now describe the rationale for my decision to analyse the Hansard of the Senate Inquiry hearings, rather than the submissions to the Inquiry.

Other documents I analysed were a selection from the 2, 718 submissions received by the Senate Inquiry, of which 312 were from arts and cultural organisations. The balance of the submissions, 2,369 (87 per cent) were from individuals. Ten Inquiry hearings were held throughout Australia between the fifth of August and the twenty-third of November 2015. Two hundred and seven organisations represented by 258 individuals presented evidence. I selected the Senate hearings rather than the submissions to the Inquiry for my content analysis of the interpretations of policy beliefs and preferences as my investigations revealed that the format and context of the hearings yielded insights into the views of a wider cross section of the arts sector. Forty-four of the witnesses appearing before the Inquiry did not make a submission to the Inquiry and twenty-eight of these were from regional and remote areas (Cairns and the Northern Territory) and had only meagre staffing and administrative infrastructure.

The Hansard of those hearings also gave me access to the views of witnesses grouped from the same state or region, often presenting in small groups. This had a powerful effect on their ability to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the arts sector; a key theme emerging from the hearings.

Elite Interviews My primary rationale for using the interview method was to try to capture insights, observations and opinions from my interview subjects and enrich the information previously obtained from material in the public domain. These interviews were elite, by which I mean they involved specialists drawn from the arts policy subsystem. Through these interviews I hoped to establish the policy core beliefs of interview subjects, some of whom were from arts advocacy coalitions. I was also keen to discern any links between shared beliefs and coordination amongst arts advocacy coalitions for the periods covered by my thesis and gain further insight into the events featured in my case studies.

Research participants were drawn from the categories of advocacy coalition members identified by the ACF literature as described in Chapter One (Sabatier & Weible 2007, p. 192) These categories include: politicians who had a direct involvement in the development of one or more of the policies under consideration; political advisers; government agency officials including Australia Council members; leaders of peak advocacy coalitions and organisations; journalists; and other individuals and arts organisations involved in arts policy advocacy .To guide my identification and selection of interview subjects I developed and applied a matrix (Appendix 2.1, p. 226). My objective was to compile a list of potential interview subjects within the categories defined above across the three case studies.

The criteria for identifying potential interview subjects were that they had fulfilled one or more of the roles described above in one or more of policies under consideration, and their past and/or present involvement in relation to the arts policy subsystem. These potential interview subjects were then assessed in terms of my desire to include a diversity of voices and views and as complete a range of artistic genres as possible. I sought interviews from members of each of the major political parties and the Australian Greens and from supporters and critics of the policies featured in my thesis. Potential interview subjects were only excluded if I was satisfied that their area of expertise and their perspective on these events had been covered by other interview subjects. I approached 54 potential subjects, nine of whom either declined to be interviewed or failed to respond. Appendix 2.1 provides the matrix of all potential and final interview subjects. The interview subjects include: 6 politicians (1 Liberal, 4 Labor and 1 from The Greens); 7 policy advisors; 6 agency officials (including members of the Australia Council); eleven leaders of peak arts advocacy organisations and coalitions; and fifteen other arts policy advocates including one journalist (see Appendix 1.1 for more information on the interview subjects). The interviews were conducted between February 2017 and March 2018.

In the preface to this thesis I acknowledge the subjective nature of this inquiry, dealing as it does with beliefs and values. I also acknowledge my reputation within the arts policy subsystem as a policy activist. The ongoing saliency of the issues that the Brandis intervention threw up and the continuation of a Coalition Government may have made some potential interview subjects reluctant to participate. The interview subjects present a diverse range of views and provide a balance between the different interests operating within the arts policy subsystem: however, I acknowledge that a different group of interviewees could present different views and that not all opinions within the arts policy subsystem might be represented by the 45 interview subjects who contributed to this study.

A semi-structured interview format was developed for this research as it enabled the subjects to have some agency in the interview process and the interviewer to probe particular subjects or issues (Halperin & Heath, 2012, p. 253). Face-to-face interviews were also used for this research as it is a recommended method in those instances where the interviewer is seeking to uncover and probe the subjects’ opinions, which was my aim (Halperin & Heath, 2012, p. 254). To preserve the agency of the interviewee wherever possible, the interview setting was in the subjects’ workplace or a setting of their choosing which met the requirements of the recording equipment. Information on contact details for potential interview subjects was sourced from documents in the public domain, e.g. testimonials and submissions to the Senate Inquiry, media releases, university websites, conference and meeting contact lists and the

websites of arts advocacy organisations. The schedule for the semi-structured interviews can be found in Appendix 2.2.

Following the formats prescribed and approved by the University’s Ethics Committee I sent prospective interview subjects an introductory letter (see Appendix 2.3) and a participant information statement (see Appendix 2.4). If they agreed to the interview a participant consent form was sent to them (see Appendix 2.5) and the signed form was collected before the interview commenced. Following the interview, a thank you email, and a transcript of the interview was sent. The interview subject was asked to review the transcript and amend, delete or add any material they wished. These approved interview transcripts were then applied to my research.

Survey My objective with the survey was to record a snapshot of Australian arts advocacy coalitions which were active between the beginning of August until the end of November 2015: the time frame in which the Senate Inquiry hearings took place. The survey design reflected my aim to solicit information about the advocacy organisations that my research may have failed to unearth, to collect information on how long each arts advocacy coalition had been operating, the numbers of organisations and individuals they represented, their degree of coordination with each other and their preferred means of political engagement.

I chose to keep the survey short (see Appendix 2.6) and to limit the written responses required by providing multiple option and fixed choice questions. I did this on the assumption that my survey targets were time poor and that I would be collecting more nuanced data through my interviews. I was also keen to maximise the participation rate and advised survey recipients that, apart from the individual respondent’s name and the name of their organisation, all information gained from the survey would be consolidated so that the particulars of individual organisations could not be identified. I developed this protocol to protect any information provided that could be construed by respondents as confidential, for example, membership numbers. The organisations appearing before the Senate Inquiry hearings were used as the basis for compiling a list of survey recipients. My rationale for identifying Inquiry witnesses as survey participants was that as they had been able to navigate the politics of securing an opportunity to appear before an Inquiry hearing I assumed that they had a degree of commitment to and experience in arts policy advocacy. Appendix 2.7 provides a copy of the letter of introduction sent to survey candidates and Appendix 2.8 provides more details on the selection of survey recipients. The survey was distributed on the thirtieth of April 2017. Responses peaked in the first 8 days of May and then peaked again on the fourteenth May

2017 following the distribution of a reminder email. The final response was recorded on the seventh June 2017. The final number of complete surveys for analysis was 107. Appendix 2.9 lists the survey respondents.

Ethics My research methods, procedures for the management of any perceived conflict of interest, the recruitment of research subjects and the design of research tools (interview and survey schedules) were all approved by the University’s Ethics Committee prior to the commencement of my interviews.

The participants’ right to withdraw from the project at any time was made clear to them from the beginning and there were no consequences for them if they chose to do so. No out-of- pocket expenses or rewards were distributed as a result of participation. By completing and returning the survey all survey respondents consented to the information collected on their organisation being included in my thesis and that the individual respondent’s name and the name of their group would be cited in the study. Interview subjects were given the option of remaining anonymous and of either granting or denying permission for their approved interview transcript to be lodged with the National Library. One interview subject chose to remain anonymous and another declined to have their transcript lodged with the National Library but later chose to reverse this decision.

I established protocols to protect the interests of those interviewed as well as myself. These included written participant information and consent forms, the design of a semi-structured interview schedule to give interviewees the capacity to influence the direction of the interview and the topics covered, and participant review and approval of their interview transcript.

Conclusion: overview of my theory and method

The literature reviewed for this research project provides a rich and diverse context within which to explore my research question: how have the beliefs and activities of Australia’s arts sector constrained Australia’s national cultural policy? The disciplines of political science and critical cultural studies together provide me with a framework I can apply to my analysis of the policymaking process for Australian national cultural policy and a theoretical concept, cultural hegemony, which can help me to discern the influence of power in shaping the meanings attributed to those policies’ core beliefs. The texts on cultural citizenship and arts policy modes bring public policy and political ideology together in their analysis of these two important

dimensions of cultural policy. The literature on neo-liberalism reveals the influence of this ideology on how cultural policy is framed and on this doctrine’s influence on the policymaking process. This includes the dominant role played by the political executive in policy’s development and the constraints placed on the role of the public service in that process. The literature related to philosophy and critical cultural studies reveals the evolution of the beliefs attributed to culture and art and what is at stake in the struggles over their interpretation. Above all it reveals the politics of art and culture.

My research method is consistent with the interpretative framework and a constructivist epistemology and provides me with information on the Australian national arts policy subsystem and the insights of key members of that policy subsystem on the issues raised by my research question.

In the next chapter I begin to apply these theories to the three national Australian cultural policies under consideration.

Chapter Three: framing Australia’s national cultural policy

An examination of how Australian national cultural policy is framed is necessary in order to appreciate the power of these often implicit devices. They can create a form of hegemony that prescribes the kind of national cultural policy that Australia is allowed to have. I apply some of the theories I explored in Chapter Two to an analysis of Labor’s two national cultural policies, Creative Nation (1994) and Creative Australia (2013), and to the ministerial fund for the arts established by Brandis in 2015: the National Program for Excellence in the Arts. Firstly, in introducing the detail of these policies, I explore the extent to which these cultural policies reflect the impact of neo-liberalism evident in the instrumentalism of public policy and notions of cultural citizenship. Secondly, I analyse each of these policies in relation to the arts policy modes employed. Finally, I examine the extent to which these policies reflect a cultural or an arts framework.

Neo-liberalism, instrumentalism, and cultural citizenship

Creative Nation (1994): instrumentalism, and cultural citizenship Economic and social concerns were part of Keating’s motivation for framing Creative Nation in the way that he did:

The revolution in information technology and the wave of global mass culture potentially threatens that which is distinctly our own. In doing so it threatens our identity and the opportunities this and future generations will have for intellectual and artistic growth and self-expression (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p.2).

Keating viewed information technology as an opportunity for the development of the cultural industries and as a potential threat to Australia’s economic and cultural sovereignty. To what extent did this perspective influence the policy’s intent, the role assigned to cultural citizens and the arts policy mode employed to achieve these objectives?

The build up to the development of Creative Nation demonstrates the influence of neo-liberal ideology on Australia’s first national cultural policy. This is evident in the shifts in the various rationales for governments’ support for arts and culture adopted by the Labor Party during this period. At the Bondi Pavilion in Sydney on 16 May 1982, Labor Party Leader Bill Hayden made a speech which included this statement:

Democratic socialists argue the importance – the necessity of...free artistic expression...It is our belief that this free expression provides in a critically constructive way the momentum for change in the circumstances in which people live and the institutions which should serve them...They represented a freeing up – a parting from the old and stifling, hierarchical order, and elevation of the dignity of the people. Artistic change accompanied and promoted general social change. So, in a very real sense, our artistic expression provides an important playing out of the dialectic by which the society lives (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 301).

Hayden clearly established the link between a Labor government’s rationale for support for the arts and one ideological perspective of his party at that time. Hayden described the significance of culture and art in forming a new hegemony which depicted what democratic socialism might look like in Australia. This was an acknowledgement of art’s instrumentalism in generating cultural and social change but fell short of requiring an economic justification for cultural policy. In his speech launching the 1993 Federal election campaign his successor Bob Hawke’s rationale was that culture provided a tool with which to promote Australia’s identity internationally (Hawke, February 16, 1983) and I interpret this rationale to be about nation- building and national identity rather than the economy. A decade later Keating emphasised the role of the arts and heritage in building national unity and social cohesion and in contributing to the development of a new economic sector, the knowledge economy (Keating, February 24, 1993). Keating had experience of the transformative and transcendental qualities of the arts and their capacity to expand intellectual and emotional horizons (O’Brien, 2015, pp. 690-691) and the policy reflects both these emphases:

The ultimate aim of this cultural policy is to increase the comfort and enjoyment of Australian life. It is to heighten our experience and add to our security and well-being. In that it pursues similar ends to any social policy...This cultural policy is also an economic policy. Culture creates wealth...Culture adds value, it makes an essential contribution to innovation, marketing and design. It is a badge of our industry...It is essential to our economic success (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p.3).

Instrumentalism was not a new emphasis in Australian cultural policy. It was evident, for example, in John Gorton’s speech launching the 1969 election where he announced his commitment to establishing an Australian film industry (Gorton, 1969). In this he was motivated by the need to establish an Australian identity to overcome what he characterised as Australia’s “colonial subservience” manifest in our reliance on overseas films (Coombs, 1991, p. 245). In Whitlam’s speech launching the 1972 Federal election he credited the arts with

helping to “establish and express Australian identity” and promote Australia internationally (Whitlam, 1972, p. 28).

However, Keating’s coupling of economic and cultural policy was unprecedented in Australia and was the result of the co-location of two policy problems in one solution. The Hawke and later the Keating Government needed to soften the social impacts of their macro and micro economic reform agenda and they did this through the integration of social and economic policy (Johnson, 2000, p. 27). Keating’s speech launching the 1993 election campaign made it clear that change should be accompanied by the safety net of social policy (Keating 1993, pp. 3-4). The reframing of the arts as an industry captured the interest of Keating because he could identify a new sector of the economy which could help stem what he perceived as the threat of global mass culture to our distinctive Australian identity (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p.2) and help compensate for the decline of Australia’s manufacturing sector. Johnson notes how “communications technology became the industry of the future” and a key element in Creative Nation (Johnson, 2000, p. 125).

In his discussion of neo-liberalism, instrumentalism and cultural policy, Gray distinguishes between those cultural policies whose rationales may include, for example, nation building but are still primarily cultural policies and those which use culture primarily as a means to achieve objectives in other policy domains (Gray, 2007, p. 204). An exploration of the Creative Nation policy statement reveals that while culture is presented as providing an important component in the development of Australian based new media enterprise, cultural industry development and tourism (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 39-45 pp. 60-63, pp. 74-78) there is a stronger emphasis on: the subsidised arts, film and public broadcasting; and cultural heritage (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 13-33, pp. 50-60). This emphasis is reflected in the funding commitments identified throughout the statement. Funding for the operating costs of cultural agencies and Creative Nation arts and cultural initiatives come to almost $200 million per annum, a substantial part of which would have been ongoing funding. The funds allocated for creative industry development were significant at $21 million per annum, likely to be new money (Appendix 3.1).

This stark contrast in the amounts committed to cultural agencies and initiatives on the one hand and creative industry development on the other needs qualification. The cultural sector had history and precedence on its side as well as the support of a Prime Minister who intervened directly in that sector to address what he perceived as structural weaknesses, as I discuss in the next section. This was familiar territory for him and the Australian Cultural Development Office within the newly established Department of Communications and the Arts.

Less familiar to the Department was the machinery necessary to encourage cultural industry development. Mercer’s response to the Department’s Discussion Paper for Creative Nation (DASET, 1992) signalled the need to develop a national framework and strategy for cultural industry development and move beyond the patronage model of funding (Mercer, 1992, pp. 30-31). These were issues that the Department foreshadowed in its Discussion Paper (DASET, 1992, pp. 15-17).

Structural support for an industry development strategy was included in the policy in the form of $45 million over a four-year period identified to support the Australian Multi-media Enterprise (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 41). On the evidence provided in the policy statement this was envisaged as a private/public capital investment program, operating as a company and accountable to the Minister for Communications and the Arts. Its objective was to finance “the development and commercialisation of [Australian] multi-media products”, which at the time of publication were identified as CD-ROMs, “for a global market” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 42-43). The policy also states that “related enterprise development programs” would operate through AusIndustry, which was then part of the Department of Industry and Innovation (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 42-43). This public/private approach was a manifestation of neo-liberalism and is also evident in the policy’s establishment of the Australian Commercial Television Fund. This was designed to facilitate Australian content on television through financing the development, distribution and marketing of Australian drama, documentary and children’s programs both in Australia and internationally (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 34).

Other evidence of neo-liberalism’s influence occurred elsewhere in the statement. The arguments used to justify a review into peer assesment and the structure of the Australia Council were cost effectiveness and efficiency, the classic tools of managerialism, and in the same breath the Council was instructed to shift its emphasis “away from the supply side” towards increasing the demand for cultural goods and services through audience development strategies (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 8-9), a focus which is also a characteristic of this doctrine (Bennett et al., 1999, p. 241).

Overall, I do not view Creative Nation as entirely an exercise in instrumental policy development. Rather it is a hybrid of instrumentalism and the traditional valuing of culture as a public good. How does the policy interpret the role of the cultural citizen?

The preamble to the policy statement was prepared by Keating’s Advisory Panel (see Chapter Six) and includes a Charter of cultural rights:

that guarantees all Australians: the right to an education that develops individual creativity and appreciation of the creativity of others; the right of access to our intellectual and cultural heritage; the right to new intellectual and artistic works; and the right to community participation in cultural and intellectual life (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 5).

Here the Australian citizen is framed as a creative maker, an informed and engaged consumer and an active participant in Australia’s cultural life: a role consistent with the cultural standards appropriate to the democratic tradition of republicanism. However, this concept of cultural rights is not applied anywhere in the body of the policy, even though the policy states its intent to improve the accessibility of culture to all Australians (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 1).

When read in the context of the overall policy statement and the kinds of initiatives that are identified for financial support, such as touring the Australian Opera and extending Musica Viva’s work in schools (Appendix 3.1), the strategy for achieving access is essentially one favoured by the liberal democratic tradition: audience development. In supporting these tours, the state is willing, in the interests of the public good, to intervene in the market, and in these initiatives the contradictions between neo-liberalism and the arts patronage model are highlighted. With the exception of its support for Community and Aboriginal broadcasting, both featuring members of the community engaged in program production and delivery, Creative Nation defines cultural citizens according to the cultural standard associated with the liberal democratic tradition: as the consumer/citizen-spectator (Zapata-Barrero, 2016, p. 544-545).

Creative Australia (2013): instrumentalism and cultural citizenship Federal Arts Minister Simon Crean understood that politically the arts “have always tended to be seen in a marginal sense”. He knew that he had to win support in Cabinet and for him that meant making culture “relevant to other portfolios...cultural diplomacy, education, the digital economy, employment, the creative economy”. He also needed the “leverage” of new money to assist this process (Crean interview, 6th June 2017, pp. 1-2). Here we can see the influence of New Public Management which was associated with strategies to facilitate cross-portfolio integration and coordination (Halligan, 2011, p. 89). This joined up approach was probably advocated by Crean in this instance principally for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons. Crean’s Senior Advisor on the arts, Helen O’Neill, provides insight into Crean’s reasoning:

He understood from long experience in cabinet government that consistently articulating a rationale and agenda for reform is one of the most important leadership roles in politics...Crean had to make creativity part of the economic and social policy debates (O’Neill, Interview 9 February 2017, p. 5).

O’Neill’s observations on Crean’s determination to improve the marginal status of the arts raises the issue of whether the instrumental frame of Creative Australia was driven by ends and means or a genuine belief in the economic and social impact of the arts. What is clear is Crean’s use of what Gray refers to as an “attachment strategy” (Gray, 2007, p. 206). From the beginning of the policy’s development, and evident in the National Cultural Policy Discussion Paper produced for this policy, Crean’s objective was to “to bring the arts and creative industries into the mainstream of Australian life” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011, p. 4). The Discussion Paper argued for the need to “embed the arts and creative skills in national life” and that this required strengthening “the links between a creative culture and priorities to boost economic productivity, drive innovation and strengthen community cohesion” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011, p. 12). These objectives were reiterated in Crean’s introduction to the policy statement (Australian Government, 2013, p. 3). Three of the five goals of the policy included an instrumental rationale. Policy Goal Three justifies supporting artists on the grounds that they were “telling Australian stories” and the strategies attached to this goal required that these fulfil the function of projecting an “Australian” identity internationally. Policy Goal Four concerned the “strengthening of the capacity of the cultural sector” as a means of improving “community wellbeing and the economy”. Policy Goal five linked creativity to the knowledge and creative industries and, by implication, to economic development (Australian Government, 2013, p. 6).

Significant structural and administrative changes to the Australia Council were proposed, including a strengthening of accountability requirements, which is to be expected under New Public Management (see Chapter Seven).

While the policy acknowledged the rights of citizens to “shape our cultural identity and its expression” it stopped short of explicitly acknowledging the rights of citizens to participate in creative activities. Instead the policy emphasised the way in which the arts can contribute to a “social and economic dividend” (Creative Australia, 2013, pp. 6-7). The policy refers to the new national education curriculum’s inclusion of the arts. Apart from this and the provision of funds to digitise the collections of national collecting institutions, there were no attempts to tackle the economic, geographic and cultural barriers to citizens’ access to subsidised arts activities. This approach is consistent with the cultural standards of the liberal democratic

tradition which “ensures cultural rights without taking into account the means necessary for citizens to put these rights into practice” (Zapata-Barrero, 2016, p, 544). The policy’s notion of cultural citizenship also conforms to the cultural standards within the liberal democratic tradition in that the role of the cultural citizen is consumer/citizen spectator.

National Program for Excellence in the Arts/Catalyst (2015): instrumentalism and cultural citizenship

From his actions it is clear that Coalition Arts Minister Senator George Brandis operated within a neo-liberal ideology and enjoyed the concentration of power in the executive at the expense of the administration promoted by that doctrine. Brandis also appeared enthusiastic about the patronage policy mode for the arts. This is evident in his preference to make arts funding decisions himself.

In May 2015, the Federal Budget included an announcement of a new funding program for the arts under the Arts Minister’s direct control. Brandis had reallocated $110 million from the funds of the Australia Council in order to establish his new program the National Program for Excellence in the Arts (NPEA). The NPEA was later rebranded by the Turnbull Coalition Government as Catalyst and its policy guidelines were developed six months after the NPEA’s announcement. I have drawn on these and Brandis’ statements to assess the political ideology and objectives of the program. Brandis’ hands-on approach in establishing a new grants fund was consistent with the additional policy power enacted by the political executive under managerialism. His decision to approve this expenditure himself was consistent with the powers of Federal arts ministers in relation to grants funds administered by their Department.

Brandis vehemently rejected the instrumentalism of cultural policy. In this sense his beliefs resonate with those of Kant who argued in support of art for its own sake (Kant, 1987, p. 46):

Under this [Labor] Government, the arts are treated as means to an end...cultural policy is subjugated to other areas of public policy... I do not doubt that a thriving cultural sector enhances other socially beneficial activities. But I warn, in the strongest terms, against making cultural policy – and, therefore, the arts sector – mendicant to other public sector priorities. That approach means that arts policy lacks integrity and cohesion, and that the creative work of artists is not valued for its own sake – as something intrinsically good in itself. The Coalition, on the other hand, sees the work of artists and arts professionals as something which is intrinsically worthwhile, one of

the essential elements of a confident and sophisticated society, which is to be judged on its own merits (Brandis, 2013, September 5, p. 2).

Notwithstanding Brandis’ failure to acknowledge the influence that the instrumentalisation of policy has had on all Australian governments, he identified an important feature of public policy’s commodification. As the structurally weaker sector lacking the same degree of political support provided to more powerful sectors, the cultural sector could expect to become subservient “adopting a secondary, contributory, position” when compared to the more powerful sectors to which they were “attached” with “serious implications both for what is produced and how it is produced” by a cultural sector operating under these conditions (Gray, 2007 p. 212).

The Catalyst policy guidelines provided a post hoc rationale for government support for the arts. This rationale supported the intrinsic value of the arts which reflected “society to itself, challenging us and encouraging creativity” (Department for Communications and the Arts, 2015, p. 3). However, the policy guidelines also extended this rationale to include some extrinsic values, namely the arts’ input into innovation, the creative industries and the economy and their ability to attract private sector funding (Department for Communications and the Arts, 2015, p. 3). By the time these guidelines were made public Coalition Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had replaced Brandis as Arts Minister, appointing Senator Mitch Fifield, which may account for this potpourri of intrinsic and extrinsic values.

Brandis’ interpretation of access is reflected in his description of his party’s commitment:

to make the arts accessible to all Australians, be they practitioners or audiences or gallery visitors – including the many millions who are not necessarily among the 'arts establishment', but whose appreciation of the best in our culture is not inferior to that of those who are. It is an agenda that is unashamed of excellence, but is inspired by the frank egalitarian view that there is an arts public and there are great artists in all parts of Australia – in the inner cities, the outer suburbs, the smaller states, the regions – which appreciates and values artistic excellence in equal measure (Brandis, 2013, September 5, p. 4).

Brandis’ focusing is on cultural citizens as consumers. His concept of the Australian arts audiences aligns closely with Rowse’s interpretation of the one common culture envisaged by the founders of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust and the benefit of the subsidised arts, “at the apex” of that common culture, to all Australians (Rowse, 1985, p. 38, p. 51). Brandis

departed from the AETT founders’ views only by his acknowledgement of the existence of “’great artists” spread throughout Australia. His view of arts audiences was qualified:

We also believe that funding decisions should take account of the willingness of the beneficiaries to present art which is accessible to and enjoyed by the broader public (Brandis, 2013, September 5, p. 4).

With this statement Brandis expressed the same hierarchy of audiences as the AETT founders, characterised by Rowse as those with the capacity to appreciate excellence and those without (Rowse, 1985, pp. 62-63).

Brandis interpreted the core policy belief of access in geographic, intellectual, and financial terms arguing for affordability, but did not go so far as to suggest that funding to ameliorate these barriers should be a government obligation. He believed that philanthropy and the market would make the work of performing arts companies accessible to a wider audience (Brandis, 2013, pp. 3-4). This suggests that his perspective on equity was that it should be achieved through the interventions of the market and philanthropy, but perhaps not entirely. The funding decisions for Catalyst, made by his successor Senator Mitch Fifield, were assessed as representing a good geographic spread (Stone, 2016, May 2), so this aspect of access was addressed by the Government. From his statements it is clear that Brandis perceived the cultural citizen predominantly as cultural consumer/spectator. These are the cultural standards of the liberal democratic tradition.

Arts policy mode

In Chapter Two I introduced a classification of the government arts policy modes (facilitator, patron, architect, engineer, and neo-patron) developed by Hillman-Chartrand and Claire McCaughey (1989) and adapted by Craik (2007). I now apply these classifications to the three national cultural policies under consideration in this thesis.

Creative Nation: arts policy mode In its funding for the subsidised arts sector, Creative Nation appears to emphasise the patronage policy mode. This is evident in the long list of funding initiatives directed at the subsidised arts (see Appendix 3.1). However, the policy statement is more complex than this, exhibiting the facilitator, architect, and neo-patronage policy modes and an industry development approach.

This number of arts and cultural initiatives and the quantum of funding allocated to support these revealed Keating’s familiarity and comfort with the patronage policy mode. However this is qualified by the caveat that the Federal Government’s role is also to encourage other levels of government and the private sector to support the arts (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 6-7) and that: “Put simply, we need to move more towards the United States' approach to benefaction” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 9). This is a policy mode which Hillman- Chartrand and McCaughey categorise as the facilitator mode (1989, pp. 48-49). The policy provided new funding to the Australia Council to develop “private sponsorship of the arts” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 12). Also evident were the early stirrings of the neo- patronage mode revealed in the decision to establish a Major Organisations Board of the Australia Council (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 11; for more details see Chapter Six).

The policy also exhibits some of the features of the architect policy mode. This policy establishes the National Academy of Music with the mandate to:

develop highly gifted musicians to international standards and enable them to establish careers from an Australian base. The focus will be fine music, including contemporary and Australian works (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994. p. 19).

This initiative reflected Keating’s own passion for “fine music” and his determination to use the policy to provide “financial support for and refurbishment of the traditional artistic institutions” (O’Brien, 2015, p. 694). Creative Nation also included Keating’s proposal to sever the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from the ABC and establish it as a sovereign entity funded through the Australia Council. He apparently announced this initiative at one of their concerts, remarking that “Australia’s orchestras would be forever trapped in mediocrity while ever they were run by the ABC” (O’Brien, 2015, p. 689). Afterwards all ABC orchestras became independent. Keating did this because he believed that their location within the ABC inhibited their capacity to achieve excellence to an “international standard” (O’ Brien, 2015, p. 694). Hillman- Chartrand and McCaughey (1989) characterise the architect policy mode as requiring active state intervention in production and distribution of cultural product with a revolutionary policy dynamic. I think that describes Keating’s interventions accurately. With the architect mode the emphasis on the creative process is less than that on the product, which is medium to strong. Keating wanted Australian musicians and Australia’s symphony orchestras performing on a world stage and to achieve this he created a new elite training academy and disrupted the orchestras’ relationship with the ABC dating from the establishment of that organisation in 1923.

The policy also establishes some elements of a creative industry focus, including the Australian Multi-media Enterprise (AMME) and a digital media training initiative, the Cooperative Multi-media Development Centres, administered by the Department of Employment, Education and Training (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 41-43). The AMME was envisaged as a company reporting directly to the Minister for Communications and the Arts. Taken together these two initiatives could be characterised as exhibiting the characteristics of the architect policy mode. It is difficult to make a conclusive analysis on this point given that their implementation was cut short in 1996 due to the rejection of this policy by the incoming Coalition Government. Overall, on the evidence provided in the policy statement, the patronage policy mode appears dominant in the policy’s emphasis on detailing the funds for non-commercial cultural initiatives. The foundations for the neo-patronage policy mode for the major performing arts organisations were laid. The institutionalisation of efforts to recruit private support for the arts established the facilitator policy mode. Nascent efforts to establish a creative industries strategy were also evident. My analysis may have been different if these ventures into industry development had been realised.

Creative Australia: arts policy mode Creative Australia also indicates a complex approach to arts policy modes. The policy statement included long lists of funding to specific subsidised arts organisations or initiatives: an approach which reflected the patronage mode. There were significant exceptions to this which indicated a move towards an industry development approach which I discuss on the section on art or culture. Unlike its predecessor, Creative Australia did attempt to spell out how its policy objectives and goals might be achieved, and I have restricted my comments to those areas proposing structural change as they may indicate a shift in the policy mode.

Following the 2011 Mitchell Review of private sector support for the arts, commissioned as part of Creative Australia’s development, reorganisation of the funding arrangements to organisations encouraging philanthropic and private sector support for the arts took place. $11.8 million was provided to establish Creative Partnerships Australia to replace these old arrangements and generate private arts donations. Its mandate included the development of new models of funding including “micro-loans and crowd sourcing” (Commonwealth of Australia 2013, pp. 60-61). These developments signalled a strengthening of the Government’s facilitator policy mode and a toe-in-the water commitment to test industry development models of support for the arts.

An attempt to improve interaction between the different levels of government through a National Arts and Culture Accord was consistent with the architect mode. The implementation

of the national arts education curriculum (Australian Government, 2013, p. 78) also indicated a shift to the architect mode, as did the structural change suggested through a “revamp” of the Australian International Cultural Council - a consultative group to government (Downer, 1998) - so that it could better realise the Government’s plans to strengthen its relationship with Asia through cultural engagement (Australian Government, 2013, pp. 113-14). Another structural change highlighted for community based arts and cultural programs was an audit of Council programs to ensure that the Australia Council “focuses on funding artistic excellence and the Office for the Arts focuses on cultural policy and programs supporting national priorities” (Australian Government, 2013, p. 23). This marked a clear distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic policy objectives and the intention to charge the Australia Council with the responsibility for the former and the Office for the Arts with responsibility for the latter. This and the establishment of the National Cultural Accord were structural changes that signalled a move towards a much more direct role by government in arts policy implementation. This was consistent with the architect mode and not inconsistent with the consolidation of power in the political executive, a feature of neo-liberalism.

National Program for Excellence in the Arts/ Catalyst: arts policy mode The policy guidelines promoted the facilitator mode with a strong emphasis on increasing “partnerships with the private and philanthropic sector” (Department for Communications and the Arts, 2015, p.4). However, it was the Minister for the Arts who approved the grants, so the dominant policy mode was one of patronage. The arm’s length model of decision-making is described by Di Maggio as government’s delegation of authority to “authorative practitioners who possess the expertise required to make distinctions too difficult to be left to lay personnel” (1983, pp. 247-248). Brandis assumed the role as the authorative practitioner and as: “the voice for audiences” (Commonwealth of Australia, 27 May 2015).

How did these diverse policies with their shifting arts policy modes and varying degrees of adherence to neo-liberal and managerialist doctrines deal with the framing of arts and culture?

Art or Culture?

In Chapter Two I introduced some of the literature on the scope of Australian national cultural policy and the arguments for and against locating arts policy within a broader cultural framework. In this section I apply that literature and these criteria to an analysis of the three national cultural policies under consideration to assess the extent to which they fulfil the requirements of a cultural policy.

Creative Nation: art or culture?

There is every indication in the policy statement that the Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel (see Chapter Six), and to lesser extent the statement’s authors, understood the difference between art and culture and were keen to develop a policy that was broader than just the subsidised arts. There were attempts to define culture, firstly by the authors of the statement who emphasised the importance of culture as: “values, sentiments and traditions”; and “the identity of the nation, communities and individuals”; as “self-expression and creativity” and “art and ideas” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p.1).

This was a statement that was broader than just the arts. Keating’s Advisory Panel described culture as: “our entire mode of life, our ethics, our institutions, our manners and our routines” and the arts as “The most highly developed and imaginative aspects of our culture” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, Preamble). This statement helpfully locates the arts within a broader cultural frame. The Advisory Panel had perspectives on this topic that differed from those of the statement’s authors. The former embraced a definition of culture that was not far removed from that developed by Williams, who was cited in the Department’s Discussion Paper for the policy (DASET, 1992, p. 4), and acknowledged that creativity was not the exclusive preserve of artists. The policy statement’s authors were more circumspect in their approach when it came to what would be included in the policy focussing on heritage, self expression and creativity. If Creative Nation’s authors exhibited an Anglo-Celtic bias in their appreciation of Australia’s cultural heritage (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 1-2), they did demonstrate an understanding of the scope of heritage in terms of Australia’s built, moveable, Indigenous and intangible heritage encompassing oral history, folk life, popular culture and “other grass roots expressions of identity” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 50-60).

In the lead up to the policy statement there had been attempts to better integrate the Commonwealth’s role in arts and culture. Before the 1993 election Labor had undertaken to establish an overall coordinating body for arts and culture (Australian Labor Party, 1993, p. 11). In April 1992 DASET produced a Discussion Paper on the role of the Commonwealth in Australia’s cultural development that suggested that the scope of the policy should mirror DASET’s portfolio (DASET, 1992, p. 2). And yet this Paper was critical of separating the subsidised and free market expression of the arts, itemised its intervention in the commercial sector through employment and wages regulation, and flagged the government’s interest in shifting from a funding to an industry development model (DASET, 1992, pp. 25-27). However, in one of this Paper’s many contradictions, it pulled back from the development of a cultural

policy, and the administrative mechanism which might have integrated their approaches to arts industry development and subsidised arts, on the grounds that culture’s scope: “is obviously vast and ceases to be containable within the confines of any government structures” (DASET, 1992, p. 2).

In the Preamble to Creative Nation the Advisory Panel recommended a new Ministry of Culture to include both the Arts and Broadcasting; and called for the recognition of the Cultural Ministry at Cabinet level. Under the second Keating Ministry (March 1993-1996) the bureaucratic arrangements for the arts were housed within the newly established Department for Communications and the Arts but the overall coordinating body did not eventuate and instead, as recorded by Gardener-Garden, “in 1984 moves were made for a closer relationship between” the ABC, SBS, the Film Commission and the Broadcasting Tribunal (1994, p. 18).

In relation to the criteria for cultural policy outlined by Throsby and Mercer, Creative Nation included the creative arts, film, museums, galleries and libraries, and commercial and public television and radio. In also extended Australian content requirements to commercial radio and television (ABC and SBS) and provided support for Community and Aboriginal broadcasting. With respect to the related industries it mentioned only design. Its section on heritage is strong. In terms of links to other policy domains, it cited the Government’s development of an arts curriculum for primary and secondary schools, a new digital media training program delivered through the Department of Employment, Education and Training, and structural links to the Department of Communications and the Arts. I could find no evidence of long term strategic connections with economic or social policy, but perhaps they would have emerged if the policy had been implemented. In relation to cultural industry policy, Creative Nation’s initiatives include the Australian Multi-media Enterprise and the training in digital media referred to above. Industry assistance is provided in the form of the establishment of moral rights for visual artists, extensions to copyright to protect artists working in a digital economy and extensions to Public Lending Rights provisions. Industry assistance is also provided through an extension of AusIndustry’s enterprise development services to include support to cultural organisations.

Creative Australia: art or culture? This policy’s approach to culture also involved manoeuvring around the two concepts of art and culture. There was an essay included in the policy statement, The Australian Story: a vision for Australia’s cultural sector (Australian Government, 2013, pp. 26-43), which was written by Schultz and provided an operational definition of culture as “the embodiment of the distinctive traditions and beliefs that make being Australian...unique”. Schultz also distinguished between the arts and culture: “culture is more than the arts, but the arts play a unique and central role in its development and expression” (Australian Government, 2013, p. 27). The role articulated for government in cultural development was an enabling one: cultural creation was the role of the community (Australian Government, 2013, p. 28). The essay introduced a broader cultural policy framework, through reference to the United Nations’ work in defining cultural domains, in an attempt to:

break down some of the misconceived barriers between contemporary and historical practices, arts and creative industries, professional and amateur, commercial and ‘non- profit’ activities (Australian Government, 2013, p. 30).

What Schultz was attempting here was to provide a vision of what an integrated arts and cultural policy might look like. She asserted that the arts were a manifestation of culture and that cultural creation was not a role for government and, by implication perhaps, that the arts were. She also challenged the hierarchies of distinction that were well established in the subsidised arts sector and in the different administrative arrangements for commercial and not-for-profit cultural enterprises.

In relation to the criteria for cultural policy outlined by Throsby and Mercer, Creative Australia included support for the creative arts (see Appendix 3.1) and for film in the form of the Australian Screen Production Incentive to international producers to make films in Australia. Reference to television and radio were restricted to the NITV, “the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s free-to-air television channel” (Australian Government, 2013, p. 88) and SBS. There was no reference to Australian content provisions, the ABC or commercial radio and television. Design was the only related creative industry mentioned, with the promise, no budget attached, to establish the Centre for Excellence in Public Sector Design (Australian Government, 2013, p. 21). Heritage did not feature apart from some support for national collecting institutions and a commitment to protect the traditional cultural practices of First Nations (Australian Government 2013, p. 32 and p. 20).

The policy ventured into the broader cultural and economic arena by specifying the links between cultural policy and other government policies and strategies including Closing the Gap, culture as a means of developing trade links with Asia, the roll out of the NBN, the development of the digital economy, and tourism (Australian Government, 2013, p. 3). A specific reference was made to the development of an arts component within the national educational curriculum and the policy did introduce a structural mechanism, the Cultural Accord, to guide the implementation of this strategy and improve coordination between levels of government (Australian Government, 2013, p. 47).

Most of the funding initiatives related to the subsidised arts, although some proposals for creative industry development were proposed. These included recognising “the contribution of Australia’s creative industries in the Government’s Digital economy strategy”, $20 million over three years to establish an “Australian Interactive Games Fund”, $10 million over four years to assist the incorporation of digital platforms in the Australian film and television sectors, ongoing support for the Creative Industries Innovation Centre, and $37 million in infrastructure funding to the proposed Academy of Creative Industries and Performing Arts in Tasmania. The Academy was to teach “cutting edge international creative industries practice.” (Australian Government, 2013, p. 21, p. 82, p.93 & p. 23). Capital funding was also provided for a Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and COFA (NSW College of the Arts) (Australian Government p. 71). Smaller initiatives included funds for the Australian Music Radio Airplay Project (AMRAP) to connect musicians with audiences and Sounds Australia funding to “grow export and domestic music markets” for Australian musicians (Australian Government, 2013, p. 82). There was significant investment in arts training with $20.8 million for the elite training institutions (Australian Government, 2013, p. 81).

National Program for Excellence in the Arts/ Catalyst: art or culture? Brandis was committed to: “the pursuit of excellence across all of the artistic genres [as] the central value of cultural policy under a Coalition Government”. He equated excellence with: “the great classical works and artistic movements which have shaped and defined Western civilization” (Brandis, 2013, September 15). The Catalyst guidelines welcomed applications from organisations with “an arts or heritage purpose” (Department for Communications and the Arts, 2015, section 4.1) and the scope of the policy was defined as the arts and culture and the latter could be interpreted to include the “libraries, archives, museums” deemed to be eligible for funding but not “built or natural heritage” that was specifically excluded from funding (Department for Communications and the Arts, 2015, p. 3 & p. 7). An analysis of the list of Catalyst grants recipients released just before the July 2016 Federal Election (Stone, D, 2016,

May 2) revealed a geographically and culturally diverse group that included arts and cultural heritage projects (see Chapter Eight for more detail).

How do the policies embody neoliberalism and instrumentalism?

The answer to this question is not cut and dried. Each policy contains inconsistencies that reflect the circumstances of the time and the predilections of their creators. In Chapters Six to Eight I explore in more detail the influences that Keating, Crean and Brandis each brought to the policies with which they are associated to determine the extent to which they reflect the inputs of the arts advocacy coalitions involved. At this stage I can argue that Creative Nation was influenced in its instrumentalism by neo-liberal ideology and also by the perceived need to reinvigorate and re-orientate Australian cultural institutions and conserve Australia’s civilisation and heritage. Creative Nation also had a role to play in nation-building, social cohesion and fuelling the knowledge economy. In this regard the policy aimed to stimulate the capacity of Australia to maintain its cultural sovereignty by developing expertise and fluency in that economy and made efforts to establish a mode of support that focussed on industry development as well as patronage. The policy valorises Australia’s Anglo-Celtic cultural heritage and, in some instances, adopts the policy mode of the architect in order to create Australian cultural institutions that could produce world standard interpretations of the western European canon.

Creative Australia was an attempt to recast national cultural policy as something that was part of the political and policy mainstream. The strategies adopted included attaching the arts sector to more powerful social and economic policy domains and stimulating the growth of the creative industries. These intentions and attempts at structural reform aimed at improving the coordination of policy between the three levels of government, were not realised due to a change of government. The influence of neo-liberalism is evident in NPEA in the concentration of power in the political executive which allowed an intervention by an Arts Minister with such dramatic impacts on the arts sector (see Chapter Eight).

In relation to the arts policy modes adopted by Australian governments, the patronage policy mode for the arts was evident in each policy. Each policy made a feature of its grants list. However other policy modes were also evident including the facilitator mode in each case and the architect mode in the case of Creative Nation and Creative Australia. The latter contained more information on strategies for implementation than Creative Nation and Catalyst, but still made a feature of the grants list. In relation to each policy’s’ framing of culture and the arts,

from my examination of Creative Nation and Creative Australia, I conclude that while both claim to be cultural policies and each identify structural links with other policy domains, each remains constrained by the patronage policy mode that applies to governments’ treatment of the arts, which still translates as the subsidised arts in practice. Perhaps if their industry development initiatives had had the opportunity to develop this emphasis would have been modified. Creative Nation, and to a lesser extent Catalyst, each expanded the subsidised arts focus to included heritage, which was a venture into the cultural frame.

In relation to the framing of cultural citizenship, each of the policies I have examined conforms to the cultural standards of the liberal democratic tradition as identified by Zapata-Barrero (2016). In this tradition the state assumes responsibility for the administration and planning of culture but relies on market forces to produce and promote culture. While asserting the notion of cultural rights, none of the policies “take into account the means necessary for citizens to put these rights into practice” (Zapata-Barrero, 2016) and this too is consistent with liberal democratic cultural standards. Within this tradition the state endows its cultural citizens with the status of consumer/citizen-spectator (Zapata-Barrero, 2016). It is in this framing and in each policy’s disregard for citizens cultural rights as expressed in Creative Nation ‘s Preamble and in Schultz’s essay in Creative Australia, that the hegemony of neo-liberalism and consumer sovereignty is most evident.

In my next chapter I explore the influence of the policy core beliefs on the arts policy subsystem and their advocacy coalitions in the hope that this might provide more insight into the evolution of the beliefs and the underlying values framing Australian national cultural policies.

Chapter Four: policy beliefs, their origins and interpretations

How did cultural policy beliefs develop in Australia?

What were the origins of the policy core beliefs shaping Australian national cultural policy? Have these beliefs always had the same meaning or have their interpretations responded to the political and social context of the time? This chapter does not present a comprehensive history to answer these questions. Rather it is a series of snapshots selected because they help illuminate the development of four policy core beliefs and preferences in Australian national cultural policy: the core beliefs of excellence in the arts and access to the arts; and the policy preferences of arm’s length funding and peer review.

I describe how these four policy core beliefs and preferences emerged as reflections of the values of state and civil cultural patrons during the nineteenth and twentieth century. I argue that these beliefs did not necessarily follow a linear development and that earlier ideas about these beliefs co-existed with later ones. I argue that the activities and beliefs of civil patrons of the arts gave governments their ideas about the kind of art they wanted to “buy” (O’Faircheallaigh, 1999, p. 274) and what values to attach to their investment. I also propose that the Australia Council has had a dominant role in shaping cultural policy: not because of its leadership in this area, more by virtue of its symbolic significance. It has embodied the policy core beliefs and policy preferences within the national arts policy subsystem.

Rowse’s research on the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust prompted me to consider the role played by other civil organisations also operating as Australian arts patrons from the late 1940s, such as Musica Viva and the regional Arts Councils. These are worthy of investigation, but the scope of this thesis could not accommodate them in a way that would do justice to these subjects. I chose to concentrate my research on the work of the Trust because of its critical influence in shaping many of Australia’s cultural institutions, in articulating the dominant interpretations of the policy core beliefs in access and excellence and for demonstrating what arts patronage at arm’s length from government could achieve. I have also chosen to concentrate on other particular elements of Australia’s civil society: the Australian labour and socialist movements as architects and patrons of the arts throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century .I made this choice because of the role that these movements had in both perpetuating and challenging the dominant interpretations of the policy core beliefs in access and excellence. There are many other sites that also provide a counterpoint to orthodox interpretations of this topic, for example the women’s’ art movement, the struggle by

Indigenous peoples to exert their right to cultural self-determination, and the efforts by culturally diverse communities to have the virtuosity of their artistic genres understood and respected. However, the scope of this thesis cannot accommodate all these cultural narratives.

While my approach is far from comprehensive, it does provide deep insight into some of the different and powerful interests at play and reveal some sites for Australian arts and cultural development in addition to those valorised in more orthodox accounts. I hope to illuminate the assumptions and values underlying these policy core beliefs at different times, the enduring nature of some philosophical arguments surrounding the nature and purpose of art, the engagement of Australian citizens in creative practice and the cultural amnesia which can obscure appreciation of Australia’s cultural history. I supplement these sources with the contemporary views of my interview subjects on the policy core values of access and excellence.

This chapter illustrates the complex relationship between the policy core beliefs of access and excellence, the shifts in the values underpinning these beliefs and the congruence and dissonance between their different interpretations within a developing arts sector. The themes I apply to interpretations of the policy core beliefs in excellence are categorised as: traditional, relating to the dominant western artistic Canon including the creative output of the major performing arts organisations; contemporary, acknowledging a wider body of creative output but still adhering to western cultural traditions; and pluralist: a belief that virtuosity can be interpreted according to different criteria depending on the artistic genre and its cultural tradition. The themes I apply to interpretations of policy core beliefs in access are: distributive, exposing the populace to established works of excellence and broadening audiences for art; educational, providing arts education to the wider population enabling them to critically engage with their own and other cultures’ traditions and contemporary creative practice and to broaden audiences for art; and democratic, a community’s participation in developing its own culture, rather than relying on the consumption of other peoples’ culture.

The values associated with these beliefs are not always in opposition. For instance, traditional and contemporary interpretations of excellence, that privilege certain kinds of cultural production over others, complement the distributive and educational interpretations of access which seek to expose the population to the civilising influences of these privileged activities. A democratic interpretation of access, that requires citizens to have opportunities to develop and express their creativity, challenges this colonisation of less dominant cultures and the value that only professional artists can produce art. The recognition of a plurality of cultures

and the different interpretations of virtuosity within these cultures provide a challenge to the dominant western artistic Canon as the embodiment of excellence.

In Part One of this chapter I provide a narrative and analysis of the evolution of the two policy core beliefs of excellence and access as interpreted by the civil and state structures established for arts patronage. In Part Two I discuss the impact of these policy beliefs on the policy preferences of arm’s length funding and peer review. I will now provide some perspectives on how these interpretations of the policy core value of excellence evolved.

Part One: state and civil patronage of excellence in the arts - values and beliefs

Evolving interpretations of excellence in Australia

Colonial and post-Federation State and civil patronage An early expression of state patronage of the arts in Australia was the development of important cultural institutions many of which were established before Federation. Australia’s first public library, the Sydney Free Public Library, was established in 1869 following the purchase of the Australian Subscription Library established in 1826 by the NSW Government (State Library of NSW website). Australia’s first public museum, the Australian Museum, was established in 1827. The first public gallery was the National Gallery of Victoria established in 1861. The development of these public institutions was prompted by the desire to “earn political credit by association” and curry favour with those with high social capital (O’Faircheallaigh, 1999, p. 275) and also to provide access to the civilising influences of the arts (Bennett, 1994, pp. 29-31). These civilising influences often related to works from the dominant western artistic Canon.

In the early twentieth century, the Federal government established funds and advisory bodies to guide arts development. In 1908 the Commonwealth Literary Fund was established by Prime Minister Alfred Deakin to provide support to penurious writers. From 1939, the Fund was administered by a parliamentary committee chaired by Prime Minister Robert Menzies and members included representatives of the Liberal, Country and Australian Labor parties (Commonwealth Literary Fund, 1967). The Fund was dissolved in 1973, possibly in anticipation of the establishment of the Literature Board of the Australia Council. In 1912, the Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board was established to advise the Federal government on

which artists should paint official portraits. It also advised on which works to buy for the national collection and, from 1960, which works should be exhibited overseas (McCulloch, 1994). The Australian Academy of Art was established in Canberra in 1937 with Robert Menzies (then Attorney-General) as its inaugural chair. Its aims, modelled on those of the British Academy, included organising annual exhibitions and acting as an “expert body” on artistic matters (Academy of Art Formed, 1937). Its efforts to obtain a royal charter were opposed by the Contemporary Art Society and other avant-garde groups (Menzies Collection). These forms of patronage of the arts in Australia were characterised by a response to lobbying without any clear philosophy (Tabrett, 2013, p. 38-39) other than the seductive lure of patronage and the prestige it garnered from society’s elite. These early advisory bodies were vulnerable to political intervention. In 1923 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) was established as a statutory corporation operating at arm’s length from government and became “the first substantial Commonwealth commitment to cultural subsidy” (Rowse, 1985, p. 6). It became a cultural entrepreneur as well as a broadcaster and established capital city orchestras (Rowse, 1985, p. 6).

In his memoir H. C. (Nugget) Coombs, Australian economist, public servant and arts entrepreneur, states that lobbying governments for a national theatre and subsidies for existing theatre groups began in 1944 (Coombs, 1981, p. 218). Coombs recalls how Australian tours by the Old Vic Drama Company in 1948, sponsored by the British Council, strengthened these demands (Coombs, 1981, p. 220). However, Labor Prime Minister Chifley rejected the recommendation of the Committee on Post-War Education that same year to establish a national theatre and instead hired a visiting English theatre director to advise on this matter (Milne, 2004, p. 80, Coombs, 1981, p. 220). The director, Tyrone Guthrie, produced a report in 1949 that failed to uncover “widespread public demand for a National Theatre” (Coombs, 1981 p. 221) and recommended that English theatre companies continue to tour in order to develop audiences for theatre (his import plan) and that Australian actors be sent to England to hone their craft (his export plan). He also concluded that there was “no prospect of private enterprise providing high-quality theatre” (Coombs, 1981, p. 221). The distinction between the subsidised theatre of excellence and commercial theatre was clear: a distinction that was to influence later Australian cultural policies discussed throughout the thesis.

After the 1949 Federal election, this report was not acted upon by the new (Coalition) government led by Robert Menzies. However, Coombs, then Governor of the Commonwealth Bank, had been at work establishing the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust (AETT), a private company funded through public appeal, and had secured Menzies’ agreement to seek approval from Queen Elizabeth 11 “for the Trust to constitute a continuing memorial to her

visit to Australia” (Milne, 2004, p. 10). This could be interpreted as a shrewd manoeuvre on behalf of Coombs: appealing to Menzies’ reverence for British royalty and perhaps also a strategy to distance the Trust from its association with the Chifley Labor Government.

Coombs secured the Federal Treasurer’s approval for all donations to the Trust to be tax deductable (Milne, ibid, pp.10-11) and assembled a very influential board including Sir Charles Moses, General Manager of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, John Douglas Pringle, Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, Sir Ian Potter, “a leading Melbourne financier” and Sir Arthur Tennyson Smithers, Director of Finance for Victoria (Coombs, 1981, pp. 234-237). The Board commenced lobbying the Federal government to commit to a long term subsidy for the Trust (Milne, p. 100), and Menzies agreed to provide one pound for every three they raised, although he balked at committing to a long term subsidy, preferring a “political halfway house” in order to avoid establishing a government agency (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 8). Coombs explains that, for a conservative government, providing funding for the arts was viewed as “part of galloping socialist planning” (Coombs, 1981, p. 122).

The Trust was notable for the effective policy entrepreneurialism of its chair, Coombs, who remained a powerful figure in the arts for some time. The Trust was also notable for the establishment of professional Australian arts companies, including the Australian Opera, the Elizabethan Orchestra, the Elizabethan Trust Players and state-based theatre companies, the Australian Ballet and the National Institute for Dramatic Art. By “1968 the AETT was distributing over $1.5 million – $1 million from the Commonwealth and $550,000 from the states” (Live Performance Australia (LPA). Hall of Fame, Coombs). It also became “the primary source of advice” to all levels of government “on policies in the theatrical arts” (Coombs, 1981, p, 241).

Arts policy advocate and advisor and former Executive Director of the Confederation of Australian Professional Performing Arts (CAPPA), Justin Macdonnell, describes how the Trust thrived for fifteen years, equipped with a “unique reference in the Income Tax Assesment Act providing for tax deductibility of donations made to it.” (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 8). The AETT:

Dominated the performing arts in Australia as the conduit for Federal, State and municipal assistance and of private patronage. It was a grant giver to other organisations, a growing if not invariably admired source of theatrical, musical and dance expertise, an umbrella organisation for suffragan performing companies and a major entrepreneur in its own right...Little of significance in the not-for-profit sector occurred without its intervention, participation or blessing (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 8).

Men of influence drawn from public service, banking, the law and the media were shaping national arts policy. Rowse describes them as:

“a governing elite of non-commercial culture…They never doubted their responsibility or capacity for cultural leadership, and they had a clear and confident view that their constituency was the nation as a whole” (Rowse, 1985, p. 11).

These were men equipped with economic, social, and cultural capital. Rowse asserts they were acting in the interests of all Australian citizens (Rowse, 1985, p. 38). I acknowledge their altruism and suggest that their interests can also be characterised as a form of cultural imperialism, given that large sections of the Australian population were developing their own forms of cultural and artistic expression at the time as I discuss below. These men acknowledged only the traditional standard of excellence, which was their own.

State patronage from the 1960s Australian scholar in arts administration and cultural policy, Jennifer Radbourne, proposes that it was the “conflict of interest of the Trust’s entrepreneurial funding merged with its grant funding of smaller organisations” that led to the establishment of the Australian Council for the Arts in 1968 (Radbourne, 1993, p. 46).

With the establishment of the Australia Council in 1973 many of those associated with the organisations established by the Trust were appointed to the Council’s Boards. This was hardly surprising given that the Council’s commitment to excellence was specified in its statute, that the organisations supported by the Trust were deemed to embody excellence, and that people associated with the Trust could therefore be relied upon to continue to realise its vision (Rowse, 1985, p. 13 and p. 32). The Government ensured this continuity of values by appointing Coombs as chair of the Australian Council for the Arts (ACFTA) from 1968-1974 after which he was then appointed as the chair of the Australia Council, a position he held for a year. Shortly after the ACFTA was created the Trust established several national theatre companies:

leaving some companies to go to the wall...excellence justified a concentration of funding [and provided] showcases of what the nation could aspire to in culture (Rowse, 1985, p. 31).

This view is shared by Live Performance Australia: “The Trust...policies tended to marginalise smaller companies and contributed to the weakening of the commercial theatre sector” (LPA

website 2). The message was clear: national arts companies are more excellent than local and non-commercial is better than commercial.

Rowse refers to the Trust as: “the non-statutory prototype” of the Australia Council and the “architects of the emerging system of patronage” (Rowse, 1985, pp. 9-11): the Trust had shown governments what arts patronage could achieve. This blueprint had an enduring influence on all Federal governments which have used patronage as both the command and the default policy mode (see Chapter Three).

With the emergence of the ACFTA the significance of the Trust diminished. However, the hegemony of their values was maintained by those associated with the Trust who populated the new government agency (see Part Two of this chapter).

The cultural revolutions of the 1960s and 70s During the 1960s and 70s, arts practice in Australia was responding to the “strain between the formalist traditions of art-making and the need to be relevant to the times” (Kenyon, 1995, p. 9), fostering experimentation with new artistic genres and new ways of working creatively, often as a form of resistance to the individualism and commodification of art. Parts of the Australian community theatre movement, driven by their view of the necessity of art for social change, involved communities: “in the making of cultural work (whose subjects would be themselves, their histories and their daily lives)” (Milne, 2004, p. 218). In 1979 Sidetrack Theatre Company “one of the first professional companies to perform material about its communities in their own languages” (Milne, 2004, p. 229) was formed by theatre director Don Mamouney and writer Graham Pitts. Australian theatre scholars Milne (2004), Harper (1984) and Watts (1991) all discuss how a growing group of theatre companies were rejecting the traditional notion of excellence as reliant on works from the canon in favour of cultural pluralism and cultural democracy and I give an overview of the evolution of these concepts in the next few paragraphs.

From the mid twentieth century the New Left emerged along with its “distinctive social movements” (Denning, 2004, pp. 3-5) which were mobilising in what American cultural historian and theorist Michael Denning describes as “the First, Second and Third worlds” (Denning, 2004, p. 45). Responses to fluctuations in attitudes towards socialism and communism internationally highlighted the role of culture in shaping hegemony. Denning asserts that these liberation movements: “fought the state” in contrast to “earlier social movements [where] the aim was the seizure of state power” (Denning, 2004, p. 43). In Sydney, the Tin Sheds Art Workshop provides an example in microcosm of the impact that the social

and political upheavals of the 1960s, 70s and 80s had on avant-garde, experimental, politically and socially engaged arts practice in Australia. Therese Kenyon, Australian artist and curator, in her chronicle of the Tin Sheds, offers a detailed account of the operation of a complex and eclectic set of artistic responses to these upheavals generated by what she describes as an experimental arts space set up in the disused galvanised iron CSIRO huts in the grounds of The University of Sydney in late 1968 (Kenyon, 1995, pp. 9-11). As Kenyon puts it:

the ideas of collectivisation, networking, access and participation, embodied in women’s art, post-object art, performance and community arts were reinforced and took hold at the Tin Sheds (Kenyon, 1995, p. 73).

Some Australian artists found their inspiration to make socially relevant art overseas and it was the “Wall of Respect” created by African Americans on Chicago’s South Side in 1967 that inspired Australian artist Geoff Hogg with the “absolute necessity of public communication” (Hogg, 2011, p. 45). He watched this artwork evolve and observed the strong understanding of community exhibited by the artists and that community’s ability to manifest, in the creation of the artwork, their cultural and political self-determination (Hogg, 2011, p. 45). Hogg described the creative and political frameworks within which some of the artworks during these decades were created: amateurs working alongside professionals creating work expressive of their values and how they framed their culture. Australian artist, journalist and policy advisor Chips Mackinolty produced many of the political posters with which the Tin Sheds is associated (Kenyon 1995, Frontispiece, p. 55 and p. 142; and Merewether & Stephen, 1977, pp. 131-139). He described an approach to art that included people beyond the art world. This philosophy:

embraces notions other than those held in traditional art circles: those of accessibility, eclecticism, and a diminishing of the normal educational and organisational hierarchies of teacher/student, expert/client and so on (Mackinolty, 1977, p. 132).

Milne, Kenyon, Hogg and Mackinolty are making explicit the implications of the values espoused by those artists striving to make socially and politically relevant art during these decades: their desire to challenge institutional hierarchies, to question the privileging of professional over amateur creative production and to demystify the art-making process. These values became known by the terms cultural pluralism and cultural democracy. The New Left with its rejection of the colonisation of nations and of cultures, and the extension of structuralism to include not only class but culture, ethnicity, and gender, contributed to these changing values which became reflected in cultural policy.

State patronage, policy, and cultural pluralism The establishment of the Community Arts Committee of the Australia Council in the early 1970s, its emergence as a Council Board in 1978 and the development by that Board of what became the Council’s Arts for a Multicultural Australia program were some of these important policy developments (Australia Council, 1993). The shift in terminology used for this program over twenty years from ethnic arts, multicultural arts to multicultural Australia is significant. The:

notion of a ‘multicultural Australia’ positions diverse forms of cultural expression as pertaining to ‘all Australians’”. [This shift] “might be read as a response to the definitional dilemmas associated with the welfarist, ethnospecific discourse of multiculturalism (Khan, Wyatt & Yue, 2015, p. 229).

These authors note that these “welfarist and ethnospecific” associations had been critiqued by scholars. Some of these were Board members of the Australia Council at the time, for example Mary Kalantzis and Sneja Gunew, who, with my colleague Mary Dimech, developed this new policy paradigm.

Communities began to be defined according to shared cultures and identities and not only shared territory. Cultural activity became a “tool for activism” (Hawkins, 1993, p. 20) and a means of resisting cultural colonisation and exercising cultural self-determination or cultural democracy as it became known. The association of the Canon with excellence was challenged in favour of cultural pluralism which acknowledged the standards for virtuosity in cultural expression from a wide range of cultural traditions.

The Australia Council’s Aboriginal Arts Board presented a different cultural frame, but one still related to the New Left challenge. During the 1970s the peoples of Australia’s oldest living culture were asserting their status as the original inhabitants and land owners (National Museum of Australia, Defining Moments) and their interpretation of their creativity as part of “a living culture of lifecycle and land and that inherent connection to country” (Interview Innes, 27th October 2017, p. 4). Following the election of a Labor Government in 1972, the Australia Council for the Arts convened a national summit of Indigenous peoples which led to the establishment of the Council’s Aboriginal Arts Board (National Indigenous Art and Cultural Authority website 1). This had important implications for Australian cultural policy. As Mercer put it:

the European aesthetic framework for culture and cultural forms is not one which can respond, for both historical reasons and because of its systems of classification and distinction, to the realities of a cultural diversity in a country with both indigenous and migrant populations (Mercer, 1992, p. 35).

Mercer proposed that Indigenous peoples’ interpretation of culture did not recognise many of the values underpinning the policy belief of excellence: professionalism, originality, and the hierarchies of distinction privileging the Canon. He also noted the cultural pluralism inherent in a predominantly immigrant population.

In the next section I have traced the evolution of state and civil cultural patronage and how changing social and political circumstances were reflected in different interpretations of excellence and the values inherent in it. Excellence, like art, is not neutral, but shaped by deeply held values and the role that culture plays in creating new hegemony and as “the ideal weapon in strategies of distinction” (Bourdieu, 1994, p. 66).

How persuasive are these interpretations today? In the next section I explore contemporary interpretations by my interview subjects of this policy belief in excellence to see how the pluralist interpretation, with its emphasis on a diversity of cultural traditions, has weathered the last fifty years. Does western European art still influence interpretations of excellence? If so, what values underpin this interpretation?

Contemporary interpretations of excellence My interview subjects’ interpretations of excellence revealed the values attached to this policy belief. Figure 3 provides a graphic representation of the distribution of the 29 responses I received according to the concepts I have adopted. Twenty-one of the 29 respondents’ answers could be categorised as exclusively one of these three categories: traditional, contemporary and pluralist beliefs. Two respondents gave answers substantial parts of which can be categorised in each of the three categories. Four respondents gave answers which can be categorised as both traditional and contemporary. Different parts of one respondent’s answer were consistent with the contemporary and pluralist categories and another respondent’s answer was consistent with the traditional and pluralist categories.

Figure 3: Contemporary interpretations of the excellence policy belief

15%

49% Traditional

Contemporary 36% Pluralist

• Traditional: classical western European canon, creative output of the major performing arts organisations. • Contemporary: acknowledging a wider body of creative output but still adhering to western cultural traditions. • Pluralist: a belief that virtuosity can be interpreted according to different criteria depending on the artistic genre and its cultural tradition.

This graphic representation suggests that most of the 29 respondents to the question on the meaning of excellence have a pluralist interpretation of the term with another large group supporting an interpretation that supports the inclusion of contemporary works outside the Canon.

These interviews were held during 2017. In March that year the balance of funds diverted by Brandis were returned to the Australia Council. In this context, for many respondents, the meaning attached to the policy core value of excellence by Brandis’ National Program for Excellence in the Arts and his own coupling of the value of excellence with major performing arts organisations was still salient. The elite artistic position attributed to these organisations and their ensuing right to an elite policy and funding status was the issue here. This may have made interview subjects reluctant to make definitive statements about this policy core belief. However, it did not prevent them from stating the importance of excellence in cultural policy and its use as funding criteria.

Henry Boston, the Executive Director of Chamber of Arts and Culture in Western Australia, objected to the assumption that some forms of arts were intrinsically elitist, arguing that it was the context in which this work was presented that created a socially and economically elitist ambience (Interview, 26th October 2017, pp. 25-26). Many referred to the subjectivity of the judgement of excellence and some spoke of the benefits of peer assesment where a diverse

group could, through discussion, bring many different interpretations of excellence to the table. The politicisation of this policy core belief was not confined to its association with the Brandis intervention. It was also seen by some as a political imperative to use this term with politicians on the grounds that they expected the subsidised arts to be excellent, and not to use this term might lead them to think that subsidised works were mediocre.

Traditional and contemporary interpretations of excellence were revealed in the values proposed by some respondents: professionalism; originality; rarity; distinctiveness; relevance; the timelessness of the work, something that does not rely on its historic context to be judged excellent; and the complexity required to generate a transcendent experience. Respondents with these interpretations of excellence also referred to how works of excellence contributed to the traditional and contemporary canon of great works and to Australia’s cultural heritage. Contemporary interpretations were referred to as an extension of the traditional canon into more recent creative works, but still referenced western European artistic genres. Pluralist interpretations included: the tendency to value both professional and amateur artists; the significance of particular forms of cultural expression for the cultures and communities that generated them; and the importance of relating standards of excellence to the intent of the artists creating and/or interpreting the work and the cultural tradition within which the work was located.

The binary opposition between the policy core values of excellence and access were mentioned by some interview subjects. Some regarded the two values as antipathetic and as competing for funding and recognition. Others objected to this approach and its inference that access threatened the integrity of excellence.

These interpretations by my interview subjects illustrate the subjectivity and, at times, partiality of the divergent views apparent within and amongst the arts advocacy coalitions. The construction of meaning relating to the core policy beliefs of arts policy is highly politicised and strongly contested as the dominant interpretations of these beliefs determine who will benefit and who will miss out on state support. In the next section I trace the changes in the interpretations of the policy belief in access and its contemporary interpretations expressed by my interview subjects.

Evolving interpretations of access in Australia

Cultural deprivation, cultural distribution, and education During the nineteenth century State patronage of the arts in Australia was through the development of cultural institutions and it was through these institutions that state sanctioned art and culture was distributed. Bennett interprets these developments as an example of the ‘utilitarianisation’ of culture (Bennett, 1994, p. 37). By this he is referring to the influence that English utilitarianism and “the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century culture of sensibility” had on the development of cultural institutions – libraries, museums and art galleries - as a tool in realising Malthus’ specifications for a new life for the poor (sobriety, restraint, industry) in the nineteenth century in both England and Australia (Bennett, 1994, pp. 29-31). The state’s motive was to civilise the populous by providing them with access to the refining influences of state sanctioned art and culture, and in so doing, relieve their cultural deprivation. The emphasis here was on distributive and educational interpretations of access.

During this era, the labour movement also adopted a distributive notion of access to the arts. The dominant metaphor for the mid nineteenth phase of the culture of the labour movement is the Eight Hour Day which was first won in 1856 in Melbourne and Sydney by stonemasons and other building tradesmen (Reeves, 1984, p. 1). The eight hour day spawned an extraordinary outpouring of creative and celebratory activities (Kirby, 1991, p. 20) as if to underscore that what had been won was not only eight hours labour, but eight hours recreation and clearly draws the parameters for the labour movement’s struggle for an overall improvement in the lives of working people, not only an improvement in working conditions. Supporters of the labour movement within the middle and upper classes viewed the education of the working class and their engagement in cultural pursuits as critical to the cultivation of moral beings capable of self-governance (Kant, 1913, p. 49) as well as creating educated labour.

Socialism and the cultural frame By the 1880s, as well as the earlier guilds formed by skilled workers, larger industrial based unions had become established and provided: “the impetus to organise and consciously engage ordinary people in the cultural life of this country” (Burn & Kirby, 1985, p. 61). This desire came from within the working classes as the means to engender the “socialist values that were seen as necessary to the acquisition of power” (Burn & Kirby, 1985, p. 61). The union movement’s establishment of numerous lending libraries from the 1870s onwards

(Kirby, 1992, p. 8) can be interpreted as access in educational terms: enabling citizens to critically engage with both the dominant and emerging (socialist) cultural traditions.

Perhaps what was also happening with this socialist sponsored cultural exposure was what the American scholar of modern European history Lynn Hunt describes as a challenge to the “cultural frame” required by political authority. Hunt argues that the French Revolution displaced the feudal authority of the King and “decentred the frame of traditional authority” and the new frame became “the Nation as counterpoise to monarchy”, illustrating that: “for the first time...politics was shaped by culture...the members of society could invent culture and politics for themselves” (Hunt, 1984, pp. 88-89).

It is plausible to interpret the cultural work of the Australian labour and socialist movements from the 1880s as an attempt to invent a new ‘cultural frame’ for the new society they were trying to create; one based on the socialist ideals of “equality, cooperation, democracy and shared prosperity” (Brians, 2016). This was evident in the development of the Workers’ Arts Clubs in the early 1930s (Burn & Kirby, 1985. p. 7) that offered “political, educational, cultural and social activities...through classes, lectures, film nights and the production of plays” (Kirby, 1991, p. 25). They provided opportunities for the working class to express its own creativity, learn creative skills and to engage critically with arts and culture, some of it no doubt politically inspired. These were examples of educational and democratic forms of access. These Clubs spawned the Writers’ League, members of which founded the New Theatre and its offshoot the Waterside Workers’ Federation Film Unit (Kirby, 1991, p. 25).

The New Theatre movement with its unabashed links with the Communist Party of Australia became established in Sydney in 1934 and in other capital cities shortly afterwards (Harper, 1983, p. 58). These theatres had an amateur status and relied on trade union members and the broader community of the left for both their theatre workers and their audiences. As Australian theatre educator and author Ken Harper observes: “The New Theatre was one of the voices that articulated this sense of community” (Harper, 1983, p. 70). The New Theatre also challenged the privileging of the Canon, although it was their difficulty in securing the rights to popular overseas plays that may have strengthened their commitment to the work of Australian writers (Harper, 1983, p. 61).Harper credits the New Theatre with pioneering the ensemble approach to theatre development: a way of working which became the staple modus operandi of more contemporary ensembles such as Melbourne’s Australian Performing Group formed in 1969 and Sydney’s Nimrod Street Theatre Company in the early 1970s (Milne, pp. 128-130). This was a deliberate gesture, challenging the notion of the individual artist/genius

as a solo creator of works of excellence. These practices also reference a democratic interpretation of access.

Socialism, cultural democracy, and cultural policy These practices were operating from a belief system quite different from that of the political and social elites who believed Kant’s declarations that art was the product of “genius...given to a man at his birth” (Kant, 1987, pp. 168-9). The Australian labour and socialist movements were, at times, challenging this notion of the artist and asserting the creative potential of every human being. The Encouragement of Art Movement (EAM) was established to support workers to make and exhibit the results of their own practice as artists and craftspeople in anticipation that “a solid foundation [would be] laid for a vigorous and popular Australian culture” (Burn & Kirby, 1985, p. 73). Its aims included the generation of government funding for the arts and efforts to ensure that cultural institutions like libraries and art galleries were accessible to all (Burn & Kirby, 1985, p. 74). Within this milieu trade union and socialist organisations were pursuing opportunities for the working class to express their own creativity: a democratic interpretation of the policy core belief of access. It is a sad irony then that the EAM evolved into the Arts Council following its merger with the Country Arts Movement in late 1945 (Burn & Kirby, 1981, p. 77). This involved a fundamental change of direction from an organisation seeking to create a popular Australian culture in which its citizens were recognised as creators to an organisation modelled on the British Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) which organised arts tours throughout England (Smith, 2016) for citizen consumers/spectators. Cultural democracy was put aside in favour of the distribution of culture.

The ACTU established the Trade Union Council for the Arts in the mid-1970s’, following discussions between Coombs, then Chair of the Australian Council for the Arts, and Bob Hawke, President of the ACTU (1969-1980) (Kirby, 1992, p. 13).The first activity of the Trade Union Council for the Arts was a Union Festival supported by funding from the Australia Council. From 1975 onwards arts officer positions were created in state trades and labour councils and in Newcastle and the ACTU, all supported by the Australia Council’s Community Arts Committee, later the Community Arts Board (Australia Council, 1980).

The Australia Council’s Art and Working Life program was established in 1981 and was influenced by ideas generated by the New Left for whom culture included “the reshaping of the everyday lives and struggles of subaltern classes and peoples” (Denning, 2004, pp. 3-5). The Art and Working Life program also represented a shift in the construction of the policy core belief in access to the arts from the notion of citizen as consumer/observer to the idea of

citizen as cultural creator: a reversion back to the efforts by the labour and socialist movements during the early twentieth century to establish opportunities for creative expression for all Australian citizens: cultural democracy. In 1980 the ACTU adopted their Creative Recreation Policy which framed access to the arts “as a means of personal expression” and as “the right of all people and not the prerogative of a privileged elite in our society” (ACTU, 1980, p. 1).

In this section I have demonstrated how all three interpretations of access, distributive, educational and democratic were employed by the state and by the labour and socialist movements of the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Which of these interpretations have currency today? I explore the answer to this question in the next section.

Contemporary interpretations of access Figure 4 shows my interview subjects’ interpretation of the policy belief in access framed in the concepts I have adopted.

Figure 4: Contemporary interpretations of the access policy belief

22%

51%

27%

Distributive Educational Democratic

• Distributive: exposing the populace to established works of excellence and broadening audiences for art. • Educational: providing arts education to the wider population enabling them to critically engage with their own and other cultures’ traditions and contemporary creative practice and to broaden audiences for art. • Democratic: a community’s participation in developing its own culture, rather than relying on the consumption of other peoples’ culture.

Only 24 of the 36 respondents’ answers could be categorised as fitting exclusively into a single category. Substantial parts of three answers can be categorised in each of the three categories. Four answers can be categorised as both educational and democratic. Three answers can be categorised in both the distributive and educational categories. Two answers can be categorised as both distributive and democratic.

Just over half of interview subjects’ responses interpreted access in democratic terms. A minority but still significant proportion of responses interpreted access to mean broadening audiences for art, but if taken together with the interpretation of access as arts education then the gap between these interpretations and the democratic imperative was minimal.

My analysis of the interpretations of my interview subjects of the policy core belief in access revealed a commitment to the equitable distribution of opportunities to experience other people’s art. There were also assertions of the principal of rights. Australian citizens were viewed as having the right to gain access to creative experiences. That the arts were for everybody was emphasised. Pluralist interpretations of access were strong and expressed recognition and support for cultural diversity and the need to move beyond tokenism in this regard. Many interview subjects expressed concern at the lack of proactive engagement by governments in overcoming the geographical, financial, educational and cultural barriers to access to the arts. Exposure early in life to education in the arts was also recommended.

Respondents who focussed on the distributive interpretation of access and on the barriers inhibiting the opportunity to experience other people’s art, rated geographical barriers highly and this raised the spectre of the uneven distribution of arts funding into rural and regional areas. In these instances, access became interpreted as ensuring the equitable geographic distribution of cultural product. Physical and financial barriers to experiencing other people’s art were also discussed. Seven interview subjects considered intellectual barriers to access. The lack of resources available to overcome these barriers were highlighted.

Two interview subjects with experience of the performing arts raised the issue of the costs involved in developing and presenting work, and the impact that these costs had on affordability for the companies and for its audiences. Playing to increasingly homogeneous audiences, due to the rising costs of tickets, was also identified. Bennett and his colleagues argue that neo- liberalism’s focus on market forces has led to “the increased emphasis on audience development’’ and thus on increased participation of existing audiences rather than attempts to attract new ones (Bennett et alia, 1999, p. 241). The high costs of arts education, in this instance learning to play a musical instrument, was compared to the relatively low costs associated with children gaining access to training in sport.

There were several references to the rights of Australian citizens to have access to cultural experiences and artefacts and anger at the failure of the Australia Council in particular and government agencies in general to be proactive in this area. This sentiment was driven by the large numbers of Australian citizens who were perceived as being excluded from access to

the arts due to where they live, the costs involved, and their lack of education in how to engage critically with subsidised cultural experiences. Interview subjects emphasised the importance of arts education beginning early on in life and the shortage of adequately trained teachers in this area. Bennett and his colleagues note, in relation to cultural institutions such as museums, how:

intellectual and cultural access to them depends on cultural skills which are selectively distributed via the education system and are therefore socially rare...the state becomes involved in underwriting class-specific practices of distinction (Bennett et alia, 1999, p. 241; p. 230).

Interview subjects also discussed the education programs employed by some arts organisations and museums that focus on the needs of particular groups, for example children, and designed programs to improve intellectual access to the work on exhibition. Four interview subjects noted the need for arts organisations to be proactive in reaching out to communities and the need to develop a plan for engaging with them. One option suggested was that state- based performing arts companies could schedule performances where people lived, in the suburbs. The example was given of a state opera company engaging with local choirs and recruiting them as members of the chorus in the towns on their regional touring circuit. Concern was expressed at the demands put on arts organisations to engage with communities and the failure of government to resource this.

The Australia Council was perceived as passive and preoccupied with the needs of creative producers rather than the cultural rights of Australian citizens. This passivity was attributed to its focus on grants distribution at the expense of proactive strategies to come to grips with the inequality of citizens’ access to the arts and the weakness of national arts policy in this regard. Apart from the traditional approaches to ensuring access to the arts through touring, support for Regional Arts Australia, which lost its funding in 2016 (see Chapter 5), and the introduction of arts education into the national education curriculum, there have been few attempts to intervene structurally to improve distributive, educational and democratic access to culture in Australia.

Some of those interview subjects adopting the democratic interpretation of access identified the deep cultural and social determinants of access. Examples were given of the transformations needed within governments and cultural institutions in order to allow the creation and reclamation of cultural places and spaces for First Nation performers and audiences, children and young people. There were objections to the inference that creative

skills within communities outside the central business districts of capital cities did not exist. Distributive interpretations of access were critiqued as a form of colonisation of less dominant cultures. The significance of Australia’s culturally diverse population was mentioned and how access should reflect this country’s community and national identity. The need to acknowledge and support the creativity of all Australians and their right to express that creativity was also emphasised.

As with excellence, the issue of interpreting access and excellence as operating in binary opposition was raised, with some arguing that they were at odds with each other and that access compromised excellence and others rebutting this argument.

In the next section I discuss how the policy beliefs in excellence and access and the policy preferences for arm’s length funding and peer review shaped the development of the primary Australian federal arts administrative body, the Australia Council.

Part Two: embodying policy values

Understanding the policy beliefs that shaped the development of the Australia Council is important to my argument concerning the symbolic significance of the Council as the preferred policy venue for many of Australia’s arts advocacy coalitions. In this section I describe how the two policy core preferences for arm’s length funding and peer review evolved. I explore how these policy preferences were strategies adopted to achieve the exercise of taste in relation to decisions about which individuals and organisations benefit from arts funding. They are predicated on removing decisions about arts funding from the political arena and enshrining those decisions in an aesthetic framework where taste is exercised by the only people this core policy core preference deems able to do so: an artist’s peers. These were the two governance policy principles upon which the Australia Council was established.

Background to the Australia Council’s development The Elizabethan Theatre Trust (AETT) demonstrated to government what arts patronage could produce, laying down the values for that patronage as excellence, a national focus on non-commercial activity, and an arm’s length relationship with government. In many ways, the Council was made in the Trust’s image. However, several Prime Ministers were involved to a greater or lesser extent in the Council’s evolution which did not always turn out as Coombs, the Trust’s founder and Chair of the interim body the Australian Council for the Arts and later the Australia Council, intended.

In 1966 the AETT Board decided to relinquish its role as “government advisor and financial agent” and seek support from the Government for: “a new statutory agency to take over responsibilities most closely identified with the Government itself” (Coombs, 1981, p. 241). Coombs recommended that the agency deal with the performing arts only (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 13, Coombs, 1981, p. 244) due to his belief in the need for a diversity of sources of support for the arts and his concern at attempts to centralise that support and policy expertise. He feared that centralisation would create hostility amongst the bodies providing advice on the arts to government (Coombs, 1981, p. 244). However, in this ambition he was thwarted. Harold Holt was Australia’s Prime Minister between 1996-1997. Holt’s father was a theatrical entrepreneur and, as Coombs observed, Holt brought an awareness of these cultural traditions to his role as Prime Minister (Coombs, 1981, p. 242). In his Ministerial Statement to the House of Representatives on 1st November 1967, Holt announced the decision:

To establish an Australian Council for the arts to be its financial agent and advisor on the performing arts and other activities connected with the arts in general....it should not be assumed that the concept of an all-embracing Council has been rejected. Such a Council could eventually be enlarged to perform that function (Macdonnell, 1922, p. 13).

The Australian Council for the Arts (ACFTA) was the interim body established before the Australia Council, initially as “an appendage to the PM’s Department” (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 7). According to Coombs, Holt’s successor, Prime Minister John Gorton (1968-1971), had no interest in developing the legislation for the Australia Council (Coombs, 1991, p. 245). Whitlam (1972-1975) did not achieve much progress on that either, the final statute did not commence until the thirteenth of March 1975 (Australia Council Act 1975 b). In the House of Representatives Debates on the twenty-fourth of May 1973, Whitlam did table the ACFTA’s interim report and promised that the legislation “would uphold and promote the rights of artists to untrammelled freedom in the practice of their arts” (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 93). It is not unreasonable to suppose that Whitlam’s commitment to this principle arose not only from his liberal democratic beliefs but from his observation of cultural patronage as exercised by conservative governments during the 1940s and 50s. In his 1972 election speech, Whitlam had outlined the skeleton of this new entity:

The existing Commonwealth agencies should be brought within a single Council set up by statute. The Council will be based on a number of autonomous boards with the authority to deal with their own budget allocation and staff...These boards would have substantial independence and authority to make decisions. Indeed, in their own field of

responsibility they would be the major source of initiative in policy and communication with those involved in the Arts concerned. (Whitlam, November 13, 1972, p. 28).

Coombs confirms that Whitlam’s speech incorporated the key elements proposed for the Council’s statute (Coombs, 1991, p. 252), including the need for an autonomous organisation. Also interesting is Whitlam’s emphasis on the autonomy of the Council boards and their role as a conduit between the arts sector and policy development by the Boards. The themes of an arm’s length relationship from government and arts sector involvement in the new organisations were emerging.

Australia’s practice for establishing statutory authorities began in the late nineteenth century as a means of freeing public administration from political interference (Halligan & Power, 1992, pp. 26-27). John Maynard Keynes’ support for civil institutions was based on their potential to mediate the impacts of industrialisation and capitalism and take a long-term policy view without being involved in political machinations (Upchurch, 2011, pp. 71-73). This separation of an agency from government “became known in the 1970s as the ‘arm’s length principle’” (Upchurch, 2011, p. 72). In his own version of events, Gough Whitlam records that his decision to establish the Australia Council as a statutory authority was influenced by the need to free public administration from political interference (Whitlam, 1984, pp. 557-558). Coombs held the same view. Later in life Coombs deplored the direct financing of the Australian Opera and Ballet by the Federal Government. His time with the Trust had made him acutely aware of the precariousness of entrepreneurialism. He believed that governments would be forced to choose between taking on the losses incurred by government funded arts organisations and “brutally truncating an enterprise in which the Government and the community’s prestige is deeply involved”. He feared that in these circumstances governments would be making decisions “about artistic policies where their ignorance is likely to be abysmal” (Coombs, 1991, pp. 258-259). There is a slight difference in these two approaches: Whitlam sees the arm’s length mechanism as a way of freeing the arts from political interference; for Coombs it is more a question of professional expertise being brought to bear on arts policy and the critical need to keep this expertise at arm’s length from politics.

Coombs’ view of artists’ involvement was their value in making a “judgement about artistic quality, capacity, or potential” (Coombs, 1991, p. 254). From the context in which this remark is made, Coombs seems to be arguing more for the professional skill of the artist and less about Kant’s judgement of taste as something “apart from any interest” (Kant, 1987, p. 50). However, Coombs did not see this aspect of the Boards’ work as significant when compared with their responsibility for program development and implementation, which he believed

required a broader range of skills (financial, legal, and administrative) as well as an appreciation of the creative process. Following the Council’s establishment, he noted the increasing influence exerted by administrators at the expense of artists, which he felt was appropriate for a developing organisation, but warned against the urge of these administrators to “seek to superimpose their own prosaic image on the forms in which those dreams came to realisation.” (Coombs, 1981, p. 255). Coombs was still making the case for the distinctive skills of artists to be applied to the policy process and in so doing revealing the contradictions in his approach to peer review. He believed that artist peers were critical, but felt more comfortable with a collaborative approach involving committed artists, the ACFTA/Australia Council and government, and cites this collaboration as a key element in the establishment of the Australian Ballet and Public Lending Right (Coombs, 1991, pp 254-257).

The Australia Council: artists’ representative or government’s representative towards the arts? The structure of the Australia Council was hastily conceived. There were different interpretations of why this was the case. Coombs recalls that it was Whitlam setting the pace, demanding “’radical changes to the structure and membership” of the ACFTA in order to differentiate the Council from ACFTA, a structure embedded in the bureaucracy of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Whitlam envisaged the Council as an expanded agency offering Australian citizens the cultural experiences hitherto reserved for the wealthy (Coombs, 1991, pp. 252-253). Coombs was also dealing with the need to develop the detail necessary to gain the approval of the central agencies (Treasury and the Public Service Board) for the funding estimates for the new Council in the Government’s first budget (Coombs, 1991, p. 253). Macdonnell is convinced that it was Whitlam’s extemporisation together with “constant pressure” from Coombs that resulted in the lack of clarity on the Council’s structure fuelling heated arguments by the arts sector and the ALP about the membership and structure of the Council. This haste also contributed to the abrupt way some members of the ACFTA and former government arts advisory bodies found out that their services were no longer required (Macdonnell, 1992, pp. 95-96).

On Australia Day 1973 the appointments to the Council were announced. Apart from Coombs, the appointments represent an eclectic mix of powerful public servants, media moguls, artists, and directors of the boards of arts organisations from both the cultural establishment and the avant garde. The Trust and the arts organisations it had created and fostered were prominent amongst Council members (Appendix 4.1). During this period Coombs was acting as Whitlam’s personal advisor (Coombs, 1991, p. 253) and the pattern of appointments is not

dissimilar to that of the Trust: a canny combination of senior public servants, commercial and public media moguls and trusted friends.

These appointments resulted in a good deal of criticism, including from members of the old guard such as ACFTA and members of government arts advisory bodies like the Arts Advisory Board who had expected to be included and were not (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 95). Other members of the arts sector expected that the Council would be a representative body and were critical of the lack of consultation over these appointments (Macdonnell, 1991, pp. 93- 95) and of the failure to allow for an election of artist representatives and for Coombs’ position as Chair (Macdonnell, 1992, p.100). Coombs described this perspective as “Guild Socialism” (Coombs, 1991, p. 253). By this he was referring to the ideas of British artist and activist William Morris (1834-1896) who advocated for worker control of industry through their guilds and acting as representatives of the public. This form of “participatory democracy” was put forward by Labor adherents and artists, arguing for their participation in arts policy development and decisions about arts patronage (Macdonnell, 1992, pp. 96-99). Coombs expressed his support for these ideas and described the legislation for the Australia Council as establishing the Council Boards as financially and administratively autonomous “major decision-making agents” with the Council providing the services to the Boards (Coombs, 1991, pp. 253-254). Australian cultural activist, artist and administrator Jon Hawkes recalls how the Australia Council:

even into the late 1980s was still perceived by many to be the representative of the arts, rather than the representative of government towards the arts (Interview, 18th May 2017, p. 5).

Hawkes (Community Arts Board Director 1982-1987) recalls the time when he and Donald Horne, (the Chair of the Australia Council, 1985-1991), both worked for the Council and how Horne believed that “the only way that the Australia Council could survive, was if he transformed it into a top down organisation.” According to Hawkes this meant “diluting” the Boards to the role of program deliverers and elevating Council to the role of policy makers. Hawkes describes his position as “exactly the opposite [the Boards] made up of artists...created policy that went up through Council”. (Interview 18th May 2017, pp. 5-6, original emphasis). Hawkes believes that Horne’s position on this was pragmatic and as Horne had to weather the kerfuffle over ministerial directions to Council on the allocation of funds prompted by the policies of the Theatre and Music Boards (Chapter Six), Hawkes’ interpretation is plausible. Horne believed these changes were necessary for the Council’s survival. (Horne, 2000, p. 280).

Another dimension in this fracas was the disjuncture between ALP arts policy and Government pronouncements and the focus for these divergent perspectives was a report on what the Australia Council statute might look like which was circulated to members of the ALP, arts organisations and individuals (Coombs, 1991, p. 253). Coombs relates how artists had formed support committees for Whitlam in the lead up to the 1972 election and how these and the ALP policy committees became gatherings at which cultural policy was discussed including improving artists’ circumstances, providing greater access to the arts and support for community arts and redressing the dominance of the artistic “establishment” in the ACFTA membership and in its expenditure (Coombs, 1991, p. 253). The 1973 ALP Party conference had resolved that the new Council be tasked with improving pathways to skills development and employment in the arts, providing funding for non-profit and cooperative models of arts production and supporting youth arts (Macdonnell, 1991, p. 128). The draft statute was interpreted by these interests as being “dominated by the promotion of excellence.” (Macdonnell, 1991, p. 128).

But the criticisms were not all from the left. The Associated Drama Companies of Australia, who represented the national and state theatre companies, many of whom had been nurtured by the Trust, brought their full weight to bear on the composition of the Council and the Theatre Board and the failure to include what they regarded as performing arts professionals. They were not referring to the absence of actors, whom they judged to be ill equipped fulfil that role, but to the lack of theatre managers and directors. George Whaley, Director of the Union Theatre Department of the University of Melbourne, objected to “well intentioned amateurs” operating as the Chairs of the Council and the Theatre Board (Macdonnell, 1991, pp. 98-99). Whaley was referring to Coombs and to Peter Hall, eminent Australian architect who worked on the Sydney Opera House. The values associated with excellence: professionalism and a hierarchy of professional distinction; and an organisation’s status as a national exponent of its art form are evident in their concerns. Many other artists, arts organisations and members of the ALP registered their concerns on the absence of professional artists in the appointments to the Council and the Boards. Certainly, in relation to the Council, where thirteen artists were appointed, their concerns may relate more to the presence of public servants and media moguls and perhaps to the absence of a representative of their particular genre. The values associated with access are evident in the ALP policy deliberations: cultural democracy, opportunities to experience the art of other people and to make one’s own art, and amateurs working cooperatively with professionals to create artworks. The Australia Council statute defined the functions of the Council to include:

a) to formulate and carry out policies designed (i) to promote excellence in the arts; (ii) to provide, and encourage the provision of, opportunities for persons to practise the arts; (iii) to promote the appreciation, understanding and enjoyment of the arts; (iv) to promote the general application of the arts in the community (Australia Council Act, Cth., 1975, Section 5).

It appears that a balance between ALP policy and the pronouncements of Government was achieved in the wording of the Act.

Conclusion: beliefs shaping policy, advocacy, and institutions

What emerges from the historical survey presented in this chapter is that from the early nineteenth century access was interpreted in Australia by both the state and the labour movement as distributing the civilising influences of arts and culture. With the emergence of the socialist movement in the late nineteenth century educational interpretations of access became evident and by the 1930s socialist cultural institutions were providing opportunities for the working class to express their own creativity, learn creative skills and critically engage with arts and culture: thereby challenging the notion of the artist/genius and asserting the creative potential of every human being. Within the New Left from the mid twentieth century, culture became a way of interpreting and revolutionising the lives of colonised and marginalised peoples and access was interpreted as cultural democracy: a community’s participation in developing its own culture.

The views of my interview subjects in relation to this policy core belief were almost evenly divided between the democratic interpretation and a combination of distributive and educational interpretations. In relation to the democratic interpretation, they expressed respect for cultural diversity and the right of all Australians to develop their own creativity and creative communities. In relation to the distributive interpretation they expressed commitment to the equitable distribution of opportunities to experience other people’s art. They also expressed concern at the lack of proactive engagement by governments in overcoming the geographical, financial, and cultural barriers to access to the arts.

The Australia Council statute required the Council to promote excellence in the arts and the values they inherited from the Trust in this regard distinguished between commercial and non- commercial art and between national and smaller arts companies. At stages during this belief’s evolution its interpretation was politicised through its association with the major performing arts organisations. My historical survey and analysis of the views of my interview subjects

revealed the values underpinning traditional and contemporary interpretations of excellence. Also revealed was a hierarchy of the classifications of art which privileged the Canon and the work of the major performing arts organisations over others. The values underpinning the pluralist interpretation of excellence challenged many of the values attached to excellence.

The policy core beliefs of access and excellence had a direct and indirect influence on the aims and structure of the Australia Council. Directly these beliefs shaped the functions of the Council. Indirectly, the values underlying excellence, particularly professionalism and the distinctive nature of the arts, influenced the kinds of people who were appointed to the Council’s governing body and the Boards. The value of professionalism did not necessarily translate into the sovereignty of the artist, as Whitlam and Coombs were obviously determined to endow this new entity with the prestige and power of men of influence from the media and the public service. However, the sovereignty of the Boards was asserted, and the broad range of skills deemed necessary to help them carry out their administration of the grants program and their development of policy was recruited to these tasks. The Council’s embodiment of the rights of artists to freedom of expression can be found in its statute and in the policy preference for the arm’s length relationship to government. The Council’s embodiment of the distinctive nature of the arts can be found in the policy preference for peer review.

The endowment by the arts sector of the Council, and more particularly its Boards, with the responsibility to represent an artform or genre helps explain the strong attachment of many members of the arts policy subsystem to the Council as their preferred policy venue. This may help explain the passion with which so many artists and arts organisations mobilised against the Brandis intervention (Chapter Eight) and their anger at what they perceived as the Council’s failure to adequately represent to government the impact of this intervention on artists and arts organisations. The belief in the Council as the embodiment of these values may be changing (see Chapter Eight).

Chapter Five: mapping the arts advocacy coalitions

Picturing national arts advocacy coalitions

The Advocacy Coalition Framework operates on the assumption that it is advocacy coalitions that determine public policy. Understanding who the players are in the struggles over policy beliefs is therefore central to understanding my case studies. This chapter maps the national arts advocacy organisations that were active during the periods covered by my case studies.

I analyse the information provided by the organisations that responded to my survey with information on who they were, who they represented, how long they had been established and the frequency of their interactions with each other. This data has been supplemented by my own research into other organisations which were active during the periods covered by my case studies. The survey questionnaire can be found in Appendix 2.6. The survey results detailing respondents’ strategies for political engagement and their preferred advocacy tools are included in Chapter Eight.

As noted above, the Advocacy Coalition Framework operates on the premise that the policy subsystem comprises specialists who “regularly seek to influence policy” (Sabatier and Weible, 2007, p. 192) and that the policy advocacy coalitions formed by these specialists coordinate their activities over some time (Stritch, 2015, p. 438). My survey respondents certainly contained organisations that met these criteria, but nearly half of my respondents were from arts organisations whose primary purpose was to make art. These results support the claims of many of my interview subjects that the range of organisations mobilised against the Brandis funding reallocations was broader than specialist arts advocacy groups. Therefore, in my review of the survey results, I provide an analysis including all responding organisations and a separate analysis of those that are policy advocates, in order to gauge the extent to which the high proportion of arts organisations might be obscuring a clear picture of the advocacy organisations.

Figure 5 illustrates how I have classified the organisations responding to the survey.

100

Figure 5: Classification of all organisations

3% 25%

46%

26%

Advocacy orgs Service orgs Producers Other

I use three principal classifications to distinguish between types of organisations responding to the survey: advocacy organisations: service organisations and creative producers. Advocacy organisations’ function is to influence national cultural policy. Service organisations protect the rights of artists, often also provide co-ordination, professional development and networking opportunities, and engage in arts policy advocacy from time to time. Creative producers are responsible for the creative, financial and management aspects of the making and presentation of cultural artefacts and experiences. These three classifications are not mutually exclusive. For example, two of the most prominent arts policy advocacy groups, Australian Theatre Network and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA), combine the roles of service and advocacy organisations. They are typical of the hybrid groups identified by Fraussen and Halpin (2016). I have classified them as advocacy organisations for the purpose of this exercise, as they meet the ACF’s criteria having been regularly engaged in cultural policy advocacy for some time. I have used the survey topics to provide a structure for this chapter. I begin by describing the survey results on the constituency of the respondents.

There were 107 valid survey responses. Of the 27 organisations in the advocacy category, 20 were national and seven were state orientated. Of the 27 organisations in the service category seven had a national and 20 a state focus. The creative producers make up 50 of the organisations and four of these are national in their focus and 46 are state orientated. There are three other survey respondents: two local governments and one not-for-profit organisation that built the capacity of other organisations to recruit and manage volunteers (see Appendix

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5.1 for a chart of respondent organisations by classification). All percentages have been rounded up.

Figure 6: Constituencies: all organisations

2%4% 9% 29%

25%

31%

Individual artists Artists inc. individuals Australian arts organisations Communities of interest Nat. arts orgs. only Other

Figure 6 represents the 178 responses organisations made to the question: who does your group/organisation represent. The dominant categories of constituents for all organisations are individual artists (29 per cent) and artists including other individuals (31 per cent). The latter include individuals with technical, curatorial or administrative responsibilities. Four organisations (2 per cent) dealt with national arts organisations only, indicating their status as peak organisations. Nine per cent indicated constituencies of communities of interest defined by their geography or demographic characteristics such as youth, ethnicity or race.

Figure 7 illustrates the 115 responses to the question on constituencies from advocacy and service organisations only.

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Figure 7: Constituencies: advocacy and service organisations

4%1% 4% 25%

31%

34%

Individual artists Individuals inc. artists Australian arts orgs Communities of interest Nat. arts orgs only Other

There are three dominant constituencies for the advocacy and service organisations: individual artists (25 per cent), artists plus other individuals (34 per cent) and Australian arts organisations (31 per cent). The advocacy and service organisations have higher proportions of individuals including members and Australian arts organisations than are recorded for all organisations. Advocacy and service organisations also record significantly fewer responses indicating communities of interest as constituents for advocacy and service organisations.

These variations may be because very few creative producers have membership structures, and if they do, they are unlikely to include other organisations, whereas membership is a feature of many advocacy and service organisations and peak bodies.

Figure 8: Individual membership and/or subscriber numbers: all organisations

10% 16% 6%

23%

45%

Under 100 101-1,999 2k-4,999 5k-9,999 10k-20k

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Figure 8 represents the membership numbers for all 82 organisations responding to this question. Fifty-four per cent of all organisations responding to the survey are in the creative producer category and membership is not often a feature of these organisations. Therefore, it is not surprising that ten per cent of organisations responding to this question registered fewer than 100 members and 45 per cent have memberships of fewer than two thousand. In Figure 9 I have isolated this information as it applies only to national advocacy and service organisations to see whether this presents a different picture. Twenty-five of advocacy and service organisations provided this information.

Figure 9: Individual membership and/or subscriber numbers: advocacy and service organisations

12% 20% Under 100 101-1.9k 8% 2k-4.9k 5k-9.9k 40% 10k-20k 20%

There is some duplication in Figure 9 due to multiple memberships. Double the proportion of advocacy and service organisations have membership numbers between ten and twenty thousand compared with all respondent organisations. This indicates that advocacy and service organisations make up a significant proportion of organisations with large memberships. In Figure 10 I depict the proportion of advocacy and service organisations identifying organisations as members.

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Figure 10: Number of organisational members: advocacy and service organisations

13%

9% Under 50 4% 51-100 101-300 301-400

74%

The total number of organisations affiliated with the 23 respondent organisations is 2,646. There may be some duplication in the figures due to multiple memberships. Seventy-four per cent of these 23 organisations have fewer than fifty organisational members. In Figure 11, I depict the total of the individual members represented by these organisational memberships.

Figure 11: National advocacy and service organisations: total individual constituents

13% 7%

Under 100 101-2k

27% 2001-10k 10k-20k 53%

Fifteen organisations provided this information on their constituencies. The total of the number of individuals represented by these organisational memberships is 82,040. Only one organisation, seven per cent of respondents, has less than one hundred members represented by organisational membership. Eight organisations, 53 per cent of all respondents, have a total number of individuals represented by their organisational membership of just over one hundred to two thousand with smaller percentages at the two extremes. Four organisations

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with organisational membership contributing between two and ten thousand individuals represent 27 per cent of respondents. Two organisations, 13 per cent of respondents, have between ten and twenty thousand members represented by organisational membership Six of the fifteen organisations have more than 2,000 members represented by organisational members. This would indicate that for some advocacy groups, organisational membership is important. These organisational members have the potential to contribute to the political heft of advocacy coalitions but could also present problems in fragmenting strategy and impeding rapid mobilisation of members.

Who are the peak and national arts advocacy organisations? In this section I discuss the peak and national arts advocacy organisations that have been highly visible advocates in one or more of the periods in my case studies and meet the criteria of having been active policy advocates over some time (Stritch, 2015, p. 438). I begin with those peak national advocacy organisations whose membership and/or scope of work deal with more than one artistic genre. The organisations in this category include Arts Action Australia, the National Campaign for the Arts in Australia, ArtsPeak, Feral Arts, and A New Approach.

Cross genre organisations Arts Action Australia (AAA) was formed in December 1989 at the instigation of the Chair of the Australia Council at that time, Donald Horne, with the assistance of Mary Travers, performing artist and writer, former staff member of the Australia Council’s Theatre Board and the Executive Director of AAA (1989- 1997) (Interview Travers 1st April 2017, p. 1). AAA became the first sustained national, cross-artform platform for arts advocacy in Australia. Travers’ interpretation of Horne’s motives is as follows: “Donald realised that [the Australia Council] had its limits and that...you needed in a democracy...people of influence as advocates” (Interview 1st April 2017, p. 4). A review of their membership reveals people of influence from the creative and intellectual establishment (Appendix 5.2). The Australia Council provided funding for AAA until 1996 (Interview Travers 1st April 2017, p. 9) and AAA folded a few months after this support was withdrawn.

A coalition of state-based arts industry councils formed the National Campaign for the Arts in Australia (NCAA) on 14 March 1992 (NCAA 1992). The first arts industry council was established in Victoria in 1989 (Burning Issues, 1993) and arts industry councils from Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland were represented at the meeting. Funding was provided from the Australia Council for this new national peak body on condition

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that all state membership dues and a list of members were given to the national body. In the opinion of one of my interview subjects who worked with Arts Industry Council (Vic.), this resulted in the demise of many of the state bodies (Brennan interview, 16 h May 2017, pp. 27- 29). The Victorian organisation survived, and similar bodies now exist in in South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland.

ArtsPeak, a “confederation of Australia’s peak arts organisations” (ArtsPeak, About), was established in 1998/99 by Julie Dyson, CEO of Ausdance and Tamara Winikoff, the CEO of NAVA (Ausdance, About Us ) and: “promotes the value of the arts in Australia and…drives the national debate in…arts industry development” (ArtsPeak: About). During 2017 ArtsPeak had 37 members including peak artform bodies, Indigenous arts organisations, arts industry councils, service organisations such as Arts Law and the Copyright Agency and the Media, Entertainment Arts Alliance (MEAA) (Appendix 5.3). The Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG) was an observer at ArtsPeak meetings but withdrew circa 2012 due to disagreements over governance procedures (Interview Bethwyn Serow, 7th April 2017, pp. 4- 5). ArtsPeak was active during the development of Creative Australia, a key player in the mobilisations against the Brandis intervention as part of the # Freethearts network and later involved in the longer campaign against this intervention (Chapter Eight).

In May 2016, the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) and Ausdance, still driving forces behind ArtsPeak, lost their Australia Council funding (Stone, D. 2016, May 2). In March 2017 Winikoff, Executive Director of the NAVA stepped down from her role as co-convenor of ArtsPeak, a role she had held since its establishment. By the end of October 2017 ArtsPeak had gone into recess. Its explanation was the emergence of a new arts advocate, A New Approach. Press reports linked this news with co-convener Nicole Beyer’s decision to step down (Watts, 2017 b, October 31). Although there may be many reasons why this happened Stritch identifies the impact that the lack of resources has on a coalition’s ability to participate in coordinating activities (Stritch, 2015, p. 448) and this is certainly one explanation for this development. ArtsPeak played a significant role in the sustained campaign against Brandis which lasted over two years and, as a voluntary organisation with no membership fees with which to finance resources, this was an extraordinary effort and the people involved were tired.

Another national cross-artform arts advocacy organisation is Feral Arts, which was established in 1989 as a community cultural development organisation and evolved into a national arts policy advocacy organisation in response to specific circumstances which it perceived as a threat to the integrity of national arts policy. The first of these was the axing of the national cultural policy Creative Australia by the incoming Coalition Government in 2013 and the

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second was the Brandis cultural policy shock in 2015 (Horton interview, 17th March 2017). After playing a significant coordinating and brokering role in #Freethearts’ protests, (Chapter Eight), in 2016 Feral Arts established a new arts advocacy project called Arts Front. Arts Front’s project is to develop a bi-partisan commitment to a national vision for arts and cultural development in Australia (Arts Front website). This project works closely with: “First Peoples [and] young and independent artists” (Arts Front website). For some time, Feral Arts has been at the intersection of arts organisations and other organisations from the community, health and digital media sectors. Its involvement in the community cultural development sector gave it: “a foot in a lot of art form camps” and the opportunity to be “a bit of a connector across the sector both at a policy and practical level”. As: “de facto members of the ArtsPeak alliance” Feral Arts was in touch with other national leaders and advocates and gained more insight into: “what was happening with other art forms [and] more broadly across the sector” (Horton interview, 17th March 2017, pp. 1-2). Feral Arts still plays a key role in coordinating the small- to-medium arts sector and in facilitating cross-sectoral alliances with other national arts advocacy coalitions.

In 2016 the leaders of three philanthropic organisations, the Myer, Tim Fairfax and Keir Foundations, were prompted to fund an ‘independent and fearless’ policy voice for the arts calling it A New Approach (ANA). The article in The Australian announcing this initiative quoted the Myer Foundation chief executive Leonard Vary, but did so under the photograph of Rupert Myer, Chairman of the Australia Council at the time (Westwood, December 6, 2016). This amounted to a public admission by the Council Chair of the need for an independent arts policy voice and was clearly a response to the Australia Council’s silence on Brandis’ sudden reallocation of Council funds. ANA was launched on the ninth of August 2017. The Australian Academy of the Humanities and Newgate Communications, a firm specialising in public and government relations, implement the project (Richard Watts, 2017 a, August 9). Kate Fielding is the Program Director (ANA website). In April 2019 it announced the establishment of a reference group chaired by Rupert Myer (ANA website) and in September 2019 published a report on public sector expenditure on the arts in Australia. This report reviewed arts expenditure by the three levels of government. Its findings highlight the disparity between the level of expenditure, which appears to have grown, and the per capita investment by governments in this sector. Between 2007 and 2018 expenditure on the arts as a percentage of GDP fell by 4.9 per cent (A New Approach, 2019): a potentially useful contribution to arts advocates’ arguments for increased funding.

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Artform based organisations Figure 12 provides an overview of the arts practice represented by organisations responding to my survey. Figure 12: Arts genre represented: all organisations

3% 15% 22%

11%

13%

14% 8% 5% 9% Performing arts Visual arts Craft Literature Publishing Experimental First Nations Community arts Other

This is a diverse range of creative genres, with the performing arts clearly dominating the field. The organisations in Figure 12 include the fifty creative producer organisations responding to the survey, of which 48 per cent are performing arts organisations. Figure 13 illustrates the arts practice represented by the advocacy and service organisations only.

Figure 13: Arts genre represented: advocacy and service organisations

3% 15% 18%

11% 12%

14% 9%

7% 11% Performing arts Visual arts Craft Literature Publishing Experimental First Nations Community arts Other

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Fifty-two organisations responded to this question. The contrast between the specific creative genres is less dramatic with fewer numbers of performing arts organisations. Overall, this indicates a comprehensive and balanced coverage of artform genres. The responses to the category of “other” included what were characterised as demographic genres: youth arts, regional arts, and the creative activity of people living with a disability. Also include in these responses were what were referred to as design, arts education and multi-arts genres. Creative professions referred to in these other responses were screen, including games, creators and technicians and makers (costume, sets).

The peak artform based national arts advocacy organisations operating in the performing arts genres include Actor’s Equity (now part of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance), the Musicians Union, Live Performance Australia, Ausdance, the National Advocates for Dance Education, BlakDance, the Australian Major Performing Arts Group, Theatre Network Australia and the Confederation of Australian Professional Performing Arts.

Early attempts to organise advocacy organisations for artists were made by Australian trade unions (Fraussen & Halpin, 2016, p. 482). The Actors’ Association was established in 1910 and, after a difficult period, the Actors Federation of Australia union was established in 1920. In the archival documentary of Hal Alexander, secretary of Actor’s Equity (1939-1979), he: “maintains that Equity was the first to raise demands for a national theatre, ballet and opera” (Kirby, 1992, p. 10). In 1980 a Federal Council of Actor’s Equity was established and in 1993 what was then known as Actors Equity of Australia became part of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

Both the Alliance and the Musicians Union, first established in NSW in 1887, became powerful arts policy advocates on issues such as Australian content quotas for public and commercial radio and television and the use of Australian artists in association with imported acts. Actors Equity has advocated over many years for national arts policy, including input into Creative Australia and protesting Brandis’ intervention. Live Performance Australia (formerly the Theatrical Proprietors’ and Managers’ Association) was formed in 1917 by the large commercial theatre entrepreneurs as “an organisation of employers in or in connection with the Theatrical, Vaudeville and General Amusement Industry” (LPA, About Us). Now the membership includes both commercial and subsidised organisations and embraces theatre, dance and music (LPA, About Us). LPA provided strong advocacy during the Senate Inquiry hearings and through their circulation of industry data within the arts policy subsystem to counteract some of the claims being made by Brandis. The Alliance and LEP each straddle

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the commercial and not-for-profit components of the Australian performing arts sector and each provide intelligence on the health of those sectors.

Established in 1977, Ausdance was an early national peak body and developed into a persistent policy advocate. It helped establish and was part of a “network of dance organisations” in Australia providing leadership in dance advocacy, developing standards and guidelines for best practice in dance education and providing other services “to support Australian dance professionals” (Ausdance, About Us). Ausdance’s achievements include persistent lobbying on dance in education since 1983 culminating in 2015 with the inclusion of dance as one of the five artforms in the National Australian Curriculum: the Arts. Ausdance facilitated the establishment of the National Advocates for Dance Education in 1989 to help further this objective. They also facilitated the establishment of a national peak body for Indigenous dance through the production of the Creating Pathways conference, in partnership with the Australia Council, and helped to establish BlakDance in 2011 (Ausdance, History and Achievements). More recently Ausdance’s policy advocacy has included: representations to the Federal Government on the development of Creative Australia; mobilising opposition to the Brandis intervention through #Freethearts (Chapter Eight) and presentations to the Senate Inquiry hearings into the Brandis intervention (Ausdance, History and Achievements). In August 2016 Ausdance announced that it was folding due to its lack of financial stability following the withdrawal of Australia Council funding (Stone, D. 2016, May 13) and the reluctance of Ausdance to compete with its constituency for funding (Arts Hub, August 6, 2019). A Special General Meeting of Ausdance members in December 2019 rejected the Board’s decision to fold up the organisation and a new Board is overseeing the continuing operation of the organisation (Watts, 2019, December 3).

The next two organisations each represent different parts of the performing arts sector: the major performing arts organisations and the small-to-medium companies. The Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG) represents those organisations referred to as the major performing arts companies which are part of the subsidised arts sector (AMPAG, membership). AMPAG’s establishment in 1999 coincided with the release of the report of the Major Performing Arts Inquiry (DOCITA, 1999) which had provided a forum for these companies to successfully argue their cause to the Inquiry (Chapter Seven). Consequently, the founders of AMPAG viewed the development of a “national voice and presence” for their part of the sector as critical (AMPAG, About). AMPAG is funded by its membership. Following the inclusion of Opera Victoria and Circa in the major performing arts companies in 2019, AMPAG has 30 members. AMPAG has the resources to engage significantly in policy

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advocacy on a range of issues. Most recently it was involved in the review of the Major Performing Arts Organisations Framework (Chapter Eight).

Theatre Network Australia (TNA) grew out of an initiative by nine Victorian theatre companies to create opportunities for the development of the small-to-medium theatre sector in that state following the publication of the 2007 Deloitte report that documented the fragility of this part of the theatre sector (TNA, What we do). The need for a national organisation soon emerged. In 2009 the Australia Council agreed to support such an organisation, which from 2016 traded as Theatre Network Australia. TNA hosts the Australian office for the international association for youth theatre: ASSITEJ. TNA aims to achieve: “progressive change in the arts industry and impels evidence-based, values driven cultural policy” (TNA, What we do). During the aftermath of the Brandis intervention TNA played a significant role in the #Freethearts campaign and calls for a Senate Inquiry (Chapter Eight). Between 1979 and 1988, there was one advocacy coalition representing all professional performing arts organisations in the subsidised arts sector: the Confederation of Australian Professional Performing Arts (CAPPA). Each of these organisations represents a different part of the subsidised performing arts sector and the reasons for this had their origins in the demise of CAPPA in 1988 (see Chapter Six).

The peak artform based national arts advocacy organisations operating in the visual arts have included the Crafts Council of Australia, the National Association for the Visual Arts, Contemporary Arts Organisations Australia, and Museums Galleries Australia. An early mobilisation of the craft sector took place in the early 1960s when local voluntary craft associations were “formed in all states and territories between 1964 and 1973” and in 1971 these associations established a national body, the Crafts Council of Australia (later renamed Craft Australia) just in time to ensure that a Craft Board was “included in the developing Australia Council” (Rowse, 1985, p.10). In 2011, Craft Australia lost its funding from the Visual Arts and Craft Board of the Australia Council (Crafts Council of Australia, History).

The National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) was established as a peak visual arts organisation in 1993. NAVA’s role is “protecting and promoting the professional interests of the Australian visual and media arts, craft and design sector” (NAVA, About). NAVA has advocated successfully for the protection of the intellectual property of artists, including their moral rights, resale royalties for artists, Aboriginal copyright protection, developed a code of conduct for the treatment of artists and promoted tax reform for artists. It has also campaigned for increased funding for the arts, including for contemporary visual arts, and made submissions concerning national arts policy (NAVA, About). In 1998, it co-founded ArtsPeak. NAVA was a significant player in the mobilisations against Brandis.

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A national peak body representing independent contemporary arts organisations (Contemporary Arts Organisations Australia or CAOs) was formed in 1995. It brought together organisations, most of whom had been operating for 30-40 years, into a national network that: “advocates for the small-to-medium contemporary visual arts sector in Australia” (CAOs, About). Along with NAVA, these contemporary arts organisations were advocates during the Howard Government’s Contemporary Visual Arts and Craft Inquiry (2002) and participated in the mobilisation that responded to Brandis’ intervention.

At times, the need for an “authoritative voice in protecting and promoting our arts and cultural heritage” can unite a sector. A united museums and galleries professional association was established in 1994. Museums Galleries Australia (MGA) provides “leadership” to their constituency, governments and the wider Australian community (MGA, About Us). MGA is active in making submissions to government inquiries and policy reviews: in 2011 it made a submission in relation to Creative Australia’s development (see Chapter Six); in 2013 it registered objections to the Australia Council Bill (see Chapter Seven); and in 2015 it submitted to the Senate Inquiry (see Chapter Eight).

The peak artform based national arts advocacy organisations operating in the music sector include Music Australia, The Australian Music Industry Network and The Music Trust. Music Australia, (formerly the Music Council of Australia), is a national music development and advocacy organisation and was established in 1994 in order to: “provide a unified voice in Australia for all forms of music” and to act as an advocate for industry development, music education, music participation and policy advocacy (Music Australia, About Us). An active policy advocate, recent activities include submissions to the Labor National Policy Platform prior to the 2016 election. In 2013, it submitted a response to the Creative Australia Discussion Paper. In 2015, it made submissions to the Australian educational music curriculum and to the Senate Inquiry. As a member of ArtsPeak, it made a submission to the Commonwealth Government in 2016 on arts funding. Following its loss of Australia Council funding in 2016, it has pared back its program to an annual conference and its program of music in schools (Music Australia website).

Over twenty years ago the Australian Music Industry Network (AMIN) developed as a national platform through which to advocate for the interests of its constituents: the state-based music industry councils. It has a strong industry development focus and its policy advocacy includes campaigning for more live music venues. The Music Trust was founded in 2013 to advance “music and musical life in Australia” particularly in the education sector (The Music Trust, About). It functions as a policy advocacy organisation, providing information and conducting

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research on the Australian music sector and provided active commentary during the development of Creative Australia and in response to the Brandis intervention (see Chapters Seven and Eight).

The national peak bodies representing the literary sector include the Australian Writers’ Guild, The Australian Society of Authors, the Australian Public Library Alliance, the National Writers Centres Network and the Book Council of Australia. From the 1960s, writers organised themselves into the Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG), an association of performance writers for stage, screen and more recently new media, in response to what they perceived as the colonisation of Australian culture by English and American television programs (AWG, About). The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) followed in 1963 and was formed by delegates from various writers’ societies to represent professional authors. The ASA has been an effective lobby group promoting the rights of Australian authors and claims success in establishing the Public Lending Right in 1975 and the Educational Lending Right in 2000 (ASA, About Us). The Australian Public Library Alliance (APLA or ALIA as it was previously known), was formed in 2009/10 in response to the need identified by librarians for a peak body to represent the Australian public library sector. It is committed to: “continuing to provide universal free access to information, knowledge and ideas” (APLA, About). An active campaigner in relation to national cultural policy it regularly make submissions and mobilises its membership to argue for: the protection of intellectual property and copyright law reform; increased resources for public libraries; a national early literacy strategy; and the sustainability of the Australian book industry (APLA, Advocacy campaigns and Submissions). The most obvious and recent example of successful advocacy in the literary area appeared in the December 2014 Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) when the Abbott Government announced a $6 million reduction in funds to the Australia Council over three years to fund the establishment of the new Book Council of Australia. This was an idea put forward in 2010 to the Labor Government by the Australian publishing industry struggling with the impacts of globalisation and digitalisation on their trade (Glover, 2015).

As the traditional performing and visual arts sectors continued to influence national arts policy other organisations emerged to promote the interests of the smaller and more experimental organisations, such as the contemporary arts spaces. Other policy advocates emerged to promote the possibilities of new media, hybrid and experimental art forms. Australian journalist, writer and theatre director Keith Gallasch recalls the struggles of new media and cross and hybrid arts practice to gain and sustain a funding foothold in the Australia Council. In 2004, a large group had assembled to celebrate the twenty-first birthday of the Performance Space, “long-term Sydney home to the hybrid arts”, and the tenth birthday of Real Time,

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Gallasch’s national arts magazine featuring experimental and hybrid work. These celebrations were followed by the eighth of December announcement of an “Australia Council restructure that would dissolve the New Media Board, “key funder of new media and hybrid arts” (Gallasch, 2005, p. 11). From my discussions with Gallash (Interview, 16th June, 2017), I understand that this sector did not have a peak body to represent it, but it did have its institutions: Real Time and the Performance Space and a large network which could exercise dispersed power and mobilise quickly (see Chapter Seven). This kind of loose advocacy structure was also evident in the #Freethearts movement (see Chapter Eight). Both #Freethearts and the hybrid and experimental arts network provide interesting models of modes of organising that avoid corporate, hierarchical structures.

In this chapter I have discussed the development of national arts advocacy organisations beginning with those formed around a common artform or creative genre, or around cultural institutions such as collecting organisations or experimental art spaces. From the 1970s and 1980s there was a rise in national arts advocacy organisations formed around communities of interest with a shared demographic or geographic identity. These included the Local Government Community Services Association of Australia, the Cultural Development Network Victoria, Regional Arts Australia, Arts Access Australia and the #saveyoutharts movement.

Communities of interest organisations Local government is a significant advocacy group for the arts, and the Local Government Community Services Association of Australia (LGCSA) was important in this respect from the early 1980s, until the early 2000s. Through their conferences, local government’s role in arts and cultural development was promoted (LGCSA, 2005). The Cultural Development Network (CDN) was established in 2000 on the initiative of senior staff in two local government councils, the City of Philip and Melbourne City Council, to provide a focus for the development of arts workers in the local government sector. It quickly became established as a national player in arts advocacy, functioning as a think tank and ideas broker through its arts sector conferences (CDN, 2004) and the commissioning and publication of Jon Hawkes’ The Fourth Pillar, a book on the relationship between the cultural, economic, social and environmental in public policy (Hawkes, 2001, p. 4).

This book had a local and international impact (CDN, What we do). Australian’s second national cultural policy, Creative Australia provided an opportunity for CDN to provide the secretariat to the National Local Government Cultural Forum, a joint initiative of the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA), the Global Cities Research Institute at RMIT University and the Australia Council. This Forum was an initiative of Creative Australia

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(Australian Government, 2013, p. 66), and was established to help strengthen the links between all three spheres of government brought together in the National Arts and Cultural Accord. The Forum’s role was to promote stronger cultural development practice in local government across Australia and a key objective was to identify and collect data that built a picture of local government’s contribution to Australian cultural life. To assist this CDN developed a tool with which organisations could develop and collect data on the impacts of cultural engagement on the economic social, cultural, environmental and governance policy domains (CDN website 2) and this work is promulgated through the Australian Cultural Cities Cultural Network and its links to the international United Cities and Local Governments networks.

Another geographically based organisation is Regional Arts Australia (RAA). Established as the Arts Council of Australia (NSW Division) in 1943 (Craik 2007, p. 77) when Country Arts merged with the Encouragement for Arts movement (see Chapter Four), for many years the focus of the state and territory based Arts Councils was touring, but since the 1980s RAA has shifted towards a different approach and now:

works with and for regional artists, arts workers and arts organisations to support and increase understanding and appreciation for regional arts practice (RAA, About).

A key part of its mandate is to advocate: “for informed national regional arts policy that represents diversity of practice and cultural landscape” (RAA, About). It has regularly produced documentation on the impact of arts and cultural development on rural, regional and remote communities and its programming and advocacy initiatives have been shaped by widespread engagement with its constituents (RAA, About).

One demographic community of interest consists of people living with a disability. In 1974 the first of what was to become a national network of arts organisations working to promote the creative rights of people living with a disability emerged in the form of Arts Access Victoria (Arts Access Victoria About Us, Our History) Arts Access Australia (AAA), Australia’s national peak arts organisation for arts and disability, formed in 1992. Its members include:

state based arts and disability organisations, individual artists, arts-workers and arts leaders with disability; and others within the wider arts and cultural sector (AAA About Us).

AAA representatives were witnesses before the Senate Inquiry (see Chapter Eight).

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In December 2016, the youth arts sector mobilised in response to the Australia Council’s announcements concerning project funding in which many youth arts organisations were unsuccessful. An advocacy group called #saveyoutharts emerged as a coalition of young people’s arts organisations. Their press release, under the banner of the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), revealed the cuts experienced by this sector from 2007. Since then its peak arts advocacy organisation, Young People in the Arts in Australia (YAPAA), lost its funding, its national publication Lowdown Magazine was defunded, and several established young people’s arts organisations closed due to a lack of funds. These included Southern Youth Theatre Ensemble, Urban Myth Theatre, Youth Arts Queensland and Contact Inc:

In 2007 there were 21 federally funded youth arts companies across Australia by 2014 there were 14. In 2016 there will be 4 (ATYP, 2016, 12th December).

Youth arts organisations were active during the mobilisation against the Brandis intervention. ATYP hosted an early arts sector meeting in Sydney shortly after the intervention was revealed in May 2015. This sector was well represented by witnesses during the Inquiry hearings and in submissions to the Senate Inquiry, including letters from parents and teachers of young people.

Asserting cultural pluralism

First Nations organisations Indigenous organisations include the Association of Northern, Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists, the First Nations Australia Writers’ Network, BlakDance, the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Festivals and the work being done to establish the National Indigenous Arts and Cultural Authority. I have included these categories of arts advocacy organisations in this section, rather than in the communities of interest section above, as Indigenous artists are challenging the dominance of the western European cultural aesthetic and its hierarchies of privilege, whereas the communities of interest are asserting the need for more equitable access to cultural experiences, which may include claims for cultural pluralism.

The first organisation representing Aboriginal artists working in arts centres in rural and remote communities, the Association of Northern, Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists (ANKAAA), was established in 1987. It is “the peak advocacy and support agency for Aboriginal artists working individually and through 48 remote art centres” (ANKAAA website). At the same time, the first national Indigenous playwrights’ festival took place (First National

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Black Playwrights’ Conference), helping to seed at least two Indigenous performing arts companies. The Aboriginal National Theatre Trust in Redfern, was established in 1997/8 by Aboriginal actor, theatre and film director Brian Syron along with Kevin Gilbert, Lydia Miller, Rhoda Roberts, Suzanne Butt, Michael Johnson and Lesley Fogarty, with Justine Saunders as adviser (Milne, 2004, p. 279; Walker, 1990, Fischer, 2018,). The Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-operative in Melbourne was established in 1990 (Milne, 2004, p. 279, Ilbijerri/about). These initiatives were preceded in 1974 by the establishment of the Aboriginal Black Theatre Arts and Cultural Centre in Redfern by a group of Indigenous artists including Syron, Bob Maza, and Gary Foley (Fischer, 2018).The Guwanyi Indigenous Writers Festival in March 2011 is credited with the establishment of the First Nations Australia Writers’ Network (FWANN): “an advocacy and resources service for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writers and storytellers” (FWANN, About). BlakDance was established in 2008 and is the national peak body for Indigenous dance founded by Marilyn Miller and: “advocates for the development of the small to medium Indigenous dance sector” (BlakDance, History). The Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Festivals (CATSIF) was developed to: “advocate the needs of 12 national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Festivals to ensure the future sustainability of festival events” (CATSIF, 2011).

Over thirty years peak bodies for Indigenous artists have emerged across different creative genres. The idea for a multi-genre peak body has been talked about since 1998 when Terri Jankel’s report on Australian Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights recommended the establishment of a National Indigenous Arts and Cultural Authority (NIACA) (Jankel, 1998, p. XLI). In 2007 it was a recommendation of Rudd’s 2020 Summit (Australia Council, 2018, p.11) which took place in the same year as the United Nations released its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNESCO, 2007). In the last few years efforts amongst First Nation’s peoples have been renewed to revive Jankel’s vision for: “co-ordinated, cross-art form and community driven solutions to challenges facing the sector” (NIACA, About). At the time of writing the Australia Council was functioning as an interim secretariat to support the consultation process for NIACA. The Council supports the need for “A recognised collective voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on arts and cultures”. (Australia Council, 2018, Frontispiece).

Culturally diverse community organisations Culturally diverse community organisations include the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils and Diversity Arts Australia (DARTS). Like First Nations’ cultural advocacy organisations, these arts advocates challenge the dominance of the western European cultural aesthetic and its hierarchies of privilege. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, “a

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network of welfare-orientated organisations was gradually formed” representing immigrant communities. During the 1972 election campaign, ‘the migrant vote’ was pursued by Labor (Castles et al., 1988, p. 60). The Whitlam Government’s Australian Assistance Plan helped to nurture the development of Ethnic Communities Councils and, following the appearance of the Galbally Report (1978) commissioned by Malcolm Fraser, there was a “rapid expansion of...government-financed community welfare workers” attached to what had been essentially voluntary organisations” (Castles et al., 1988, p. 63).

It was these organisations that were the early recipients of the Council’s Community Arts Committee/Board’s support for what was then termed ‘ethnic and multicultural arts’ (Blonski, 1992, p. 2). This support was in the form of grants to support arts officers and programs. In the late 1970s the Federal government established a series of Migrant Resource Centres to assist with migrant resettlement and these also received grants from the Community Arts Board: effectively creating the resources for immigrant communities to mobilise to seek support for cultural development. While the Whitlam and Fraser Governments provided support for multicultural organisations, the Howard Government (1996-2007) proscribed policy advocacy by organisations in receipt of Federal government support (Interview Tiffany Lee- Shoy, 2nd August 2017, p. 10). This increasing intolerance of governments for organisations operating as service providers and as policy advocates has been noted by Fraussen and Halpin (2016, p. 487).

Today the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils (FECCA), the “peak body representing Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds”, advocates “to government, business and the broader community” (FECCA, Who we are). It provides input into many government inquiries including a well researched response to the Discussion Paper for Creative Australia (FECCA, 2011). Kultour, now known as Diversity Arts Australia (DARTS), was established as an initiative of the Australia Council in 2001 to facilitate the national touring of artists from a diversity of cultural backgrounds and segued into DARTS in 2009. It is now a national advocacy body, service provider and program facilitator for culturally diverse communities (DARTS, What we do).

In its most recent research report DARTS documents the “fundamental gap between the rhetoric supporting cultural diversity and the reality of cultural leadership in Australia” (BYP Group & Western Sydney University, 2019, p. 1). The research findings confirm that, despite Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds comprising 39 per cent of the Australian population, they are significantly under-represented in leadership positions in the arts in every arts sector and in government as well as non-government organisations (BYP

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Group & Western Sydney University, 2019, pp. 2-3). The recommendations in the report call for a range of responses to overcome the structural disadvantage experienced by arts workers from these backgrounds and traditions. FECCA and DARTS have each identified the structural inequalities that immigrants to Australia face: particularly those whose cultural genres do not conform to Australia’s dominant cultural traditions.

Asserting cultural democracy In this section, I discuss the Association of Community Theatres, the Community Arts Networks and the Key Producers Network. Although often sympathetic to arguments supporting cultural pluralism, for these and other organisations advocating for cultural democracy, the critical issue was a belief in the creativity of all humans, not only an elite, and support for the right of all people to creative self-expression and cultural self-determination. In its most politicised form, under the influence of the New Left during the 1960s to 1980s, this translated into cultural engagement as a way of achieving social and political change. Cultural pluralism was also a political topic, but its argument was about challenges to the western European Canon and the assertion of a diversity of cultural traditions and norms. As I indicated above, these two interests can be pursued together.

The 1970s and 1880s saw a growth and diversification of organisations promoting citizens’ cultural rights. A professional association for community and fringe theatre, the Association of Community Theatres, was established by Frank Ford in Adelaide in 1975 (Milne, 2004, p. 144). Its role was to lobby and to provide “administrative support for amateur and co-operative alternative fringe groups” (Milne, 2004, p. 144). The Association actively embraced amateur and professional theatre workers and promoted the cultural rights of First Nation and immigrant communities. Convening festivals and/or conferences was a popular means of mobilising learning and solidarity amongst avant garde and community-based arts organisations during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1981, the Association organised their second biennial conference “a celebration of Indigenous and Australian drama and a promotion of our multi-cultural identity”. It was attended by forty-four theatre companies (Association of Community Theatres, 1985, p. 109). A national committee for the network of community theatres was established and the 1985 conference was attended by 269 delegates from all states and territories. The conference papers and the discussion ranged in content from the academic and ideological to reflections on the craft and skills necessary in community theatre and critiques of national arts policy (Association of Community Theatres, 1985, pp. 103-108).

The Community Arts Networks were established from 1981 at the instigation and with the financial support of the Community Arts Board of the Australia Council and by the 1980s seven

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networks were receiving funding (CANWA, About the organisations/History). A significant move towards creating a national advocacy group for this sector was the National Community Arts Conference, held in Adelaide in 1986. It was described by its organiser, Lisa Colley as a “watershed”, helping to locate community arts practice within a broader social, political and policy context (Hughes, 2004, p. 21). The state community arts networks formed a national body after this conference and continued to make strategic use of these forums to influence and critique national arts policy. The Art, Culture and Context Conference in 1992 was held in the lead up to the development of Creative Nation (Artwork, 1992).

Artwork began as a state journal for the community arts sector in July 1988 and National Artwork’s first edition was published in 1993 (Hughes, 2004, p. 24). Journal and conference activity by the community arts and community theatre networks generated an awareness of a national picture of arts development. It also increased awareness of socially relevant practice and an appreciation of the ethos of cultural democracy as part of that practice. As funding for most of the community arts networks was withdrawn by the Australia Council and state governments during the latter part of the 1990s, other structures supported by the Australia Council emerged to provide a forum in which national arts policy could be debated. The National Cultural Policy Forum held in October 2011 was organised by the Key Producers Network (Appendix 5.4) to provide input into Creative Australia (Conference program, author’s archive). This Network was established by the Australia Council to provide a national voice for the community and cultural development sector. Between the late 1990s and 2016, the Council was proactive in establishing, and then defunding, three such organisations. In the next section I provide a picture of what this evolution of arts advocacy organisations in Australia looks like.

The evolution of Australian arts advocacy coalitions and their interaction

In this section I examine the information provided by survey respondents about how long current advocacy organisations have been operating and the extent to which they communicate with each other. By separating the survey responses of the creative producers from those of the advocacy and service organisations I was keen to discover whether those organisations making and distributing art and those advocating for policy had patterns of development that were similar or different from each other. In Figure 14, I provide a picture of the length of time that advocacy and service organisations have been operating.

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Figure 14: Length of time advocacy and service organisations have been operating

4% 20%

56%

20%

Under 3 years 3-10 years 11-20 years 20+ years

Twenty-eight, or 56 per cent, of the fifty advocacy and service organisations responding to this question have been operating for more than twenty years and ten (20 per cent) have done so for between eleven and twenty years. This illustrates a stable group of organisations developing in response to the stimulus of the introduction, by the Hawke Government, of neo liberalism and the opportunities it offered for direct representation of one’s cause to a Minister and/or their staff. The development of Creative Nation (1991-1993) provided another stimulus.

Figure 15: Length of time creative producers have been operating

2% 23%

56%

19%

Under 3 years 3-10 years 11-20 years 20+ years

In Figure 15, I depict the length of time creative producers have been operating. Of the 52 creative producers who responded to the survey, 29 (56 per cent) have been operating for more than twenty years. Twenty-three per cent have been operating for between three and five years and another nineteen per cent for between ten and twenty years. This indicates that

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the creative producer scene is also reasonably stable. I interpret this data as indicative of a stable and long-standing group of national arts policy advocates and service organisations working with a relatively stable group of creative producers.

The ACF requires that advocacy coalitions communicate regularly over a significant period. I sought this information through my survey. I asked respondents to indicate from a list of twenty-seven organisations, those with whom they communicated and how frequently. Questions ten and eleven in the survey (see Appendix 2.6) asked respondents to identify which of the organisations on a list they interacted with and question twelve asked them to nominate other organisations with whom they interacted and how often. An additional eighty- two organisations were identified via question 12 (see Appendix 5.5). The categories for interactions were the same for all three questions: more than once a month, less than once a month and less than once a year (see Appendix 2.6 for the data on these interactions).

Figure 16 is a graphic representation of the frequency of interactions using the GEPHI network and visualisation tool. This raw data is available in Appendix 5.5. Figure 16 maps the centrality of each organisation identified by survey respondents.as one with whom they interacted. Figure 16 demonstrates in a visual sense the centrality of these organisations to the network of arts advocacy organisations captured by the survey. Centrality is a measure of importance in a network based on an actor’s connections to other well-connected actors. In the figure we can identify tiers of connectedness depending on the thickness of the connecting lines – the thicker the lines going to and from an organisation the higher degree of centrality of that organisation to that network. This means that they are interacting at the higher level of contact, more than once a month and are doing this with a high number of organisations relative to those connections represented by thinner lines. Because of the high degree of traffic between many organisations I have used three shades: red, blue/grey, and white, to make these interactions more visible within a crowded and overlapping display.

In the first tier are those organisations with the greatest number of interactions: the Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG); the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA); and Feral Arts. In the second tier are: the service organisation Arts Law (Arts Law, About); the Australian Music Centre; The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA); Arts Access Australia; Theatre Network Australia; Museums and Galleries Australia; ArtsPeak; and Regional Arts Australia.

In the third tier is Desart, the advocacy and support organisation for the Aboriginal arts centres in Central Australia (Desart, What we do); the Australia Council; the Contemporary Art

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Organisations; and Creative Partnerships, an organisation created by the Federal government to pursue private giving (philanthropists, donors, corporations, trusts) for the arts.

This pattern tells us that that, at the time this information was gathered, according to the survey respondents there were several organisations that were central to the arts advocacy network. AMPAG, NAVA and Feral Arts have the greatest number of interactions with this network. This may be because these three organisations played a key role in the mobilisations against the Brandis intervention which took place from May 2015 until April 2017. AMPAG’s role was less public, but Figure 16 demonstrates that it was an important part of the arts advocacy network at the time this information was collected. In the second tier, ArtsPeak and Theatre Network Australia (TNA) were key organisations during the mobilisations. That the MEAA is significant is not surprising given that it ran its own campaign and approximately half of the organisations responding to the survey were creative producers, a large proportion of which worked in the performing arts. The mobilisations continued the advocacy profile that Museums and Galleries Australia manifested during the development of Creative Australia. The next group of organisations are important because of the role they play as service, advocacy, and membership organisations: Arts Law, Creative Partnerships, Arts Access Australia (AAA) and Regional Arts Australia (RAA). This, and the significant contact with the Australia Council revealed in the Figure 16, is indicative of their role as providers of information, funding, and coordination.

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Figure 16: Graphic representation of the frequency of coalition interactions

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What prompts the establishment of arts advocacy coalitions?

Advocacy organisations are created for different reasons: to take advantage of the opportunity to influence a newly established arts agency; to add the weight of numbers to efforts to influence policy; to provide a plausible public voice for a sector or fraction of that sector when airing its perspective; to give a voice to interests that are overlooked in political life; or to create a body that can represent networks of organisations at a national level.

With the formation of the Australia Council in the 1970s, the craft movement saw an opportunity to ensure that a Craft Board was part of that structure. The lead up to the Keating policy prompted the formation of national bodies that brought different parts of the sector together: Arts Action Australia in 1989 and, briefly, in 1992 the National Campaign for the Arts in Australia, with its links to state-based arts industry councils. NAVA’s formation in 1993 could have been in response to the development of Creative Nation and their inaugural Chair, David Throsby’s work on that policy’s development (Throsby interview, 24th May 2017). The establishment of Music Australia could be interpreted as Richard Lett’s desire, upon leaving the Australia Council, to create a national and united advocacy voice for music policy. The formation of AMPAG in response to the Nugent Report in 1999 may have prompted NAVA and Ausdance to establish ArtsPeak to provide a counterweight to AMPAG. The establishment of the Major Performing Arts Framework in 2000 and the subsequent locked in funding provided by State and Federal governments to that part of the sector may have contributed seven years later to the commissioning of the Deloitte report on the state of the small-to- medium theatres. This led to the emergence of Theatre Network Australia in 2009 as the champion of this part of the theatre sector. The formation of the Contemporary Arts Organisations network in 1995 provided the additional mobilisation necessary, together with NAVA, to launch the Contemporary Visual Arts and Craft Inquiry in early 2001. These organisations were all established because in different ways their founders recognised the opportunity and the imperative to try and influence national arts policy, or at least their bit of it. Also, under neo-liberalism and managerialism, lobbying was becoming increasingly common more generally.

The development of national bodies like Arts Access Australia was in response to the development of state organisations working in the arts and disability area in to provide them with a national voice. Similar reasons drove the establishment of the National Writers’ Centre Network and the Australian Music Industry Network, who, like Live Performance Australia, want governments to provide better strategic support to their industries. The APLA was

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created in response, in part, to the closures of public libraries and the lack of qualified librarians in schools. Museums and Galleries Australia realised that a national voice that brought together the interests of the arts, heritage and collecting institutions might keep the barbarians at bay. FECCA, DART and Feral Arts are asserting the cultural rights of people whose culture is not sufficiently recognised or supported in Australia. First Nations’ peoples are asserting their right to cultural self-determination. The philanthropists behind A New Approach identified the lack of an ‘independent and fearless’ policy voice for the arts and thought they could provide it. One thing that these organisations have in common is their passion for their cause. The other is that, for many national and peak bodies, government funding has been critical to their effective operation. For others it has been the voluntary labour of arts workers that has kept their activities going.

In Chapters Two to Five I have described the theoretical and historical context within which the arts advocacy coalitions and their interpretations of the policy core beliefs and policy preferences have developed. My first case study which focuses on Australia’s first national cultural policy is presented in the next chapter.

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Chapter Six: Creative Nation

The three case studies

My case studies explore the policymaking process and chart the various interpretations of policy core beliefs exhibited by the key actors in that process: the minister, their staff, government agencies and the arts advocacy coalitions. I also identify values and beliefs about art and culture and about the role of government evident in these policies. The first of these case studies concerns Creative Nation, Australia’s first national cultural policy.

Paul Keating became Australian Prime Minister in December 1991 and by March 1992 he was signalling a higher status for arts policy (Begbie, 1992): higher than it had been since Whitlam. His national arts policy was released on the eighteenth of October 1994. In this chapter I trace the influences that were brought to bear on its development.

I argue that Australia’s first national cultural policy offered the promise of support for the cultural development sector which went beyond the patronage arts policy mode and I explore the factors involved in preventing this promise from being realised. I also argue that the promise offered by the Department for the Arts to develop other means of assisting creative development that went beyond direct government support also foundered and propose reasons for this. I describe how the opportunity for this policy to enshrine over a decade of policies acknowledging cultural pluralism and cultural democracy was not realised.

The significance of Keating’s initiative can be best understood through an appreciation of its context. In Part One of this chapter I describe the struggle for cultural hegemony that took place within and between the arts policy coalitions in the decade leading up to Keating’s announcement. In Part Two, I describe the development of Creative Nation, drawing on the insights of my interview subjects who were involved in the policy’s development and the efforts of a new national arts policy advocacy coalition to influence the policy. In Part Three, I analyse the policy core values and policy preferences reflected in the final policy document, identifying whose interests were served and whose were overlooked.

Part One: mobilisations and cleavages - the struggle for hegemony

In this section of the chapter, I describe the mobilisation of Australia’s arts advocacy coalitions whose emerging alliances and cleavages form the background against which Creative Nation

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was developed. These mobilisations reveal the power relationships involved in the struggles over policy core beliefs and the different interests of the members of Australia’s arts policy subsystem. I argue that these mobilisations were prompted by the political privilege granted to some major performing arts organisations and by efforts of some other arts coalitions to change this. I will show how this privilege was at odds with changes in ALP policy which placed an increased emphasis on access to and participation in the arts. The failure of the Hawke Government to confront the financial and political implications of this shift in party policy allowed powerful advocacy coalitions to further enhance the political privilege they enjoyed.

Policy core values: access and excellence The Fraser years (1975-1983) had been tough on the Australia Council. The Council’s Executive Chairman, Dr. Timothy Pascoe, shared his interpretation of the Council’s fortunes under the Coalition Government just prior to his departure:

They really had it in for the Australia Council. Its funding slipped back by about 20 per cent over seven years and they cut back its staff by 35 per cent. Over the same period the staff decline in the public service was 3.5 per cent. More bias than analysis led to that (Pascoe, 1983, October 22).

During the final years of the Fraser Government, and in the face of the 1981 cuts to the Council of ten per cent (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 267), both the Theatre and Music Boards had attempted to redistribute some of their funds from the larger to the smaller companies (Macdonnell, 1992, pp. 340-342 and pp. 356-357 and citing Director of the Theatre Board, Michael Fitzgerald p. 358, Beal and Hawkes Interview, 18 h May 2017, p. 10). The cuts led to public demonstrations and triggered a cleavage between the Australian Opera and Ballet in one camp and the state theatre companies and all other performing arts companies represented by the Confederation of Australian Professional Performing Arts (CAPPA) in the other camp (Macdonnell, 1992, pp. 269-270, Brookman Interview 19th May 2017, pp.3-4) ). Many of those in the second camp were dependant on Australia Council funding, but during the Fraser years both the Australian Opera and Ballet were funded directly from Cabinet and “The Australia Council could only advise on the size of their allocation” (Rowse, 1985, p. 22).

Before and after the change of Federal government in 1983, support was being garnered within the ALP for a shift in policy that valued access to and participation in the arts . Following the election of the Hawke Labor Government in 1983, two successive Chairs of the Australia Council expressed the need to encourage experimentation and risk-taking in the arts. Timothy Pascoe in 1983 (Pascoe, 1983, p. 265-266) and Donald Horne in January 1985 (Gardiner-

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Garden, 2009, p. 9). Each suggested broadening the support for artists to work in community settings and challenged some of the assumptions of excellence attributed to the major performing arts organisations. Both views resonated with shifts in the ALP’s 1984 arts policy platform which introduced a requirement that statutory authorities “predicate their operations and budget expenditure on the guidelines set by the Government” with “particular emphasis on ensuring access and participation” (Gardiner-Garden, 1994, pp. 19-20). The platform’s revisions also included the acknowledgement of “the right of all members of the Australian community to have access to the nation’s cultural resources” (Brokensha and Tonks, 1985, p. 15). These changes in policy within the ALP and the Council triggered consequences with considerable ramifications for the arts policy subsystem.

Following the return of the ALP to government, responsibility for the funding of the Opera and Ballet were restored to the Australia Council (Gardiner-Garden, 1994, pp. 24-25). The Theatre and Music Boards of the Council continued the redistributive polices they had begun under the Fraser Government, with the Music Board threatening to “cut or hold the Australian Opera” (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 356) and the Theatre Board:

created a new plan for the way in which they were going to fund theatre...there was a large amount of funding essentially removed from the major state companies (Brookman Interview, 19th May 2017, p. 3).

In contrast to the solidarity evident during the earlier Stage Crises Day (the nineteenth of November 1981), Labor’s policies generated a cleavage between different parts of the performing arts sector, prompting the then Director of the Theatre Board, Michael Fitzgerald, to describe the situation as:

dog eat dog...there isn’t a big enough cake. The Board put a hold on funding the State theatre companies so that it can assist a creative diverse theatre in Australia. It is ridiculous to say that the big companies are going to the wall (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 358).

The five state theatre companies, the Australian Opera, the Elizabethan Theatre Trust, NSW Premier Neville Wran, and Malcolm Fraser argued against these redistributive policies (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 361). The smaller companies, supported by Labor Senator Margaret Reynolds, Federal Minister for Finance John Dawkins, Actors Equity and the Community Theatre Conference, wanted a more diverse theatre scene (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 358). The

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state theatre companies switched their alliance to the other major companies and the smaller companies aligned with Actors Equity (Interview Beale, 18 h May 2017).

The protests mounted by the large companies against the redistribution of funds by the Council Boards led to a pre-1984 election commitment from Hawke to find the funding necessary to “maintain the real level of funding from companies of excellence in the performing arts” (Gardiner-Garden, 1984, p. 15). This echoed the response of Ian Wilson, Fraser’s Arts minister (1981-1982) who found an extra $809,000 for the Australia Council in response to Stage Crises Day (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 269). The difference was that Wilson’s funding was not earmarked for the companies of excellence. It had been an attempt to top up a ten per cent cut in the Theatre Board’s annual allocation. Bob McMullan, Minister for the Arts and Administrative Services in Keating’s second Cabinet (March 1993-January 1994), playfully explains this disjuncture between the Labor Party policy platform and Hawke’s behaviour in this instance:

I had a feeling that the Australian Opera used to implant something behind the ear of prime ministers, because I never remember Bob Hawke or John Howard having a single thing to do with Opera, but after they became Prime Minister they fell in love with it (Interview McMullan, 6th June 2017, p. 21).

I think that this disjuncture can be better understood by reference to O’Faircheallaigh’s assertion that the political imperative to grant favours to social elites is often behind a politician’s sponsorship of the arts (O’Faircheallaigh, 1999, p. 275).

These machinations triggered an enduring cleavage within Australia’s national arts advocacy coalitions. Brookman’s recollection is that they:

created a significant split within CAPPA, and that led to the demise of a broadly-based coalition of arts organisations from the majors through to the small and mediums (Interview 19th May 2017, p. 4).

Macdonnell believes that while CAPPA was broadly based it was this “universality” that was unable to deal with the “contradiction” between “the scales of organisations” and “the growing strength and interest in the community theatre movement... which came to be quite divisive” and diverted attention from “increasing the size of the cake” (Interview, 13th November, 2017, pp. 6-8). Macdonnell credits the redistributive policies of the Australia Council with causing these ructions (Macdonnell, 1992, pp. 12-13).

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This illustrates how the members of arts advocacy coalitions may have different interests and yet are often expected to maintain a united front. As Macdonnell argued in 1988: “if you fought over the division of the cake then you were acknowledging to government that the cake was sufficiently large.” (Macdonnell, 1992, pp. 7-8). I explore this point further in Chapter Eight. In the next section, in order to illustrate the impact of these cleavages on the policy core preferences, I examine the growing unease by Coalition and Labor Governments with arm’s length funding and peer review in the decade leading up to Creative Nation.

Policy core preferences: arm’s length funding and peer review The struggle for cultural hegemony in relation to policy core beliefs was won by the major performing arts organisations early in the Hawke Government. These companies, associated with social elites to whom politicians were inclined to grant favours, possessed a significant amount of social and political capital. The favours they received included in some cases significant financial increases and triennial funding. Some of these companies were quarantined from competition and peer review by shifting the management of their funding from the Council to the Department. As part of the national arts policy subsystem, the Government was willing to ignore the policy core preferences for peer review and arm’s length funding rather than risk one probable outcome of the Music and Theatre Board’s deliberations: the alienation of socially elite coalitions.

The value that the Hawke Government attached to the companies of excellence also outweighed the influence of ALP arts policy. The Government was unwilling to confront the financial and political implications of their party’s policy. The losers were those organisations asserting the policy core belief in access to the arts and the smaller companies trying to gain funding for contemporary and/or community based performing arts. When the issue was over the amount of money allocated to the Council the state theatre companies stood firm with the other, smaller, performing arts companies. When the issue became the redistribution of some of their funds to those smaller companies it was not in their interests to allow that to happen. This issue divided CAPPA (see Chapter Five) and created a cleavage within the arts advocacy coalitions which would re-ignite thirty years later (see Chapter Eight).

Following the return of the ALP to government, expectations were high in the arts policy subsystem that Labor’s promise to restore funding levels to the arts to the pre-Fraser levels would be honoured. From 1983-1986 the Council received a 40 per cent increase in funding. A custom had evolved that the Federal Arts Minister would write to the Council each year advising it how much money it would receive and “would also suggest, by prior mutual

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agreement, what to do with some of the money” (Horne, 2000, p.283). Cohen’s letter in relation to the 1984/5 budget included a direction that the “major performing arts companies of excellence are not placed in jeopardy”. The letter was leaked “from within the Australia Council” (Horne, 2000, p. 283) and the Council instructed the Boards to pass on the funding (a decision it later revoked). Horne, the Chair of the Council during this period, had this perspective on the situation:

the fundamentalists from the Boards were ...saying in effect: forget the government’s election pledge. Give the extra money to whoever the Boards choose. As councillors we believed in the Council’s ‘arm’s length’ independence from government, but in a parliamentary democracy there is also a sustaining belief about what is supposed to happen if the government has made an election promise: given this, if we tried to just take the money and run, the government would probably have removed from the Council the funding of the larger companies, and that might have begun the disintegration of the Council” (Horne, 2000, p. 280).

Horne’s concerns were prescient. This incident also consolidated the association between “companies of excellence...a term invented by Cohen or his advisors” according to Beal (Interview 18th May 2017, p. 7) and the policy core belief in excellence.

The Minister’s letter triggered the formation of the Arts Industry Alliance advocacy group and public protests (Beal interview 18th May 2017, p. 24), shifting the focus of some arts advocacy coalition members away from the issue of the quantum of funding and towards a campaign to protect the policy core preference of arm’s length funding. However, this campaign was unable to deflect the Government’s appetite for greater control over arts policy: an appetite which was fuelled in part by the recommendations of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure's Inquiry into Commonwealth Assistance to the Arts, chaired by Leo McLeay (Federal Labor MP 1979-2004).

The Inquiry Report was issued in 1986 (Commonwealth of Australia, 1986) and the recommendations implemented by Cohen included a review of the Australia Council’s structure, the introduction of specialised administration and triennial funding for the companies of excellence (Gardiner-Garden, 1994, pp. 226-30), and legislation to ensure greater ministerial control over the Council’s policy directions (Australia Council Act 1991, Clause 6B). The response from the arts policy subsystem to the McLeay Report was critical and public (Parsons, 1987), but could not prevent these recommendations from being implemented.

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Hawkins characterises the Inquiry’s commitment to access as “token” and argued that the “real beneficiaries...were the flagship companies” (Hawkins, 1993, p. 78).

As part of the 1990/91 Federal budget, David Simmons, Federal Arts Minister in Hawke’s fourth cabinet, transferred the Australian Opera funding from the Australia Council to DASET (Federal Department of Arts, Sport, Environment, Tourism and Territories) and granted the Opera an additional $1 million (Gardiner-Garden, 1994, p. 37). The Government showed its allegiance to the neo-patronage policy mode and an already powerful arts advocacy group was strengthened. The reaction from one arts advocacy coalition to Simmons’ actions was immediate. George Fairfax, the Chairman of Arts Action Australia, took strong exception to “the removal of the Australian Opera from the responsibility of the Australia Council” on the grounds that the Council’s decisions were “free from political interference on specific arts grants”. Fairfax pointed to the explicit double standard represented by this act:

by placing one organisation outside of the system, the Government is saying that peer- group assesment and arm’s length funding is good for some and not for all (Koch, 1990).

An Open Letter to Simmons signed by 90 arts organisations and artists and the Chair of the Australia Council’s Performing Arts Board appeared in the Weekend Australian (“An Open Letter”, 1990). Simmons justified his decision on the grounds that it “reflects the Government’s commitment to maintaining [the Australian Opera] as the full-time national opera company” (Koch, 1990). The Minister was referring to the financial difficulties that the Australian Opera had been facing since the late 1980s and an option floated that the Opera become a part-time company (Macdonnell, 1992, p. 365). Perhaps what the Minister was not saying was that the Government no longer trusted the Australia Council to provide sufficient funds to the Opera to prevent this from happening.

Two years later, Arts Action noted that funding for the Victorian State Orchestra and the Opera and Ballet Orchestras had been removed from the Australia Council to the Department (DASET) and “received major funding increases” The newsletter also notes that the funds available to the Australia Council for music were “14% of the Commonwealth music dollar” (Arts Action Update, 1992, p. 2). DASET was assuming more influence and control of arts funding. Journalist Sue Neales provides a rare insight into the backroom deals between arts organisations and politicians and reports that the advice from the Minister’s office in relation to the removal of the Opera from the Australia Council was based on:

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a professional and well-argued case was put to the Government by the Opera’s General Manager Donald McDonald and its board’s chairman, David Clarke, the Macquarie Bank chairman” (Neales, 1990).

Arts Action Australia’s view, as expressed by Travers, was that Tony Blunn, head of DASET and in Travers’ eyes “the most powerful arts bureaucrat” was also a member of the Australian Opera Board. She stated that Blunn was: “playing favourites with the Australian Opera” (Neales, 1990, November 30). This story reveals the importance of economic and political influence in political decision-making. I do not disregard McDonald’s ability to present a persuasive argument but the opportunity to do so can only come about through the exertion of influence: something that an arts organisation with powerful board members from the corporate and public service sectors was well able to muster.

The Hawke era was characterised by a Government making ad hoc decisions that more often than not honoured its own party’s arts policy in the breach, cleavages emerging in the arts advocacy coalitions between the large and smaller performing arts organisations, the demise of CAPPA, and an Opposition seeking the abolition of the Australia Council (Gardiner-Garden, 1994, pp. 35-36 and Horne, 2000, p. 291). In late 1989, Horne, at that time the Chair of the Australia Council (1985-1991), established a new arts advocacy coalition to provide leadership on national arts policy: Arts Action Australia (Travers interview, 1st April 2017, p. 1). I will now discuss its attempts and the attempts of other members of the national arts policy sub system to influence the beliefs informing Creative Nation during its three-year development.

Part Two: the development of Creative Nation

Keating and the arts sector: the woo and the wow! As Prime Minister, Keating assumed the role of advocate for a national arts policy and embarked on a deliberate program to woo the arts sector. In his first interview on the arts after becoming Prime Minister, he admitted that “A few of the troops...back in Canberra query the wisdom of coming among arty types” and assured his interviewer that his engagement with the arts sector was not motivated by a belief in the arts vote but by what he described as the “altruism” of his Government in wanting to get “the policy about the arts right” (Begbie, 1992, March 9). Keating was in Adelaide at the time of this interview and Brookman, at that time the Director of the Adelaide Festival, recalls:

We were in awe when he came to the Adelaide Festival in 1992 and his office got in touch with us...and said, the Prime Minister would like to throw a lunch during the

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festival, and he wants you to curate a room of 100 of the most interesting artists that are in and around the festival. He doesn't want any bureaucrats, he doesn't want politicians; he wants to be in a room with 100 really interesting artists. It was a pretty hot room I can tell you [laughs]...between all of the different people who were there for the festival...there were some international artists there, but the focus was mostly on Australian artists. He spoke with absolute passion and inspiration at that event (Interview, 19th May 2017 pp.16-17).

In 1992 Serow, who was working with the NSW Film and TV Office, attended Keating’s launch of Strictly Ballroom with her Liberal Arts Minister Peter Collins and recalls:

he was like a hero...I didn’t feel that we were there being political when we welcomed this man: he brings energy and made us feel like we counted and that our work counted and of course that magnifies into more work and more confidence...he gave the energy back. I think that’s what we have been lacking” (Interview, 7 April 2017, p. 11).

These seasoned arts directors and administrators recalled the impact that Keating’s enthusiasm for artists and the arts had on a sector that had been through turbulent times during the Fraser and Hawke administrations. Journalist Virginia Trioli and Michael Lynch, the General Manager of the Sydney Theatre Company and an active campaigner in Arts for Labor, each describe the mobilisation of the arts sector during the campaign for the 1993 election and the positive impact that this had on Keating’s morale (Gardener-Garden, 1994, p. 53; interview Lynch, 9th June 2017, pp. 3-4).

Brookman depicts these kinds of events as part of a calculated strategy to engage the arts sector in campaigning for Labor with “Keating’s campaign managers going out and seeking high profile individuals to be in support” rather than: “a whole lot of arts organisations or arts advocacy bodies getting together and saying we're going to run this campaign behind Paul Keating” (Interview, 19th May 2017 p. 16). Lynch recalls Keating thanking the arts sector for “helping him through the [Arts for Labor] campaign” (Interview, 9th June 2017, pp. 3-4).

Brookman interprets Keating’s engagement with the arts sector as a deliberate campaign strategy driven by “the troops back in Canberra”. Lynch’s perspective is that he is willing to mobilise his colleagues in the arts sector in support of Labor’s policies and their leader. McMullan dismisses the speculation around the arts vote: “it did not win us the election: other things did that” He believes that political parties “have hidden their enthusiasm for the arts because it's not seen as mainstream” but that the arts can be useful in influencing “people's perceptions of leaders and governments and oppositions, and that's an important element”

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(Interview 6th June 2017, pp. 2-3). Federal MP and former Shadow Minister for the Arts Mark Dreyfus (18/10/2014-23/7/2016) believes that people do not change their vote on the basis of a party’s “commitment to the arts...it's never been elevated to that level in the political debate” (Interview, Dreyfus, 26th May 2017, pp. 16-17).

These insider insights confirm the low political status of arts policy in Australia: it may be useful in promoting a particular image of a party or a party leader, and the mobilisation of the arts sector may be useful in boosting a politician’s morale, but the arts are not normally part of the political debate inside the parties or in the wider community. Also revealed is the readiness of arts advocacy coalitions to mobilise and be mobilised in support of a politician who can inspire them with his or her enthusiasm and commitment to the arts.

The insiders In this section I discuss the strategies and insights of some of the insiders involved in trying to shape Creative Nation. The key insiders, according to Lynch, were Keating’s advisers Don Russell, Craddock Morton, Don Watson, and Watsons’s partner Hilary McPhee. Lynch was involved in the development of Creative Nation, working alongside these key players (Interview, 9th June 2017, p. 3). McPhee was an Australian publisher and Australia Council Chair (February 1994 to June 1997). Here we gain an insight into the close network of policy advisors, friends and colleagues involved in this policy’s development. Lynch’s information implies a hierarchy of influence where political advisors were ranked highly (more generally see Maley, 2010). In my interview with McMullan I asked him what he expected of his political advisors. He responded that he demanded someone with the:

personality and the information and the contacts to do the job...I wanted them to be able to do two things; (1) know what was going on and (2) be able to represent my views in circumstances where I couldn't be involved...So it was both a listening and a speaking role (McMullan interview, 6th June 2017, p 4).

McMullan describes what Maley has observed; the critical role that advisors play in controlling information and access to the minister (Maley, 2010, p. 469).

As outlined above, some arts advocacy organisations were insiders by virtue of the economic and political status of their leaders. Arts Action Australia was one such organisation during this period. Horne’s relationship with Keating on national arts policy began in the early 1980s and recommenced in mid-1988. Horne recalls:

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Before I had left the Council I had sent him a letter about framing a ‘cultural policy’ which went wider than ‘the arts’...for a time I developed a new, if qualified, hope that he might be able to nurture a cultural policy (Horne, 2000, p. 299).

Arts Action Australia’s membership reads like a list of Australia’s rich and powerful at that time (Appendix 5.2). In 1992, Andrea Hull, who had had been Director of Policy and Research in the Australia Council prior to her appointment as the CEO of the Department for the Arts in Western Australia, commissioned a paper from Horne on his ideas on a national cultural policy. She did this in her capacity as a member of the Standing Committee for the Cultural Ministers Council (CMC). Horne recalls:

Tony Blunn, the head of the Department of the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories, had invited me to lunch to get my ideas for a discussion paper on cultural policy (Horne, 2000, p. 299).

Horne’s paper was presented to the CMC on the eighteenth of June 1992 and proposed that:

the Cultural Ministers Council can take a leadership role in this work [and] declare the aim of cultural development...as the overall concept for the CMC and to explain what the concerns of cultural development are (Horne 1992, p. 2).

Horne’s paper proposed a number of actions for the CMC including that they: acknowledge governments’ “responsibility to maintain and develop Australian culture”; set a target of 2 per cent of government income for cultural development by 2000; and establish a Commonwealth Ministry for Arts, Broadcasting and Cultural Development (Horne 1992, pp. 3-9). The tenor of Horne’s paper was that the state and Federal arts ministers should look beyond the interests of their portfolios constrained, in the case of the Federal minister, by federalism, and by the states’ parochial interests. Horne asked that they locate an arts policy within the broader context of a cultural policy and establish a government department with the mandate and the capacity to include the arts, broadcasting, and cultural development within its responsibilities. He also recommended the adoption of a rights-based approach to the policy core belief in access and that a Humanities Foundation be established.

The Department for the Arts’ accompanying report recommended that the CMC endorse the central role for CMC as proposed and that they should:

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assume a senior and authoritative position on matters that impact on cultural development in Australia acknowledging that this will traverse boundaries (Department for the Arts, 1992).

The Department’s paper also endorsed the charter of cultural rights and the assignment of “2% of Federal and State governments consolidated revenue funds...to expenditure on cultural development by the year 2000”. In a memo to Travers, Horne reported that his paper was supported by the Federal Arts Minister and the arts ministers from Western Australia and South Australia, but that the ministers from Tasmania and the ACT were hostile and the others “puzzled or uncertain” (Horne, 1992). While the Department appeared to support many of the ideas in Horne’s paper, and Keating did merge the Departments of Communications and the Arts, these attempts by Arts Action to raise the status of the arts through broadening the scope of its policy and administrative arrangements foundered. I suggest some reasons for this at the end of this chapter.

Arts Action employed other strategies that engaged the wider arts sector, including developing and distributing A National Agenda for the Arts in 1991 to stimulate discussion on what a national arts and cultural policy might look like. The policy core beliefs in this document emphasised access to the arts in physical, intellectual, and financial terms (Arts Action, 1991a). Another Arts Action strategy was to seek changes to the ALP’s Arts Platform, including a commitment to support a cultural policy statement and to strengthen commitments to funding and peer review. Following eighteen months of campaigning, on the twenty-fourth of June 1991, the ALP National Conference in Hobart adopted an addition to their Arts Platform (item number 14) to: “Develop and publish a national arts strategy, consistent with Labor’s social justice strategy, after consultation with the community” (Arts Action, 1991b; ‘Strategic Coup’, 1991).

Following the distribution of the Department’s Discussion Paper in April 1992, Arts Action organised forums to involve the arts sector in providing input to the policy:

in the days before internet there was no facility for reading everyone's views online...That was a frustrating thing. So Arts Action just set up public forums...in Sydney and...Melbourne...I am actually amazed to look at who spoke at them: Chair of the ABC Public Broadcasting Association, Crafts Council, Museum of Victoria, Australian Opera, Arts Council of Australia, Playbox Theatre, the Australian Film Commission...John Halfpenny, Victorian Trades Hall Council...in Sydney people from...DASET came to our Forum...Members of the general public who were interested in the arts turned up which was very unusual (Travers interview, 1st April 2017, p.10).

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It also ran events aimed at capturing the interest of the media and politicians including organising National Arts Week which involved addresses to the National Press Club, meetings with politicians in Canberra and an arts news item on SBS and the ABC every day during Arts Week (Travers interview April 2017, pp. 6-7). A postcard campaign had 20,000 citizens sending postcards asking for “continuing and... increased support for the arts in Australia” from all levels of government (O’Brien, 1991). Travers recalls:

I was able to write to every state arts minister to say we have received [postcards] from every electorate in Australia and here are some of the ones from your electorate” (Travers interview, April 1st, 2017, p. 7).

These strategies raised its media profile and its press conferences were attended by “all the mainstream media to hear what the arts were saying they wanted out of the...government” (Travers, Interview, 1st April 2017, p. 13).

There were also individuals operating as both insiders and outsiders. Some of them were those appointed to the Ministerial Advisory Panel in July 1992 by Keating and his third Minister for the Arts in his first Ministry, Wendy Fatin. They were:

Gillian Armstrong film-maker, Thea Astley novelist, Rodney Hall novelist, poet, Chair of Australia Council, Jenny Kee designer, Jill Kitson broadcaster, Michael Leslie director, choreographer, Graeme Murphy dancer, choreographer, director, Bruce Petty cartoonist, film-maker, Peter Spearritt Director, National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, Leo Schofield columnist, businessman (Fatin, 1992).

These creative people were well recognised in their fields and Graeme Murphy had influence with Keating, yet no report from the Advisory Panel was published (Horne, 2000, p. 300) although Creative Nation does state:

Creative Nation owes much to their work. A preamble to the cultural policy was prepared by the Panel prior to the last election. It is here reprinted. (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 3).

This Preamble stated the need for Australia to preserve its national identity and resist “homogenised international mass culture” and how culture must enter the “mainstream of federal policy-making” if this is to be achieved (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 5). It acknowledged the diversity of Australian culture due to a growing respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and immigration policies (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p.

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5). It framed what the Panel characterised as the dilemma between Australia’s egalitarian values and “honouring the talented few at the expense of many”. The Panel’s charter of cultural rights in which the Australian citizen is framed as a creative maker, an informed and engaged consumer and an active participant in Australian cultural life, if implemented could be interpreted as a means of addressing this dilemma (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 5-6). The Panel’s ideas, including the need for a new Ministry for culture with a seat in Cabinet, were too much for the authors of the final policy statement. In this sense these insiders were relegated to the outer realms. This is certainly indicated by the curious introduction to the Preamble: it is almost as if the authors of the policy were distancing themselves from the Preamble and from the Advisory Panel.

In addition to the Panel members another person in this ambiguous situation was Lynch. He was appointed General Manager of the Australia Council in August 1994, a few weeks before the release of Creative Nation. Lynch believed that the Australia Council failed to effectively monitor or engage with the policy’s development in Canberra and he was determined to “ensure that we were a player in that” (Interview, 9th June 2017, p. 5). Here we can detect the concern of an insider, now working for an organisation on the margins of the policy’s development, continuing his efforts to influence the policy. He also refers to another key player: “I suppose you never quite knew where it was being done in the Arts Department, the Canberra side of it” (Interview, 9th June 2017, p. 4). Here Lynch is comparing his experience of working with the insiders in Keating’s office to his unease about the intentions of the Department in relation to Creative Nation.

The Commonwealth Department of the Arts Cathy Santamaria was Acting Deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of the Arts during the policy’s development and provides an overview of her Department’s involvement in the development of Creative Nation. She described her Department’s engagement with “submissions, public consultations, less formal discussions, commissioned papers and some commissioned research” (Santamaria, 1994, p. 9).

With her description of the research contracted for Creative Nation, Santamaria provides some insights into how parts of this policy had been shaped by one such study:

using Michael Porter’s value chain... [it] concluded that most government support had been directed to the production of cultural goods and services rather than to their distribution (Santamaria, 1994, p. 8).

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She says that this study “was critical in developing the policy framework for the industry framework announced in Distinctly Australian”, the ALP’s policy platform for the arts prior to the 1993 election (Santamaria, 1994, p. 8), that reappears in the policy itself (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 60-63). The influence of this study is also apparent in the policy’s instructions to the Australia Council that it put less emphasis on funding the “supply” side of the arts and more on stimulating the demand “from arts consumers” (Santamaria, 1994, p. 8). The Department sought the advice of other scholars to help develop ideas for digital initiatives and commissioned the University of Technology Sydney to provide a “preliminary study on new technologies” which may have informed the policy’s digital initiatives (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 39-41). Throsby notes that at a government forum organised by the Department for the Arts several months before the release of Creative Nation:

Researchers, government officials and representatives of arts and cultural organisations talked in glowing terms about expanding prospects for the creative industries in the Australian economy and about how government policy could facilitate their growth (Throsby, 2008, p. 3).

Following the merger of the Communications and Arts portfolios in January 1994, Santamaria relates that the Department had informal discussions with communications scholars to learn more about their perspective on cultural policy. Santamaria also refers to “the significant role played pre-eminently perhaps by Donald Horne” over several years in volunteering his advice to the Department (Santamaria, 1994, p. 9). Santamaria makes it clear that a wide range of scholars, researchers, arts administrators, and artists were involved at her Department’s instigation in research and discussions, and that some of these discussions were held privately. In some instances, the influence of that research and those discussions in the final policy is clear (Santamaria, 1994, p. 9). She provides no insight into the extent to which the Australia Council was included in those discussions, although Lynch’s perspective as the Council’s General Manager was that it was not significantly engaged.

One of the main ways in which the Department gained input into the policy was through soliciting responses to its Discussion Paper (DASET, 1992 a). The Paper raised a series of questions about funding priorities and policy core beliefs of excellence and access but did little to resolve them or to provide an indication of how the policy might be framed. The Paper was rich in non sequiturs. As Australian arts scholar Peter Mathews stated in his response to the Paper, DASET “readily accepted the mantle for Cultural Development Policy” restricting its focus on its current responsibilities for arts development, “on the basis that the titles are interchangeable” (Mathews, 1992, p. 49).

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The Department’s interpretation of the policy core belief in access appeared to support audience development, which they seemed to understand as “participation” (DASET, 1962 a, p. 7). They implied that support for measures to improve access compromise the resources available to excellence. (DASET, 1992 a, p. 8). They described how they facilitated access to cultural artefacts through Commonwealth programs that underwrite the costs of international and local travelling exhibitions (DASET, 1992 a, pp.11-12). They recognised the issue of geographical barriers to access and proposed touring and outreach programs by collecting institutions to overcome these (DASET, 1992 a, pp.12-13). They acknowledged the role of Australian citizens as “creators, audiences, participants and consumers” (DASET, 1992 a, p. 7) but provided no information on how these roles might be supported, apart from a brief mention of the “participation” activities of the Australia Council’s Community Cultural Development Board (DASET, 1992 a, p. 11).

The Paper claimed that the Government’s commitment to “the values of creativity and excellence” had helped Australians better understand and express themselves (DASET, 1992 a, p. 14) but distinguished between professional activities on the one hand and voluntary, amateur and school based activities on the other. The Paper justified excluding amateurs and schools from government arts funding on the grounds that they enjoyed indirect support through the taxation system and that “cultural policy should not be too directive” (DASET, 1992 a, p. 15). The Paper seemed to suggest that voluntary, amateur, and school based activities were attempts to emulate “the values of creativity and excellence”, exemplified by the Canon and evident in the activities funded by the Australia Council. It failed to acknowledge the diverse range of cultural traditions and creative genres with which these non-professional citizens were engaged. One hundred and seventy-seven responses to the Discussion Paper were received (DASET, 1992 b). I was able to obtain seven complete versions of these submissions. Four of these used a democratic interpretation of access. (Mercer, 1992; Williams, 1992; Crampton, 1992; and Horne, 1992). These democratic interpretations of access were not evident in the final policy statement.

The Paper’s questioning of “an over-emphasis on excellence” seemed to refer to the balance between support for new art and the reinterpretation of the Canon (DASET, 1991, pp. 15-16). The Paper encouraged the reader to examine what was meant by the term excellence and to consider its implications:

the tendency to privilege traditional artforms over other arts practices, to endorse the arbiter’s “good taste” over the tastes and values of the community, to emphasise

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product over community involvement and to value the esoteric over the accessible and the subsidised over the commercial (DASET, 1991, p.16).

Rowse’s rejection of a single ladder of excellence as nonsense in a pluralist society was cited but not addressed in any argument (DASET, 1991, p. 18). In the section on diversity, cultural pluralism was acknowledged as a cultural right (DASET, 1991, p. 19), but the Australia Council’s policies in this regard were not critiqued. Instead the Paper asked whether the Council’s policies were “responsive enough?’’ to Australia’s cultural diversity (DASET, 1991, p.21). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were included as cultural creators in the section on diversity. The bulk of this section was preoccupied with dithering between the industry development approach adopted by ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Commission) and the patronage role of the Australia Council (DASET, 1992 a, p. 20). Responses to the Discussion Paper which addressed diversity included Arts Action Australia (Horne, 1992), two scholars (Mercer, 1992; Crampton, 1992) and the National Community Arts Network (Williams, 1992) Their pluralist interpretations of excellence were not reflected in Creative Nation. Fourteen organisations whose primary focus was on multiculturalism or whose work involved working with diverse communities also made submissions (DASET, 1992 b).

In the Discussion Paper there were two references to the policy core preferences, both within the section on Creativity and Excellence (DASET, 1992, a, pp. 14-18). The Paper critiqued the peer review process as providing “only one arbiter of taste” the solution to which they suggested was a diversification of funding sources (DASET, 1992 a, p. 16). This argument re- emerged as the rationale put forward by Brandis for his transfer of funds from the Council to his Department in 2015 (see Chapter Eight).

The Paper proposed a range of other mechanisms for funding such as tax deductions, and industry development programs, restricting direct support to “excellence, with grants becoming more generous and less numerous” (DASET, 1992, p. 17). The cultural industries option for Commonwealth Government support for the arts offered an alternative to the direct support model and the patronage policy mode. In Part Three of this chapter I discuss which of these policy approaches to arts funding made it through to the policy statement.

That the Keating Government wanted to reform the Australia Council’s structure and peer assesment processes was implied in the Discussion Paper, but their intent was explicitly revealed in an early draft of this policy prepared by DASET and distributed after the announcement of the 1993 election. It provided:

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enough indication...to make artists aware that the role and the independence of the...Australia Council was at risk...the arts community closed ranks to defend the most sacred principles enshrined in the Council – being at arm’s length from government and giving knowledgeable peers the role of assessing quality and performance...the Government heeded the views and subsequent drafts had the offending sections removed. (Fairfax, 1993).

This statement by George Fairfax, Chair of Arts Action Australia, indicates some of the tensions between the arts sector and a Government apparently intent on changing the status of the Council. It also provides insight into the symbolic and “sacred” significance of the Council to that sector, or parts of it, as an embodiment of the policy core preferences of arm’s length funding and peer review.

Writing the policy statement The Advocacy Coalition Framework assumes that public policymaking is not only the work of the government decision-makers. In this instance, however, there was:

an interventionist Prime Minister across the policy spectrum and almost nowhere was he more opinionated or more passionate than on the arts (O’Brien, 2015, p. 688).

I am not suggesting here that the ACF is mistaken in its emphasis on the numerous parties shaping public policy. The ACF acknowledges that it is the coalitions with the most actors with formal policymaking authority that become dominant (Sabatier, 2007, pp. 201-203). How much of the document came from Keating? McMullan believes that: “the real architect of it was Paul... it had many parents, but it began and ended with Paul” (Interview, 6th June 2017, pp. 1-2). Australian author and journalist Kerry O’Brien states: “Creative Nation had Keating’s fingerprints all over it” (O’Brien, 2015, p. 689). Keating’s response to O’Brien’s question “how much of the document came from you?” was:

Well a large part of it was me because I always believed the arts were central to a society like ours...the creativity of the arts and also the performance within the arts where we try to get near the sublime, were things I thought the country needed and was entitled to (O’Brien, 2015, pp. 690-691).

In Part Three of this chapter I detail some of the decisions Keating made in relation to his arts policy and the funding associated with it to ensure that Creative Nation reflected his beliefs and aesthetic preferences. Keating is recognised as creating a policy which was also

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economic in its focus. Don Watson, Australian academic historian, author, and speech writer and advisor to Keating, describes how Keating:

right on the deadline to finish the Creative Nation statement at 1.30 in the morning...phoned me back and read out to me a long section on the new media which he had just written...no one in the office or department could’ve written the section better (O’Brien, 2015, p. 693).

Lynch, who was also working on the policy statement, recalls that although it “had been developed very much with input from all sorts of players it was being done in the Prime Minister’s office” (Interview, 9 June 2017, p. 4). Travers’ believed that both the Department and the Prime Minister’s Office were involved. She describes the “political rush in the office with the advisers that kind of pushes it all in a direction” the long term and last minute lobbying by individuals and organisations and then “That rush when they are just finalising it all in the Department I think that is where things fall down a lot” (Interview 1 April, 2017, p. 11). She concludes that “There is somehow not quite a mechanism, everything is higgledy piggledy in politics - it's not that neat”. Travers is disappointed that Arts Action’s ideas were not reflected in the policy, particularly in the light of her belief that they were ideas that “Cathy Santamaria would have agreed with” (Interview, 1st April 2017, p. 12). She attributes these omissions to the lack of a systematic approach in the final rush to finalise and release the policy. Although each of these perspectives provides different interpretations of how the policy was written, they all share a sense of everyone working right up to the wire.

Part Three: Creative Nation and policy core beliefs The emphasis given to the policy core value of excellence in Creative Nation overshadows that given to access. Despite the policy’s incursion into a creative industry development framework, the overriding emphasis of the policy statement reflects the priorities of the Prime Minister and the patronage policy mode.

Creative Nation begins with a statement on “the twin goals of democracy and excellence”:

Because culture reflects and serves both the collective and the individual need, because it at once assures us of who we are and inspires us with intimations of the heights we might reach, this cultural policy pursues the twin goals of democracy and excellence. It will make the arts and our intellectual and cultural life and heritage more accessible to all. And it will help to create the conditions under which the finest expressions of our creativity can be reached and enjoyed. The ultimate aim of this

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cultural policy is to enrich the people of Australia (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 1).

Many in the arts policy subsystem frame the terms access and excellence in terms of binary opposition and this was reflected in the Discussion Paper (DASET, 1992 a, p. 8). This introductory statement avoids this construction and this position is reflected throughout the document.

Access When describing the role of the Commonwealth in the arts, one of five objectives articulated in Creative Nation is “the widest enjoyment of the arts, and the widest involvement in them” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 13). This involvement is interpreted throughout the document as giving:

all Australians...a chance to participate and receive - that we invigorate the national life and return its product to the people (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 6).

This statement implies that participation involves receiving cultural product rather than making it. The policy did favour distributive and educational interpretations of access, including touring. These interpretations of access assume that artists and/or arts organisations do not exist in some parts of Australia. The initiatives funded in the policy enabled Opera Australia and Musica Viva to travel to all states (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 16-18). The policy also noted the role of technology in improving access and developing niche and mass audiences through the provision of television and radio simulcasts of Australian Opera performances (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 18). The policy allocated funds to provide national cultural institutions with the tools to distribute images of their collections, via CD ROM, to all primary and secondary schools (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 44). These were each distributive interpretations of access. Emphasis was also put on education and the Australia Council was exhorted to work “closely with schools and post-secondary institutions” in order to foster an understanding of Australia’s cultural traditions (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p.9).

The policy recognised the role that community radio and television have in providing access to programs which are specific to a locale, culture or niche interest. The policy provided funding to “support access to broadcasting for Indigenous Australians, ethnic communities and the print handicapped” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 38). This was another distributive interpretation of access that acknowledged other cultural traditions. Creative

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Nation also recognised this diversity in an institutional sense through its support for SBS and Aboriginal radio but seemed at a loss on how else to support diversity. The essentially mono- cultural focus of Creative Nation appeared to overlook the 30 years of policy on multiculturalism promulgated by the Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke Governments. Cultural policy on multiculturalism was evident in the Australia Council (Australia Council, 1993). Similarly, the policy’s emphasis on a distributive interpretation of the core policy value of access, an interpretation that framed citizens as consumers, falls far short of the cultural rights articulated in the charter developed by the Advisory Panel.

Excellence Keating explains Creative Nation as having a focus on “financial support for and refurbishment of the traditional artistic institutions” (O’ Brien, 2015, p. 694). The core policy belief in excellence had become associated with the companies of excellence. The policy statement, and the administrative arrangements it specified for these companies, set them apart from the rest of the arts sector. The policy established a Major Organisations Board as part of the Australia Council. The rationale for this was to:

address the underlying financial difficulties of...major companies and... obviate the need for ad hoc requests for assistance from the Government (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 11).

Owing to their status as “significant business enterprises” they were provided with three-year funding and some additional funds to get them out of “current financial difficulties” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 11

In McMullan’s view, these larger organisations “have a special place” and his interpretation of this initiative was that their scale of operation made them incomparable to smaller companies and therefore less in need of bureaucratic surveillance. He believed that if they received funding they could look after themselves. The establishment of the Major Organisations Board was more “about reallocation of bureaucratic and ministerial time.” (Interview, 6 h June 2017, pp. 7-9). McMullan’s perspective seems plausible; however, he overlooks the actions of the Fraser and Hawke Governments quarantining these companies from competition for funds. In this context it is mistaken of him to claim that the money is a different issue, when it had been at the heart of the issue for over a decade.

Lynch’s perspective is that the Major Organisations Board was established: “as a way of stopping the stupid competition between what was going on with that major group of

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companies and...the rest of the available arts funding” (Lynch interview, 9th June 2017, p. 5). Lynch described that the intention was to end the disruption to the Boards’ budgets by regular requests from some of the larger performing arts companies for top ups to their annual grant funds which diverted funds from smaller companies. He interpreted the special funding arrangements and the three-year funding commitment as a trade-off for the embargo on them requesting bail outs in the future. Lynch’s view is at odds with McMullan’s and Lynch also challenges McMullan’s view of the administrative competence of the major performing arts companies: “what we discovered is that...barely any of them had a business plan” (Interview, 9th June 2017, p.6).

Keating’s ambitions for the “refurbishment of traditional artistic institutions” did not stop with the establishment of the Major Performing Arts Board. As I describe in Chapter Three, in Creative Nation he set out to transform Australia’s symphony orchestras (O’Brien, 2015, p. 694). Their separation from the ABC was accompanied with a 25 percent increase in funding. Additional funding to the Opera and Ballet Orchestras was also provided. Keating argued that “Without that kind of...direct patronage from the Prime Minister I don’t think these things would have happened” (O’Brien, 2015, p. 694). This was not Keating’s first experience of behaving in what O’Brien describes as a manner “a bit Medici-like” (O’Brien, 2015, 694). Keating explains how when he was Treasurer he found, after a chat with the General Manager for Opera Australia and the Artistic Director of the Sydney Dance Company, $250,000 and $130,000 for them respectively. He explains:

The money was critical to the companies; it was never wasted. They had no chance of getting big financial sponsorship like the sports codes – in a pinch they only had the Commonwealth to help them (O’Brien, 2015, pp. 695-696).

These initiatives make it clear that the authors of Creative Nation were comfortable with the patronage policy mode and with an interpretation of excellence which was wedded to the companies of excellence. Keating’s anecdotes demonstrate his commitment to arts patronage and make clear the benefits of being an insider artistic director or arts administrator. How did this interventionist policy entrepreneurialism translate into Creative Nation’s approach to the policy core preferences for arm’s length funding and peer review?

Creative Nation and arm’s length funding and peer review Buried in the policy document is a reference to the Australian Cultural Development Office described as the body that provided policy advice to the Minister and was the conduit for direct line funding to several arts companies and training institutions. No reference is made to the

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Australia Council’s statutory role as policy advisor to the Government (see Appendix 7.5) but attention is directed to the fact that Commonwealth financial support is: “dominated by funding to the Australia Council” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 6-7). This statement appears to signal unease with the Council’s autonomy and funding base. From his time as General Manager of the Australia Council, Lynch has this perspective on the Department: “through those years that I was there, the Department would try and move in, in various ways”. Lynch believes that the Department saw the development of Creative Nation as an opportunity to “try and claw back” into the Department money and functions from the Council. He also believes that this intention has endured to the present: “I think the ideological through-line is there right up to Brandis where there were people there who just said, we can do this better notwithstanding” (Lynch interview, 9th June 2017, pp.12-13). McMullan’s perspective on this jockeying for power between Departments and statutory authorities is: “It's a routine matter of public administration that there's always that sort of tension” (McMullan interview, 6 h June 2017, p. 18). This tension was about to play itself out in the demand for another restructure of the Council.

Creative Nation signalled its authors’ distaste for the Council’s system of peer review on the grounds of its inefficiency, lack of cost-effectiveness and the criteria used to select peers (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 9). However, the Government wanted more than a review of peer assessment. It was demanding a restructure of the Australia Council in order to: “break down the existing rigidities between the art form Boards...an across Board approach is needed” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p.9). The use of a cost-benefit argument against peer review is characteristic of managerialism’s approach to administration. The restructure can equally be interpreted as a continuation of governments’ distrust in the Council’s ability to control the funding priorities of their Boards. The policy’s justification for an “across Board approach” is less reactive or formulaic as new and hybrid artforms were emerging that were finding it difficult to accommodate the Council’s essentially nineteenth century approach to creative genres (Gallasch, 2005).

Creative Nation: the aftermath

Cultural policy can have a short life. The Keating Government was ousted, and John Howard became Prime Minister of a Coalition Government on the eleventh of March 1996, 14 months after Creative Nation’s launch. Very few of the policy’s initiatives survived this event:

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with these things you need time for them to take hold, to get into people’s minds and so on and really to grab. That doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t even happen in a year. So there was a process by which Creative Nation was gradually being unfolded, but it was nipped in the bud when the election came around. That was really where it stopped … once governments change, they don’t carry on with a policy of the previous government. That was certainly one that just got junked straightaway (Throsby interview, 24th May 2017, p. 4).

Here Throsby is asserting the volatility of cultural policy. There have been instances when Australian governments have continued the cultural policies established by their opponents. Whitlam followed through on Holt’s commitment to create the Australia Council and Fraser ensured that the necessary legislation developed by Coombs and Whitlam was enacted. The policy framework for the major performing arts organisations has had the multi-lateral support of all Federal and State governments for twenty years. And not all Creative Nation’s initiatives were buried. The restructure of the Australia Council continued.

It is probable that the impetus for the Keating Government’s instructions to the Council to review its structure were prompted in part by criticisms of the Council during the early 1990s. These were led by The Australia Council Reform Association (Interview Lynch, 9th June 2017, p. 11). This pattern of public criticism and the urge to reform and/or sideline the Australia Council was prevalent during the Howard and Abbott Governments, reappeared during the development of the Crean policy, and is credited by some with triggering the Brandis intervention (see Chapters Seven and Eight).

The review was conducted by the Australia Council under the leadership of McPhee and Lynch. Lynch’s perspective is that the restructure was addressing the fact that: “the boards were very dominant...that people worked for the boards rather than worked for the Council or worked for the government” which is consistent with my remarks in Chapter Four on the arts sector’s perception that the Boards were their representatives. Lynch felt that the Boards needed to be brought under control and that: “the Council itself...needed to be a more strategic body” (Interview Lynch, 9th June 2017, pp. 22-23). As the “heady days of ’94 were replaced by...real concerns through ’95” Lynch was also concerned to:

get the organisation into some sort of shape to be able to deal with the Libs [who] had been out of power for quite some time so it was not going to be an easy time (Interview, 9th June 2017, pp. 22-23).

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As the prospect of a change of government became more likely, Lynch’s perspective on the rationale for the changes within the Council shifted, with less focus on strategy and more on the tactics needed to survive perceived threats to its survival.

There was a vigorous debate between the arts advocacy coalitions and McPhee concerning her proposal to “de-fang peer assesment’ (Gallasch interview, 16th June 2017, p. 4). In the end the Boards, renamed as Funds, continued to operate and appointments were made to them by the Council on the Funds’ recommendations. The exceptions to this were the Fund Chairs who were appointed by the Minister to the Council’s governing body. Each Fund had a subcommittee of peers to assess grant applications. In line with the edicts in Creative Nation, the assessments of funding for the major performing arts organisations were made outside of the art form-based Funds by the Major Performing Arts Fund with its own administrative team.

A new paradigm for cultural policy?

Creative Nation was clearly in Keating’s image. It had one big idea: creative industries. The influence of the arts advocacy coalitions on Creative Nation are evident only where they coincided with Keating’s own vision for the “financial support and refurbishment of the traditional artistic institutions” (O’Brien, 2015, p. 694).Insider analysis of the mobilisations of the arts sector associated with the lead up to the 1993 election concluded that the arts were not part of the political debate inside the parties or in the wider community; thereby confirming the low political and policy status of the arts at the national level. The insights gained into the policy-making process demonstrate the hierarchy of influence exerted by Keating, his advisors, and the Department, each acting as a mediator and controller of the information solicited, analysed, included, or discarded. Suggestions by members of the arts advocacy coalitions to broaden the remit and status of the policy’s scope and the administrative arrangements for the arts to embrace a broader cultural portfolio (Horne, 1992) were edited out. As were the Advisory Panel’s introduction of a charter of cultural rights, with its implications for cultural pluralism and cultural democracy, permitted only a quarantined place in the policy statement. Neo-liberalism’s influence on the shaping of this policy is evident in its instrumentalism and the relegation of Australian cultural citizens to the role of consumers rather than active participants and creators. The Panel’s ideas about what it meant to be an Australian and Australian’s sense of place were also edited out in favour of an arcane image of an Anglo-Celtic tradition as the basis for Australia’s values.

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Santamaria’s statements confirm that formal and informal representations were made to the Department during the policy’s development (1994, p. 9). It is also clear from Keating’s statements that he was accessible to representatives of the major performing arts organisations while he was Treasurer (O’Brien, 2015, pp. 695-696), so it is not unreasonable to assume that this contact continued during his Prime Ministership. Lynch had a key role in crafting the development of the Major Organisations Board during his time as General Manager of the Sydney Theatre Company and then as General Manager of the Australia Council. (Interview, 9th June 2017, pp.4-7). The policy included Horne’s idea (Horne, 1992) to establish the Foundation for Australian Cultural Development (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 12-13).

In the context of the Australian arts policy subsystem of the time the idea of Creative Nation was radical. It appeared willing to explore a fuller spectrum of creative endeavour than nineteenth century artforms and permit the conceptualisation of and support for the cultural development sector alongside the patronage policy mode. In its entirety, the policy relied on patronage and doled out funds largely to established companies reproducing the Canon and reflecting the Prime Minister’s personal cultural preferences. The suggestions in the Discussion Paper to invest in creative industries were picked up in Creative Nation which sketched out the rudiments of a creative industries development policy and reserved funds to kick-start this initiative. The opportunity to develop this initiative was thwarted by the rejection of Creative Nation by the new Coalition government.

During the struggles for cultural hegemony over the policy beliefs the “sacred” significance of the Australia Council and its important role as the embodiment of the policy preferences for peer review and arm’s length funding were manifested. This was set against the growing distrust by governments of the Council’s ability to control their Boards and ensure support for the demands of the companies of excellence, which led to the establishment of an enduring structural financial advantage for these companies. Limits were also placed on the Council’s policy autonomy and the Boards’ status diminished.

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Chapter Seven: Creative Australia

Federal Arts Minister Simon Crean and his staff had ambitions to create a rational and national whole-of-government policy that would bring arts and cultural policy in from the margins of public policymaking. This chapter provides insights into policymaking and the courage, skill and stamina required: it is not for the faint hearted.

I argue that mediators played a significant role in this policy’s development as with Creative Nation (see Chapter Six). By mediators I mean the Minister’s advisors, other expert advisors appointed by Minister Crean, and the Department. I argue that federalism and the impact of managerialism on the administrative arm of the government compromised the capacity of the Office for the Arts to respond to the demands for a whole-of-government policy framework.

The chapter is in three parts. In Part One, I provide background information on the arts policy context in the period leading up to Creative Australia and the interactions between arts advocacy coalitions and the Coalition Government. In Part Two, I provide details of the policymaking process; the different players and the various stages the policy went through. I analyse the struggles that took place over different interpretations of the policy core beliefs and the policy preferences during the evolution of the policy and present arguments in support of my assesment of what caused these differences. In Part Three, I explore some of the constraints on the policy development process and whether these provide insights into why some ideas around the policy core beliefs and policy preferences made it into the policy and others did not. The policy did recognise the unique cultural significance of First Nations’ culture. The cultural pluralism reflected in Australia’s immigrant communities was not recognised. The policy supported arts education as a key strategy to improve access to cultural experiences and artefacts. It did not extend the role of the Australian cultural citizen to include creative production.

Part One: background

New Public Management and the culture wars Fourteen months after Creative Nation’s launch the Coalition Government renounced the policy. However, the Coalition did support another initiative of the Labor Government: its adoption of managerialism (Halligan & Power, 1992, p. 244).

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This period was also characterised by what are known as the culture wars: prompted by the willingness of the adherents of neo-liberalism to allow populism to frame public attitudes and focus attention on groups identified as elite (Battin, 2012, p. 301 and Johnson, 2000, pp. 63- 66). This had a significant impact on the arts sector during the Howard and Abbott Governments (Marr, 2005; and Davis, 2016) and increased the vulnerability of the Australia Council. Lynch describes this period:

it was tricky times...’96 was really hard. I think it was pretty clear at that point the Council was being stacked in ways that were really reprehensible...it was a horrible group (Interview, 19th June 2017, p. 9-10).

Appointments to the Council were made by the Arts Minister. Of this period Gardiner-Garden observes the Prime Minister’s: “willingness to become personally involved in arts appointments” (2009, p, 46). He described how this: “made Prime Minister Howard look as if he was trying to reorient some of Australia’s leading cultural institutions” (Gardiner-Garden, 2009, p. 55-56).

Lynch describes how people who had been “long term critics” of the Australia Council, like the journalists Christopher Pearson and Frank Devine, were appointed to the Council and to its Boards. They were disruptive influences and “there was a sense that that would serve the new government’s agenda” (Lynch interview, 19th June 2017, p. 9-10). The Howard Government also demonstrated a willingness to invest in certain parts of the arts sector.

New priorities in the arts The election of the Howard Government in 1996 saw a shift in priorities towards rural and regional Australia, with the establishment of the Regional Arts Fund (Gardiner –Garden, 1999, p. 32). Ken Lloyd, secretary of Regional Arts Australia (RAA), describes how it became an influential arts advocacy organisation through the combination of receptive arts ministers (Peter McGauran, 1998-2001 and Rod Kemp, 2001-October 2004) and an influential National President (Nicky Downer, the wife of Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs 1996- 2007). This made for “the best four and a half years of Regional Arts Australia’s life” (Lloyd interview, 23rd May 2017, p. 3). Lloyd describes the access that this gave him to Parliament House and to senior politicians. RAA gained the support of Minister Rod Kemp, whom Lloyd describes as “the best minister. He had a real empathy with the regional arts sector” (Interview, 23rd May 2017 p. 4, original emphasis). Kemp supported the major funding initiatives RAA had prepared for 2004/05 budget but retired before these proposals could be included. The new Arts Minister, Brandis, did not support them (Lloyd interview, 23rd May 2017, p, 5). This story

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illustrates the serendipity of the right combination of people at the right time and the impact that this can have on the fortunes of an arts advocacy organisation and its constituents. It also demonstrates how this alignment can be threatened by a change of minister.

The other significant policy shift was the emphasis on “policy by review” (Throsby, 2006), which was an important step in institutionalising the neo-patronage arts policy mode. The ground for this had been laid in the Keating-directed establishment of the Major Organisations Board of the Australia Council. Between 1998 and 2005, five reviews were held. The first of these was the Major Performing Arts Inquiry (DOCITA, 1999). This review’s objectives were to determine what needed to be done in order to ensure the financial health, artistic vibrancy and broad accessibility of the 31 organisations that were the subject of the inquiry (DOCITA, 1999). In 2001, a Contemporary Visual Arts and Craft Inquiry was announced, and its brief was broader than the investigation into the major performing arts companies: requiring investigation into the whole of the contemporary visual arts and craft sector (Commonwealth of Australia 2002, p. 5). A recommendation of the Major Performing Arts Inquiry meant the orchestras were reviewed next. The brief was to look at their overall sustainability and the report recommended that steps be taken to reduce the size of the orchestras in South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland (DOCITA, 2005, p. 95), This recommendation proved to be politically unacceptable. These three reviews resulted in increases of $88.2 million in the funding allocated to the major performing arts organisations (including the orchestras) and the contemporary visual arts and craft sector. The influence on arts policy by the philanthropists and corporate directors appointed to lead these three reviews, Dr Helen Nugent, Rupert Myer and James Strong was clear (Appendix 7.1).

In 2000, the Cultural Ministers Council affirmed the “pivotal contribution of small-to-medium sized arts organisations to the cultural vitality and diversity of Australia” and agreed to an inquiry by government officials. Its report made a case for increased funds and improved continuity of funding for this part of the sector, but these were not forthcoming (Gardiner- Garden, 2009, p. 51-56). In 2004, Dr. Brendan Nelson, the Federal Minister for Education, launched the National Review of School Music Education. There were 5,936 submissions to the Review from individuals and groups (Pascoe, 2005). The report recognised the need for leadership and action in federal and state/territory government jurisdictions to overcome the lack of access and equity in the provision of music education in schools (Pascoe, 2005, pp. xi-xii) but this leadership did not eventuate (Pascoe, 2005, p. xi; Gardiner-Garden, 1999, p. 56-57 (See Appendix 7.1 for a more complete description of each of these reviews).

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Why did the reviews into the major performing arts organisations, contemporary arts and craft and the state orchestras lead to increased funding? Why did the reviews into the small-to- medium arts organisations and arts education in schools fail to lead to more funding? This could be due to the economic and political capital of Nugent, Myer and Strong and, in the case of the orchestra review, also by the political uproar triggered by its recommendations to reduce the size of some state orchestras. The review of small to medium companies was undertaken by government officials, so perhaps it was their lack of sufficient political and social capital that explains the failure of this review to gain traction. The review into arts education was conducted by eminent scholars and Nelson was Minister for Education until 2006, but the momentum for reform did not eventuate.

The pressure on funding in the Australia Council triggered another (internal) review. The New Media Board and the Community Cultural Development Board (CCDB) were abolished by Coalition Arts Minister Rod Kemp in 2005 on advice from the Australia Council. There are differing interpretations of what caused this. Australian Author and journalist David Marr attributed this to the Howard Government’s anger at these Boards’ support for projects critical of the Government’s policies (Marr, 2005, p.1). Anne Dunn, former Deputy Chair of the Australia Council (1998-1991) drew a different conclusion after her meeting with the Council Chair David Gonski, and Adam Lewis, a Council member, who had led the review process. While she did not dismiss any political motive, she was not aware of any. Her understanding was that the Council: “wanted to have some strategic money that could be used to pursue a range of cross-board functions and... have more impact”. The Council had decided to take this money from these two Boards and, in the case of the CCDB, the grounds were “what the CCDB was doing was not art...this is art as a tool, not art to create art and culture in Australia. Mind you I don’t know that they used the word culture” (Interview, Dunn, 22nd May 2017, p. 7- 12). Gallasch believes that the Council was not alone in wanting more money and that the Visual Arts and Performing Arts Boards wanted their money back:

when the New Media Arts Board money was taken away from the other art forms, they lost a million or two each or something like that, there was a lot of upset...the feeling was still there (Gallasch interview, 16th June 2017, p. 6).

The CCDB, in its earlier iteration as the Community Arts Board, had been established in 1978 at the instigation of Tony Staley, the minister assisting Prime Minister Fraser in the arts. It was a consequence of Staley’s recognition of the need to have a mechanism within the Council to address its statutory responsibility to promote access and participation in the arts (Hull, 1983, pp. 318-319). The New Media Board had been established in 1996 (Gallasch, 2005, p. 1) at

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the instigation of Keating. His policy’s injunction was that “the Australia Council should continue to break down the existing rigidities between the art form Boards” which made it difficult for emerging hybrid and new media artists to obtain funding from the Council .Creative Nation also urged the Council to be active in facilitating artists’ participation in the rapidly developing new media world (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, pp. 9-10). The establishment of both boards also involved significant mobilisation of arts advocacy coalitions. In recommending the removal of these two Boards, the Council dismantled mechanisms established to promote and support cultural democracy and cultural pluralism, in the case of the CCDB, and new hybrid and digital artforms, in the case of the New Media Board.

These decisions signalled not only the cultural hegemony of traditional interpretations of excellence, but an interpretation of that policy core belief that excluded significant parts of the contemporary arts sector. Arts advocacy coalitions mobilised (Gallasch, 2005, pp. 1-2), including people associated with Real Time Magazine and the Performance Space in the case of New Media. In relation to the CCDB, advocacy coalitions including Feral Arts, the Community Arts Networks, former Chairs and Directors of the CCDB, and former Council members led the mobilisations. Neither mobilisation was successful in preventing the abolition of these Boards. I interpret the reason for this as the Australia Council’s refusal to consult on anything other than how best to implement the new structure (Gallasch, 2005, p.1) and the relatively weak status of new media and community arts when pitched against the more powerful performing and visual arts sectors. Gonski is a philanthropist and has extensive experience as a chair and director in Australian and multinational companies including banks, the media, cultural organisations, and government agencies. He registered as high on economic and political capital with the Coalition Government.

During the interregnum between Labor Governments there was little change to the dynamics of arts advocacy coalition activities in one sense. The hegemony of the traditional interpretation of excellence was strengthened. Philanthropists dominated the leaders of the Howard era’s arts policy reviews and, as long-standing actors in the arts policy subsystem, became more visible as did their influence on government policy. New legislative and administrative mechanisms made it easier for the wealthy to donate to the arts. The pressure on the autonomy of the Australia Council, which began during the Keating era, intensified during the Howard Government. Continuing a tradition established by previous governments Coalition Ministers were willing to exercise privilege and patronage in support of their pet projects and bypass the Council’s procedures of peer review at arm’s length from government or scrutiny by the Expenditure Review Committee. During this period, when inflation and efficiency dividends eroded the Australia Council’s funding, the Government’s direct grant to

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the Melba Foundation (a music recording company] was “equivalent to half of the $10 million increase granted to the Australia Council” (Gardiner-Garden, 1999, pp. 55-56).

Part Two: mediating the policy debate: the tussles over beliefs

In this part of the chapter I describe the attempts to frame a vision for Australia’s second national arts policy that established links with Australia’s educational, social, and economic sectors. I also describe the policymaking process and the interpretations of policy core beliefs and preferences revealed by the policy’s mediators. These included the Minister and his advisors; the Office for the Arts; and the arts advocacy coalitions. I do this through a comparative analysis of the Discussion Paper, the submissions in response to that paper (Appendix 7.2), the Office of the Arts’ interpretation of those responses and content of the final policy statement.

Policy commitment and a new policy paradigm Crean and his Chief of Staff Mark Madden, Senior Advisor Helen O’Neill and Chair of his cultural policy Reference Group Juliann Schultz, each credit the development of the idea for a second national arts policy to the outcomes of the 2020 Summit convened by Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, in September 2007. The Summit’s architects aimed to create a plan for the nation that included arts, film, and design. This stream of the Summit was co-chaired by the actor, and recently appointed co-artistic director of Sydney Theatre Company Cate Blanchett, academic Dr. Julianne Schultz and the Federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett (Commonwealth of Australia, May 2008). Schultz states:

the cultural was one of the areas...where there was a determined intervention to try and develop a policy which would actually take the next step (Interview, 15th March 2017, p. 2).

Schultz observes:

the old Creative Nation, Keating’s thing, that was about another period, a completely different time and was a very top down process shaped by a handful of people who knew they had the PM’s ear...this was really an attempt to broaden out the policy making process, and the interconnection with other areas, economic, social, educational (Interview, 15th March 2017, p. 2).

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Schultz is signalling that the Summit had two ambitions for a new cultural policy: the desire to seek a wider input into the policymaking process beyond that of a political elite and the desire to bring the arts in from the margins of public policy and connect to key sectors in the Australian government.

As O’Neill observed, the failure of the arts sector to come up with a “treasury-friendly rationale of return on investment” had led to “long periods of stagnation in arts investment” and “irrational’” investment by governments driven by “personal and political commitments” rather than “coherent strategy” (Interview, 9th February 2017, pp. 5-6). Schultz’s experience in attempting to measure the economic multipliers for arts and culture was that:

the numbers were small...that they are virtually rounding errors on the big-ticket budget items - something like a $50 million over some period - it's nothing in this big budget (Schultz interview, 15th March 2017, p. 7).

This reference to the lower return on investment in culture confirms culture’s marginalised political and policy status. These arguments reflect on culture as the means for achieving government objectives rather than its significance as a sphere of human activity creating meaning.

Crean, O’Neill and Schultz were all key actors in the development of Creative Australia. Their. ambition to develop a rational and ‘coherent’ strategy that elevated the arts beyond their status as subjects of patronage is clear. Crean was determined to create a pathway to the recognition of the arts’ contribution to Australia’s social, educational, and economic sectors (Crean interview, 6th June 2017, pp1-2). O’Neill observes how Crean:

Understood from long experience in Cabinet that consistently articulating a rationale and agenda for reform is one of the most important leadership roles in politics (Interview 9th February 2017, p. 5).

This ambition also extended to the policymaking process itself. O’Neill describes her perspective on policymaking in the arts:

you could see that arts had become who could get a meeting or had an existing arrangement...the arts was increasingly being defined as what was funded (Interview, 9th February 2017, p. 2).

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O’Neill argued instead for a strategic direction for arts development based on evidence and the advice of leaders in the arts. She and her colleagues in the Minister’s office designed: “a consultation process that would pick up a whole lot of people that wouldn’t normally tramp through the office” (Interview, 9th February 2017, p. 2). The intention of the Minister’s office to go deeper into the consultation process through engaging with cultural leaders led to the Minister’s appointment of the National Cultural Policy Reference Group (see Appendix 7.3). It met for the first time in Melbourne in December 2011. A National Cultural Policy Taskforce was established within the Office for the Arts to resource the Reference Group, coordinate consultation, and draft the Discussion Paper. Crean also used his positions in Cabinet and the Expenditure Review Committee to argue for funding during the two years prior to the policy’s release.

In relation to the crafting of the policy statement itself, O’Neill describes the Department’s draft of the policy statement doing “a lot of toing and froing backwards and forwards” between the Minister’s Office and the Department and the “editing by committee with all of the disadvantages of that” (Interview, 9th February 2017, p. 5). Her perspective is that the policy document was shaped by “a small departmental team...with major input from the Minister’s office.” (O’Neill, 2013, p. 12). Madden also includes the Prime Minister’s Office in that process (Interview, 15th May 2017, pp. 34-35). Policy advisor to the Minister, Leigh Tabrett, has the view that she and Schultz came up with the policy’s framework: “Julianne and I did a lot of reading and thinking and putting it together ourselves” (Interview, 27th June 2017, p. 10) and Madden confirms the authorship of the essay in the policy as Schultz’s (Interview, 15th May 2017, pp. 4-5).

The architects of Creative Australia had the ability to exploit the internet to realise their commitment to “bottom-up consultation [and] ideas-sharing” (O’Neill, 2013, p. 4). The Discussion Paper (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011), developed by the Office of the Arts on the proposed policy, generated 2,300 on-line responses. Figure 17 provides an overview of the changes made to the Paper’s draft goals in response to this feedback. Appendix 7.4 summarises the structure of the policy statement.

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Figure 17: Policy goals in the Discussion Paper and the Policy Statement Discussion Paper, Office for the Arts, Creative Australia policy statement, 2011 2013, p. 6

Draft Goal 1: To ensure that what government support – and Policy Goal 1: Recognise, respect and celebrate the how this support is provided – reflects the diversity of 21st centrality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures to century Australia and protects and supports Indigenous the uniqueness of Australian identity. culture (p. 14) Policy Goal 2: Ensure that government support reflects the diversity of Australia and that all citizens, wherever they live, whatever their background or circumstances, have a right to shape our cultural identity and its expression. Draft Goal 2: To encourage the use of emerging technologies Policy Goal 5: Ensure Australian creativity thrives in the and new ideas that support the development of new artworks digitally enabled 21st century, by supporting innovation, the and the creative industries, and that enable more people to development of new creative content, knowledge and access and participate in arts and culture (p. 15) creative industries. Draft Goal 3: To support excellence and world-class Policy Goal 3: Support excellence and the special role of endeavour and strengthen the role that the arts play in telling artists and their creative collaborators as the source of Australian stories both here and overseas (p. 16) original work and ideas, including telling Australian stories Draft Goal 4: To increase and strengthen the capacity of the Policy Goal 4: Strengthen the capacity of the cultural sector arts to contribute to our society and economy (p. 17) to contribute to national life, community wellbeing and the economy.

The tussle over excellence Draft Goal 3 supported excellence and associated it with “world class endeavour”. The Discussion Paper asserted the importance of international recognition of the creative achievements of Australia’s artists and major organisations in affirming that excellence. A strategy for this goal was to recognise the central role of Indigenous culture. Another strategy included promoting major organisations overseas (Office for the Arts, 2011, p. 16). This section of the Discussion Paper states truisms about Australia’s multicultural society and exhorts Australia to “recognise this diversity is a strength” (Office for the Arts, 2011, p.19).

Support for a pluralist interpretation of excellence was expressed in 19 of the responses to the Discussion Paper that I was able to retrieve from Trove. Five of these were from Indigenous arts advocacy organisations, eight from arts advocacy organisations, three from local government and three from cultural producers. Respondents to the Discussion Paper, from a diverse range of organisations, requested a separate goal recognising, valuing and supporting First Nations’ culture. The Music Council of Australia stated:

In a more pluralistic world, it is recognised that excellence should be recognised according to the characteristics and criteria of any sphere of art or activity (MCA, 2011).

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Defining excellence and Australian identity without reference to the diverse cultural traditions operating in Australia was strongly challenged. Kultour asserted that: “Current stories told nationally and internationally do not reflect our culturally diverse 21st century Australia” (Kultour, 2011). The Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils (FECCA) noted that “the aspirational principles articulated in the Arts in a Multicultural Australia policy which expired in 2005, have not been realised” and asserted that:

the existing arts and cultural infrastructures in Australia, with very few exceptions, continue to perpetuate the cultural hegemony of the dominant aesthetic and cultural ideologies (FECCA, 2011).

FECCA critiqued the failure of national policy on multiculturalism and the structural inequality that persisted in an arts sector that favoured the dominant culture. Kultour and FECCA each unpacked the concept of diversity, rejecting it as a concept of “otherness [standing] in isolation” (Kultour 2011). They argued that it was about all Australians and that cultural diversity must “underpin the entire vision and framework of the national cultural policy” rather than be restricted to one goal and its attendant strategies (Kultour, 2011).

Responses to this draft goal also referred to the ‘spectre of elitism’ raised by the Paper’s equation of excellence with the work of major performing arts organisations (Office for the Arts, 2011, p, 16). The Western Australian Department of Culture commented that “social inclusiveness” in the “activation of culture” provided a frame that enabled the consideration of pathways to excellence without the constraint of elitism (WADOC, 2011). Some of the implicit assumptions of excellence, universality and timelessness, were challenged (Theatre Network Australia, Music Victoria). Others countered the Discussion Paper’s coupling of major performing arts organisations and excellence with alternative definitions of excellence: Kultour cited Arts Council England’s notion of excellence as “the opposite of safe, routine and imitative” (Kultour, 2011). The Music in Communities Network predicated the development of excellence on policy frameworks that allowed “the freedom to fail”, (Music in Communities Network, 2011), a view supported by Chamber Made Opera (2011). Currency Press argued that: “Excellence and world class endeavour should no longer require taxpayer support” (2011).

The notion of excellence as a thing apart from ‘the grass roots’ and without any relevance to the society which produced it, including the work of ‘hobbyists’, was also raised (The City of Sydney, Multicultural Arts Victoria, Museums Australia, Music Council of Australia, Kultour, Playwriting Australia). NETS Australia rejected what they perceived as the assumption of: “a

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unilateral benchmark of excellence” and recommended that the policy goal embrace “a context that supports ‘excellence’ to happen (as it often does) at a local, regional and community level” (NETS, 2011).

The summary of submissions prepared by the Office of the Arts (Australian Government, 2013, pp. 122-130) acknowledged the “significant number of submissions” asking for a separate and distinctive goal acknowledging the centrality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture to Australia (Australian Government, 2013, p. 124 ). A brief reference to the benefits of cultural diversity failed to acknowledge the sophistication evident in the feedback related to other forms of cultural pluralism. Feedback criticising the Paper’s position on excellence was not mentioned.

What interpretations of excellence were reflected in the policy statement? There was an uncoupling of excellence from world-class endeavours and international reach (Policy Goal 3). As with Creative Nation, the major performing arts companies were framed as the manifestation of excellence. Creative Australia provided new funding of $9.3 million for six of these companies (Bangarra, Belvoir Theatre, Black Swan Theatre, Malthouse Theatre, Circus Oz and WA Ballet) and $5 million to establish the Major Performing Arts Excellence Fund (Australian Government, 2013, p. 17 and p. 13). Excellence was also extended to recognise the work of individual artists. Professional training for artists was a strategy attached to Policy Goal 3 with a 30 per cent increase in the base funding to “elite training organisations’’ (Australian Government, 2013, p.14). Additional funding was provided for new practitioners to develop business skills, with a total of $22.5 million allocated to provide career pathways into the arts (Australian Government, 2013, pp.13-15). The Australia Council’s submission (Australia Council, 2011) did not put forward a compelling case to government for new money. However, it was awarded “$75. 3 million of new investment” (Australian Government, 2013, p. 81), over four years, and perhaps this can be attributed to the Council Review’s recommendation to government to find them additional money for ‘unfunded excellence’ (Australian Government, 2013, pp. 136-137).

Cultural pluralism was acknowledged to some extent by the creation of a separate goal (Policy Goal 1) that recognised the centrality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture to Australia’s national identity. The Department’s Indigenous Language Support Program and support programs for Indigenous arts centres received new funding totalling nearly $25 million over 4 years (Australian Government, 2013, p. 87).

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While some of the wording was changed, the hegemony of the traditional and contemporary interpretations of excellence prevailed and were extended beyond the major performing arts organisations to include professional artists. Apart from the policy’s acknowledgement of the centrality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and new money directed at the Department’s Indigenous languages program, there was no pluralist interpretation of excellence evident in the policy statement.

The tussle over access Two draft goals in the Discussion Paper related to this policy belief. The strategies for Draft Goal 1 emphasised audience development (Office for the Arts, 2011, p. 14). Draft Goal 2 framed emerging technologies as a means of enabling access so that that “more people experience” and participate “in the making and sharing of creative activity through digital technologies” (Office for the Arts, 2011, p. 15). Access, including that which was obtained through the utilisation of new technology, was interpreted as audience development. This is the same interpretation used in Creative Nation. Feedback on Draft Goal 2 asserted that “the use of emerging technologies is a tool rather than a Goal” (Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts, 2011). The rationale given in the Paper for bundling access and participation with emerging technologies and creative industries was that “Young people are increasingly blurring the boundaries between arts consumption and participation” (Office for the Arts, 2011, p. 15). This drew criticism from organisations representing young people who objected to being characterised as “audiences of the future”. They also argued that this assumption overlooked their “varied aesthetic interests and tastes” (Young People and the Arts Australia, 2011), their support for both traditional and innovative institutions (Yopinion, 2011), and their desire to have “opportunities to experience a wide variety of cultural experiences both as creators and audience participants” (Marian St. Youth Theatre, 2011).

The Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts, Regional Arts Australia and the Community Arts Network of Western Australia were critical of the characterisation of citizen participation and engagement as audience development: an assumption that was rife throughout the Discussion Paper. The Australia Council’s response made the distinction between receptive participation “as an audience member” and active participation as “directly involved in the creative process” (Australia Council, 2011). The City of Sydney noted governments’ failure to provide baseline data against which to evaluate: “the extent to which government investment in Australia’s cultural life is providing opportunities for wide participation” (City of Sydney, 2011).

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Feedback addressing the geographic and cultural barriers to access to the arts included Opera Australia’s observation that the changing patterns of immigration to Australia are “often not reflected in mainstream arts audiences” and the need to “create new work that reflects” these changing demographics (Opera Australia, 2011). AMPAG wanted “new forms of work that connect with currently unengaged Australians” (AMPAG, 2011). Regional Arts Australia wanted support provided so that “communities across Australia...participate in and create their own arts and cultural activities and businesses” (RAA, 2011). The Community and Public Sector Union noted:

the need to meet the changing demographics of Australian culture applies as much to cultural institutions as it does to arts organisations...yet there is no reference to cultural institutions in the strategies proposed to meet this goal (CPSU, 2011).

Touring as a means of overcoming geographical barriers to access to the arts was another strong feature of some responses (Opera Australia, National Exhibitions Touring Support (NETS) Australia, Orchestra Victoria, AMPAG, and the Australia Council). Live Performance Australia (LPA) wanted a cultural policy that would “consider the wide range of demand side measures that could be implemented to stimulate increased demand for the arts” (LPA, 2011). The Performing Arts Touring Alliance and Theatre Network Australia called for a policy that would encourage increased diversity of the work on offer and engagement of more diverse audiences. The frustration and disappointment at the failure of governments in general, and the Discussion Paper in particular, to acknowledge the needs of rural and remote Australians was expressed in several responses. The irony of this omission, given Crean’s role as the Minister for Regional Development, was noted (Artback NT, 2011).

Some submissions objected to the emphasis that they perceived was given to audience development and technology and argued that the NBN “empowers and encourages technical and artistic innovation to create or co-create cultural content” (Music in Communities Network, 2011). Many of the eleven submissions from collecting institutions and their professional associations referred to the potential for digitisation to enhance access to their collections. While some submissions focussed on a market-led approach (Google Australia and the Australian Communications and Media Authority) others commented that Draft Goal 2 assumed that new technologies would lead to more creative production and larger audiences and that intervention in the market was needed to ensure equitable access to the NBN (Northern Rivers Creative Industries Consortium, 2011). The Key Producers’ Network were joined by ArtsPeak and AMPAG in recommending the establishment of a “National Cultural Policy Digital Implementation Fund equivalent to one percent of the budget of the National

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Broadband Network ($360m)” in order to build the capacity of communities to participate and contribute to content creation (Key Producers Network, 2011).

The Discussion Paper acknowledged the educational interpretation of access in its reference to the importance of an arts education and the inclusion of the arts in the new national arts education curriculum (Office for the Arts, 2011, pp. 3, 4 and 17-19). Several respondents strongly advocated for arts in education including AMPAG, the Australia Council, The Music Council of Australia, National Advocates for Arts Education, Queensland University of Technology, and the Victorian College of the Arts. Respondents expressed concern that a lack of adequate resources and jurisdictional complexities would compromise the new curriculum’s delivery.

The coupling of cultural diversity and Indigenous culture (Draft Goal 1) drew some criticism on the grounds that it failed to distinguish between Australia’s First Nations and immigrant citizens (National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Festivals (CATSIF), Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre Corporation

(KALACC), and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board). This part of the Discussion Paper not only referred to Australia’s multicultural society but to specific groups in the population, including people living with disabilities. The strategies focussed on audience development, encouraging arts organisations to increase engagement with these identified communities (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011, p. 14). The strategies were firmly embedded in the distributive interpretation of the access policy core belief.

Amongst the submissions I retrieved from Trove there were twelve advocating for democratic interpretations of access. One of them was from a peak Aboriginal organisation, five were from arts advocacy organisations, one was from a peak health advocacy organisation, two were from local government, and three were from creative producers. Cultural democracy and cultural rights, often with references to international conventions to which Australia is a signatory, were strongly asserted by the Music Council of Australia, Kultour, the Music in Communities Network and the National Congress of Australia’s First People. Arts Access Australia was critical of the Paper’s failure to clearly articulate the government’s commitment to: “improving access and opportunity for people with disability to engage in Australia’s arts and culture at all levels” (AAA, 2011). Artback NT was critical of the Paper’s failure to express the values of equity and inclusion.

How did the Office for the Arts respond to this feedback? The references to access in the Office for the Arts summary acknowledged feedback from two areas: national collecting

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institutions and arts education. The Office acknowledged the need to digitise the collections of national collecting institutions to improve access (Australian Government, 2014, pp. 126- 128). It also acknowledged the submission from The Music Council and affirmed the importance to the Government of implementation of the Australian Curriculum: the Arts. The submissions advocating for a cultural rights approach were not mentioned in the summary. In one sentence the Office acknowledged the submissions advocating for policies and strategies which recognise Australia’s cultural diversity. It failed to connect this feedback to any implications for their policy goals or strategies. It repeated the mantra of a whole-of- government approach, implying that diversity was not a core issue for the arts and cultural sector but rather the responsibility of the human services sector (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011, p. 129-130).

Distributive and educational interpretations of access were reflected in the policy statement. The policy also signalled an audit of arts funding programs administered by the Council and the Office for the Arts (Australian Government, 2013, p. 11). This specified that all Council programs that were not focussed on excellence would be transferred to the Department. The policy referred to the work taking place on the Australian education curriculum to include “universal arts education in schools” and a National Arts and Cultural Accord was proposed in order to build “support for and ensure consistency in the implementation of the Australian curriculum: the Arts, including through resources and training for teachers” (Australian Government, 2013, p. 16).).

The Regional Arts Fund, administered by Regional Arts Australia, received ongoing funding ($12.5 million over 4 years) but the bulk of funding for rural and regional Australia was from Crean’s Regional Development Australia Fund where a minimum of $40 million, was earmarked by Crean for arts and cultural infrastructure projects (Australian Government, 2013, p. 23). Investment in digital and emerging platforms was identified by the policy as a means of providing jobs and also as a way of improving access to Australian content and almost $70 million was proposed across a range of projects including $20 million for a new Australian games fund (Australian Government, 2013, p. 82). The policy committed $39.3 million over four years to provide national collecting institutions with the resources to expand access to their collections using digital technology “(Australian Government, 2013, p. 100).

While culture was acknowledged as critical to Australia’s sense of individual and shared identity (Australian Government, 2013, pp.8-9), the approach to cultural citizenship in the body of the policy emphasised equality of access in order to create the citizen-spectator rather than creative and participatory citizens as cultural producers. The policy statement included an

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essay written by Schultz in which she defined the responsibility of governments as to “ensure that citizens have opportunities to express their cultural identity” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p. 29): Australians were recognised as creators, not only as consumers and spectators (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p. 31). However, Shultz’s interpretations of cultural citizenship do not appear to have been integrated into the main body of the policy: a phenomenon reminiscent of the fate of the preamble to Creative Nation prepared by Keating’s Ministerial Advisory Panel.

Arm’s length funding and peer review The Discussion Paper signalled the Government’s intent to tackle the policy preference of peer review as: “the structures and funding programs of the past need review and upgrading to meet today’s challenges and opportunities” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011, p.4). This topic was effectively kept off the consultation agenda as there was no provision made in the Department’s on-line template for feedback on this statement. The Government’s response to the review was included in the policy statement (Australian Government, 2013, pp. 131-147). The Government supported the review recommendation for a new governance structure for the Council, the dismantling of the artform based Board structure and the expansion of the number of peers involved in grant assesment (Australian Government, 2013, p. 140). Whilst reasserting its commitment to grant decision-making at arm’s length from government the policy stated that the Council’s “new enabling legislation will require it to prepare a strategic plan” to be endorsed by the Minister (Australian Government, 2013, p. 133). This recommendation was elaborated on by the Government to include the full managerialist rubric: strategies, targets, key performance indicators etc (Australian Government, 2013, pp. 132- 133).

The legislation Those drafting the new legislation for the Australia Council, which ensued from the development of Creative Australia and the review of the Australia Council, had abbreviated the Council’s responsibilities and removed those relating to access to the arts, cultural diversity, and the right to artistic freedom. They had not included any acknowledgement of the significance of First Nations’ cultures. (See Appendix 7.5 for a comparison between 1975 and 2013 Australia Council Acts). The Act was going through the parliamentary process, so Dunn discussed her concerns with the Australia Council’s Acting CEO, Libby Christie, who assured her: “don’t worry...this is just enabling legislation and that allows the Council to put its priorities where they need to be” (Dunn interview, 22nd May 2017, pp. 18-25).

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Dunn was not reassured by this: “it suited the Department to get rid of all of those Australia Council functions in the old Act...if they could water down the legislation it gave them more power and control”. Her attempt to discuss possible amendments to the Act with Christie was met with the rejoinder: “if the legislation didn’t go through as it was currently drafted then the Australia Council would not get money that the government had promised it” (Dunn interview, 22nd May 2017, pp. 18-25). As Dunn describes it, in the minds of senior Council staff the structural changes that the Council would be obliged to make (dismantling of the art-form Boards and expansion of peers), the offer of an additional $75.3 million and Parliament’s assent to the new Act were connected. Dunn attributes this to the Minister and the Department wanting to get the legislation through before an election and the Minister’s lack of experience preventing him from appreciating the implications of the legislative changes proposed. Crean was sacked as Arts Minister by Gillard on 21st March 2013, eight days after he had launched Creative Australia. His successor, Tony Burke, was arts minister from the twenty-fifth of March 2013 until the eighteenth of September 2013. Dunn’s attempts to discuss the legislation with Burke’s office were rebuffed (Dunn interview, 22nd May 2017, pp. 18-25). Crean’s memory of events conveys the sense of urgency generated by the prospect of a Federal election “at any time”. He connected the money with the legislation: “(a) there was the money in the policy, but (b) you needed to legislate the new framework to deliver it” (Crean interview, 6th June 2017, pp. 13-14). These perspectives may be different because they reflect different interests: Council’s interest in getting the $75.3 million; the Minister’s interest in getting the legislation through before an election; the Department’s interest in having more discretionary power over the Australia Council; and the interests of some arts advocacy coalitions in preserving the Council’s obligations to support cultural pluralism, cultural democracy and freedom of artistic expression.

Arts advocacy coalitions including NAVA and Feral Arts and a handful of individuals, including former Council members and former Board directors, approached Labor Party and Greens politicians. They were successful in obtaining a Senate review of the legislation which accepted some of amendments to the Act proposed by these advocacy coalitions. The ability of the Council to initiate advice to the Government “of its own motion” was excluded from the new Act (see Appendix 7.5), reflecting managerialism’s weighting of power towards the executive of government and away from its administration. Assent to the Australia Council Act 2013 took place on the twenty-seventh of June 2013.

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Part Three: the development of Creative Australia

Tensions in policymaking: the big picture and the funding initiative Policy development is not easy. The Office of the Arts was charged with a lot of the work associated with the policy’s development. Stephen Cassidy, Director of the National Cultural Policy Taskforce for Creative Nation, explains:

The taskforce was actually the section or the area within the Department that was set up to coordinate the whole process...I was the director, and there were three or four staff, depending on the stage of the work...I was responsible for: coordinating the development of the discussion document... the public consultation... the analysis of all the input from the public consultation; a lot of the development of new policy proposals, and all the funding arrangements; and the inter-departmental committees that looked at how the National Cultural Policy related to other departments (Cassidy interview, 6th June, 2017, p.2).

This was a very complex remit, supervised by three senior executive Departmental staff. As Cassidy observes: “it was a bigger policy task than they'd had to deal with for a very long time; I think it really strained the resources, and possibly the ability” (Interview, 6 h June 2017, p. 7). Concerns about the Department’s ability to manage emerged early. Madden explains that the National Policy Reference Group was established: “to support what was, in effect, what an arts department should be able to provide” (Madden interview, 15th May 2017, p. 27) and Schultz was brought in by Crean’s office to chair it. I think that this expectation of Madden’s is unrealistic as the Departmental staff, due to the limitations of the Department’s portfolio, could not be expected to have comprehensive knowledge of the arts sector that could be provided by an expert group. Cassidy explains the role of the National Policy Reference Group from his perspective:

[It] was set up to address the issues raised by the submissions...They were a very diverse group which was both good and bad. I don't think you could develop a national cultural policy without a group like that...It needs a body that can start to interpret and formalise [the feedback]” (Interview, 6th June 2017, pp. 6-8).

Cassidy’s perspective on the consultation process was that the submissions to the policy were important but that it needed people from the arts and cultural sectors to assimilate these responses into a policy framework.

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O’Neill explained that the public service had become “not so much the generator of policy but the collator” and that it was no longer able “to run the ideas part of it” and that the Minister was not always happy with their work (Interview, 9th February 2017, pp.3-4). As a result, Shultz was brought in to chair the Reference Group and she and O’Neill brought in Tabrett to assist the Department (Tabrett, Interview, 27th June 2017, p.1). These perspectives from the Minister’s office, and from the expert advisors he brought in, should be understood within the context of the impact of managerialism on the Australian public service. It is likely that tensions would exist between a political executive that assumed control of the policy process and a department that was no longer directing the development of policy. Terry Moran’s review of public administration demonstrated the impact of managerialism on the Australian Federal public service. The review was commissioned by Rudd and overseen by Moran while he was Secretary of the Department of Prime Ministers and Cabinet (2008-2011). Moran’s report identified a key area of reform as:

strengthening the capacity of the public service to provide strategic, big picture policy and delivery advice that addresses the most difficult policy challenges of the day (Advisory Group on Reform of Australian Government Administration, 2010, p. v).

In an article written by two senior public servants following the Institute of Public Administration’s Roundtable in May 2010 to discuss the Moran Report, Moran’s perspective was supported:

The Report addresses many of the problems identified over recent years such as the loss of policy capacity, a degree of politicisation, weaknesses in implementation caused in part by a compliance rather than informed partnership approach, de-skilling after outsourcing and privatisation, insularity and excessive caution...the Report represents a rediscovery of the craft of activist government in a post-NPM environment which demands increased citizen engagement (Tracey & Podger, 2010, p. 51).

The authors described the impact of New Public Management on the public service’s strategic capacity. In asserting the need to restore “the craft of activist government”, they argued for the restoration of the public service as “the director of public action” (Halligan and Power, 1992 p. 2). They also noted that many of the report’s proposals for reform “rely on changes in behaviour by ministers and their advisers” (Tracey & Podger, 2010, p. 50), which I interpret to mean a redistribution of power from the executive to the administrative arm of government: something outside the control of the public service. These insights into the structural and behavioural issues generated by over three decades of neo-liberal ideology and

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managerialism provide a context within which to understand the forces militating against a proactive, strategic approach by the Department in the development of a national arts policy.

As a relatively small area of administration, the “arts were tacked onto five different ministries in almost as many years – with staff numbers falling with each transfer” (Schultz 2015, p. 214). O’Neill explains that the Minister’s Office was “also chopping the Department at the time...major cuts” (Interview 9th February 2017, p. 4) and Schultz describes walking “through offices with lots of empty desks” reflecting on the impact that this must be having on Department morale and on their ability to work (Interview, 15th March 2017, p. 4). The Department, like many others in Canberra, was feeling the impact of New Public Management in the form of cuts and the endless rearrangement of their administrative base.

These influences affected the Department’s analysis of the responses to the Discussion Paper. Cassidy describes how the analysis of the submissions worked:

So, there's a whole pile of proposals coming in. Some of them are more immediately recognisable in a public service or a ministerial context. So they respond this could work, that could work and... Oh, it’s very hard to imagine how that could actually happen. So that's one thing. The other is you find things that fit well, that could be done quite cheaply. Or that could be something where we could look at what we're doing now and just slightly change it to encompass that idea. So there's a whole pile of variables, working away at the same time. So in the sense that people cherry-picked it was more about some ideas immediately rang a bell and some didn't” (Interview 6th June 2017, p. 12).

What Cassidy is describing is the influence of bounded rationality on the behaviour of the Department’s officers: responding positively to ideas with which they were familiar and discarding those with which they were not. Tabrett’s perception of the fruits of the Department’s analysis was that it was:

aligned with their interests and issues, with things they'd put in the discussion paper...and with programs they dealt with (Tabrett Interview, 27th June 2017, p. 2).

Tabrett was concerned with what she judges to be a “very...shallow and... selective analysis” of the submission material and she was disappointed that it did not reflect “the sophisticated thinking that had gone into” the submissions. Her assessment was that the Department’s staff were responding to the proposals with which they were familiar (Interview, 27 h June 2017, p. 2).

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Aside from de-skilling and staff cuts, there were two other impediments faced by the Department in developing a national policy. The first of these was the influence of Australian federalism. Tabrett describes the Commonwealth responsibilities for the arts as “a set of residual functions that can't be dealt with in states” (Tabrett, 27th June 2017, pp. 2-4) which I think reflects her experience as a Director of a state arts department more than the scope of the Australian Federal government’s arts and cultural responsibilities. However, I do agree with her that the scope of the programs administered by the Department could not equip them with a sense of the entire cultural sector. If the responses to the Discussion Paper were any indication, the arts advocacy coalitions expected a Commonwealth arts policy to reflect an understanding and consideration of the bigger picture, including the activities of the states and local government. The second impediment faced by the Department, identified in Moran’s review, was the public service’s unfamiliarity with strategic policy frameworks. Tabrett observed that without a framework or “schema” that what the Department was developing was a strategic plan for the Department and its portfolio of responsibilities rather than one for the whole arts sector (Interview, 27th June 2017, p. 9). She was also concerned that the Department was looking at the policy as a way of solving the serious financial problems of the national collecting institutions which were part of the Department’s portfolio (Interview, 27th June 2017, p. 14).

Working with arts and cultural leaders Schultz and Kasat, another member of the Reference Group, each refer to the challenges involved in working with a group like this: to break down the competitive approach to funding (Schultz interview, 15 h March 2017, p. 8); and to get each member thinking beyond their own creative genre to develop a broader understanding (Kasat interview, 26th October 2017, p. 8).

Kevin Brennan, a cultural policy scholar and a member of the Reference Group (see Appendix 7.3), was presented at their first meeting with the Department’s draft document for discussion. He describes it as “mainly looking for the big showcase items of what would be in the policy” (Brennan, interview, 16th May 2017, p. 11). He describes the reaction of other members of the Group at that meeting:

people were looking at the document...looking at the staff...looking at each other going, how does this relate to what Simon Crean has just told us? (Interview, 16th May 2017, p. 11).

Schultz’s response to this was that it was a step too soon for the Department to expect the Reference Group to be “rubber stamping” the Department’s document (Interview, 15th March

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2017, pp. 9-10). Brennan was also uncomfortable with the projects earmarked by the Department, “all focussed on the top end of town, the major organisations with only the barest possible link to the agenda that Simon Crean had set” (Interview, 16th May 2017, p. 11). The Reference Group thought that what they had been given to review was not a schematic analysis of the submissions but a list of preferred projects: “we were told that that had all been filtered, and they'd come through, and these were the best ideas” (Brennan interview, 16th May 2017, p. 11). Schultz explains:

At that point the whole thing became much more complicated than they wanted it to be. I think they thought that they had a simple little thing that they could just push out and it would all be fine...to try and get a systematic approach to say we are going to take on Treasury and Finance and argue for culture differently, they probably wanted to throw me out the window (laughs) (Interview, 15th March 2017, pp. 9-10).

Schultz is describing the dissonance between what she perceived as the Department’s intent and the expectations of the Reference Group, including herself, that proposals for funding needed to be located within a strategic framework. In Schultz’s view, this framework would be based on Crean’s intent to develop a policy demonstrating the connection between the arts and economic and social policy. The Department’s approach to policy development worked well in response to a Minister’s request for announceable initiatives but, in an environment where Crean’s new policy paradigm was under development, was not something that these advisors, handpicked by Crean, were going to accept.

Joining the dots Perspectives on Crean’s ambition to bring the arts in from the margins of public policy and political debate through engaging his Cabinet colleagues and their departments in his policymaking process vary. As Crean sees it:

This was work that Helen and Mark did, but Helen in particular - with their other staff arrangements. I met with each of the ministers, and then we had follow-up conversations at the staff level, getting them to understand that there was the potential to give greater weight to this statement by connecting the sorts of programs that they were doing (Crean interview, 6th June, 2017, p. 10).

His Chief of Staff expressed scepticism about the joined-up-government approach of New Public Management – in his view “a myth” – and described Crean’s policy project as getting:

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the departments to understand the contribution that they make to culture and that culture makes to them. Then, within a broader framework of clear principles, clear ideas and strategies, then each of those departments can become a part of that (Madden interview, 15th May 2017, pp. 16-17).

Madden concludes that this was a difficult exercise and the “battles” that were fought by Crean’s office to influence jobs policy “not to the extent that we wanted to but we actually got some acknowledgement around those things” and to get “culture and cultural diplomacy” recognised in the Asian Century White Paper (Interview, 15th May 2017, pp. 16-17).

Cassidy described the amount of time and effort that the Department put in to find “other sources of money beyond the arts portfolio” and was not aware of the extent of Crean’s involvement in liaising with other Ministers and their staff. Apart from the work involved in finding relevant programs in other departments and discussing the potential for engagement with these departments, overcoming the marginal status of the arts in government proved “really difficult...it was a seriously hard slog” (Cassidy interview, 6th June 2017, p. 16). Another challenge was:

competing demands...Crean wanted some elements in the policy to be about Indigenous culture...Jenny Macklin [Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs] had her own set of really important things... she wants to use that money to fund the things that are crucial to her (Cassidy interview, 6th June 2017, p. 16).

Cassidy also recalled that he:

was pretty impressed with the fact that in the final policy there was new money for Indigenous languages, which hadn't happened for a very long time. (Interview, 6th June 2017, p. 15).

Tabrett offered this perspective on Crean’s ambition to join the dots:

what he wanted to do was...set his tiny little residual Department onto the task of pulling this all into the strategy. It's not their business to do that. It's not possible to do...There is a big process to go through if you want to line up another department to share resources with you and accept your credibility (Tabrett interview, 27th June 2017, pp. 9-10).

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Tabrett’s perspective reflects her own experience as a member of the Queensland Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Director of a State government agency. With her background, she expected negotiations would happen at the highest level, the Office of Prime Ministers and Cabinet, and that discussions would take place over a considerable period. In fact, what appears to have happened is that different levels of negotiation took place involving the minister and his staff, the Task Force Director and other, presumably junior, staff from a small agency.

Finding the money Some of Crean’s attempts to gain approval from the Expenditure Review Committee for funding to be allocated before the policy’s launch were successful (Australian Government, 2013, p. 48): “we got bits and pieces from the budget and announced those along the way to give people a sense of momentum that we hadn't stopped developing it” (Madden interview, 15th May 2017, p. 34). Madden describes his Minister’s approach to securing financial commitment from his government for policy initiatives how and when he could:

we had a situation where the policy was basically finalised but there was a long process of getting it through the first budget process and getting some money and then putting it through a second budget process...or putting it through a second ERC [Expenditure Review Committee] process prior to its formal launch (Interview, 15th May 2017, p. 4).

The policy development process and securing funding for the policy together took a long time (2009-2014) and pushed out the time frame for the policy’s completion, originally envisaged as 12 months. Tabrett provides some insights into what happened during negotiations on the funding for Creative Australia:

Simon...had a fairly good undertaking from the Government that this would be considered early in the budget process. We had a date. What then happened was ...they started this cutting process. We kept getting pushed further and further back down the priority. So, in the end, what was going to be available was the residue after they'd done all sorts of things...The first thing they say is you're asking for money for this?” (Tabrett interview, 27 June 2017, p.12-13).

Cuts were being made in the social welfare area and committee members questioned how the arts could expect funding under these circumstances. Labor’s social agenda outweighed the cultural. Under certain circumstances, it may not. In this environment, Gillard found $18 million so that an American film, Matrix, could be shot in Fox Studios (Tabrett interview, 27th June

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2017, p.16). Australia’s Federal governments have not abandoned their ad hoc approach to cultural policy. The Prime Minister’s Office also:

tried to incorporate things into the final policy which weren't consistent with it...We resisted that and refused to do that. Or...when they tried to insert things into that envelope without expanding the envelope of money...We just said no. If that goes in there, it's got to come with [money] (Madden interview, 15th May 2017, pp 34-35).

The launch of Creative Nation and Creative Australia were linked with funding announcements. The patronage arts policy mode adopted by Australian governments requires funding initiatives to be part of the policy. This can deflect attention from a policy’s strategic merit, or the lack of it. Cassidy believed:

actually, getting government to think conceptually about an overall linked up approach to everything is more important than the money because the money will follow, if you can get that...If something comes together you get a policy, and then the Budget puts the money into it (Cassidy Interview, 6th June 2017, p. 17).

This perspective runs counter to Crean’s approach and his experience with the Expenditure Review Committee. Cassidy’s viewpoint is that of someone with a longer-term view of policy.

The influence of arts advocacy coalitions on Creative Australia In applying my research question to this case study, I conclude that the influence of the arts advocacy coalitions on Creative Australia was constrained by four factors. Neo-liberalism has contributed to two of these factors by changing the way that policy is made and through the commodification of all public policy, including cultural policy. The third factor is Australia’s liberal democratic tradition which favours a distributive interpretation of access and positions the cultural citizen as the consumer/bystander. The fourth factor is the national arts advocacy coalitions themselves.

Contributions to Creative Australia’s development from arts advocacy coalitions and the Reference Group were mediated by Departmental officers and the Minister’s staff, and, in the final stages of the policy’s development, by the Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet. All involved in this mediation were subject to bounded rationality: recognising what was familiar and overlooking what was not. But I argue, something else was also operating here. The interpretations of excellence and access in Creative Australia, traditional and contemporary in the former and distributive and educational in the latter, have been the dominant meanings

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attached to these policy core values from Keating to Crean. This would indicate that the advocacy coalitions associated with cultural democracy and cultural pluralism were less powerful. It may also indicate the meanings that the arts policy subsystem, including its politicians and ministerial advisors, have assigned to cultural policy and to cultural citizenship.

The commodification of public policy is described by Gray as an “ideological reorientation” of public policy “from intrinsic notions of use to extrinsic notions of exchange” He argues that what this has meant for cultural policy since the 1980s is that its value is assessed in terms of its contribution to social and economic objectives (Gray, 2007, pp 207-208). In this process many Australian national arts advocacy coalitions have been complicit, as was evidenced in the arguments advanced in many of the submissions made to the Office for the Arts which emphasised the value that their part of the arts sector could add to Australia’s economic prosperity and social well-being. How does this explain the apparent indifference of Creative Australia, and its predecessor, Creative Nation to cultural pluralism? Certainly, the submissions from the arts advocacy coalitions advocating this interpretation of the policy belief in excellence were in the minority. Zapata-Barrero puts forward one explanation for this:

In times of financial crisis and growing economic differences among people, there can be diminished policy interest in socializing immigrant-related diversity into public culture. This context can even be an argument for justifying the need to promote culture economically, basically seen as a public expense after years of economic crisis (Zapata Barrero, 2016, p. 534).

Australian cultural scholars Rimi Khan, Danielle Wyatt and Audrey Yue have noted how in Australia politically conservative critiques of multiculturalism have prompted a “marked retreat from a state-based project to build a multicultural nation.” (Khan, Wyatt & Yue, 2015, p. 220). They note:

the absence of the category of multicultural arts in the national arts policy [Creative Australia] could be interpreted as further evidence supporting a discourse of decline around state-based multiculturalism (Khan et al., 2015, p. 219).

The authors note that policy objectives which may in the past have been labelled multicultural no longer target the objects of the policies, people from non-English speaking backgrounds for example. Instead the objectives associated with diversity can be understood as:

an evolving set of attitudes, outlooks and priorities aligned with other national agendas like securing national cohesion or participating in transnational cultural and economic

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flows… ‘Difference’ is being put to use for various incompatible agendas (Khan et al., 2015, p. 232).

What these authors are observing are the “attachment” strategies of cultural policies (Gray, 2007) which, in the case of Creative Australia, included targeting “transnational and economic flows”. In this policy, culture is used to pursue trade links with Asia (Australian Government 2013, p. 24) and strengthen our domestic creative industries to position them for a world market (Australian Government 2013, p 21; p. 23), but the policy does not direct resources to “nurture…the different cultures that are active within the populations for which they are responsible”. Nor can it support citizens to engage and participate culturally “without being required to change their cultural allegiances, affiliations or identities.” (Zapata-Barrero, 2016, p. 541).

Australian Federal governments, operating within a liberal democratic tradition, value citizen engagement with culture. Both Creative Australia and Creative Nation applied distributive and educational interpretations of the policy belief in excellence. Again, submissions advocating democratic interpretations of access were in the minority. Within Australia’s democratic tradition:

The use of cultural goods is performed…not through involvement in creative activity, but only through viewing and consumption … Balancing supply and demand of cultural productions is what drives the promotion of cultural citizenship. (Zapata-Barrero, 2016, p. 545).

It is the republican democratic tradition that ensures “participatory channels for cultural production”, understands cultural democracy, and is committed to developing “the participatory and creative capacity of its citizens [as] cultural producers” (Zapata-Barrero, 2016, p. 546). Australia’s liberal democratic tradition helps explain the failure of the majority of Australia’s national arts policy subsystem, including the arts advocacy coalitions, its arts ministers, and ministerial advisors, to support cultural democracy. Neo-liberalism’s insistence on the exchange value of cultural policy may also explain Australia’s national cultural policy emphasis on citizens as cultural consumers.

These perspectives provided by Zapata Barrero, Gray and Khan, Wyatt and Yue provide an ideological context within which to interpret the meanings attached to the policy beliefs supported by the dominant advocacy coalitions and evident in Creative Nation and Creative Australia. These meanings can be understood as a form of cultural hegemony operating within

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the arts policy subsystem. These meanings, and the efforts of dominant arts advocacy coalitions to have these meanings applied to national cultural policy, constrained each of these policies. There are two other ways in which they do this.

The Australia Council was structured around nineteenth century European artforms. Australian’s national arts advocacy coalitions developed in the Council’s image. As O’Neill put it, the arts were “increasingly being defined as what was funded...And then the advocacy groups formed around what was already funded” (Interview, 9th February 2017, p. 2).

It is in the interests of this self-reinforcing system to constrain national cultural policy to deal with the subsidised arts and not embrace a cultural framework. It is also in their interests that the patronage model is perpetuated as it favours the status quo and arts organisations are part of that status quo while they continue to receive funding. Funding becomes the focus of their policy advocacy. Funding becomes the focus of Australian national cultural policy. In these ways Australia’s national arts advocacy coalitions constrain national cultural policy.

Creative Australia proposed changes to the Council’s peer review system. I will discuss this further in the next chapter in exploring Senator George Brandis’s assertion of his right to ministerial patronage.

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Chapter Eight: power and patronage

On budget night in May 2015, $110 million was transferred from the Australia Council to the Commonwealth Department for the Arts to enable the Federal Arts Minister, Senator George Brandis, to establish an arts fund over which he had direct control. This initiative appeared to come out of the blue. The response of arts administrators has been characterised as: “initial confusion, then bewilderment” and then, as the implications of what had happened became clearer, “panic” (Eltham, 2015a).

Almost immediately #Freethearts, a loosely organised but well networked collection of arts advocacy organisations operating through social media, emerged (Horton interview, 17th March 2017, p. 7). The #Freethearts mobilisation developed into a sustained campaign by Australia’s national arts advocacy coalitions to have the funds restored to the Australia Council. The funds were returned in April 2017.

In this chapter I continue my examination of the policy core beliefs and policy preferences shaping national arts policy. I present evidence that the strengthening of the patronage arts policy mode is relocating the arts further to the margins of public policy. I also argue that the Australia Council was diminished by the Brandis policy shock in several ways. The diversion of its funding, political attacks on its ability to act in the public interest, and perceptions of the Council’s lack of leadership, all compromised the Council’s relationship with the subsidised arts sector. What the Council had perceived as a good relationship with the Ministry for the Arts was harmed, and further damaged by the Ministry’s efforts to overlook the Council’s role as arts policy advisor to Federal governments. I present evidence that, despite the extensive mobilisations in defence of arm’s length funding and peer review, the standing of these policy core preferences in the eyes of the arts sector have been compromised to some extent.

This chapter is in three parts. Part One is an overview of the mobilisation and the shape it took from May 2015 until April 2017, the implications of the funding cuts for the subsidised arts sector, and the behaviour and opinions exhibited by key national arts advocacy coalitions during this period. In Part Two, I explore the interpretations of the policy core beliefs of access and excellence evident in the Minister’s statements, key Hansard documents and the guidelines for the Minister’s new funding program. In Part Three, using Hansard records of the Inquiry and the views of my interview subjects, I explore the interpretations of the policy core preferences of peer review and arm’s length funding.

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Part One: The Shock

Early rumblings At the time of the Brandis shock, Robyn Archer, artist, and international and Australian arts festival director, was almost two years into her stint as the Deputy Chair of the Australia Council (July 2013-August 2016). She describes the Council’s “incredibly harmonious relationship with the Department” (Interview, 30th April 2017, pp. 2-5). Grybowski relates that Brandis had endorsed the Council’s strategy and that there was “no indication from Senator Brandis” of his intentions. (Interview, 16th November 2017, pp.18-19). Brandis himself says that he only told the Council Chair of the cuts “late in the afternoon of budget day” (Commonwealth of Australia, 27 May 2015, p.11). Both Archer and Grybowski expressed dismay and surprise at the lack of dialogue. Tabrett, from her time working with Crean on Creative Australia, notes that the Department of the Arts’: “relationship with the Australia Council was parlous...really unpleasant” and how they would: “talk with a lot of...pride...of taking the Australia Council down a peg in negotiations over budget”. She also observed the: “Council not being very successful at working back into government and persuading the Government to see its point of view” (Interview Tabrett, 27th June 2017, p. 4). Dunn, an earlier Deputy Council Chair (1988-1991), observes that it is: “just unbelievable that nobody could see how bad these relationships were and do something about them...absolutely astonishing” (Interview, 22nd May 2017, p. 28). Were there any signs that could have indicated that relationships between the Council, the Minister and his Department were not all that they should be?

Archer reflects on “whether we shouldn’t have arced up more over the announcement of the Book Council...something the Australia Council was not consulted about” (Interview, 30th April 2017, pp. 2-5). Winikoff drew on the speech Brandis made just before the 2013 election: “where he started to signal the sorts of things that then came horribly true” and then how:

the arts community noticed that Brandis was using the [new Australia Council Act] as an opportunity to try to build himself in as the final arbiter of what would be funded [and] realised that Brandis had ambition to be what could euphemistically be described as ‘much more involved’...We didn’t take enough notice of it (Interview, Winikoff, 16th March 2017 p. 3).

These reflections by insiders in the arts policy subsystem reveal the failure, by all except Tabrett, to interpret the signs of an interventionist minister or an antagonistic Department.

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The impact The 2015-2016 cuts followed on from cuts in the order of $100 million to arts and screen funding in the 2014-2015 Federal budget. The Australia Council was: “reduced by $9.6 million” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c p. 4). In its December 2014 Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO), the government announced a further $6 million reduction in funds to the Australia Council over three years to fund the establishment of the new Book Council of Australia. In December 2015 the MYEFO announced that the Arts Minister had appropriated a further $5.4 million over three years from the Australia Council to fund Creative Partnerships, previously funded by the Department for the Arts with new money provided by Crean in Creative Australia.

Apart from the money put towards the National Program for Excellence in the Arts (NPEA) the Council cut of $110 million over four years included money for three government initiatives resumed from the Council to be administered by the Department; Festivals Australia; Visions of Australia; and the Major Festivals Initiative. An additional efficiency dividend (a percentage annual reduction in a Commonwealth Department or agency’s operating expenditure) of $7.3 million over four years was applied to the Council (Australia Council, 2015b,). The implications of these losses played out in the context of the funding constraints to which the Council is subject.

The Australia Council receives its funding from the Commonwealth Government.

Figure 18: Australia Council Expenditure 2014/15 financial year (Australia Council, 2105, p. 21)

12%

18%

55%

15%

Major organisations Govt. initiatives Council grants and initiatives Key organisations

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In effect, 70 per cent of the Council’s funds were committed (Major organisations and Government Initiatives), with another 12 per cent in forward commitments to the key organisations. That left 18 per cent of discretionary funding that would, under normal circumstances, be applied to fund other arts organisations and individual artists, research, and market and audience development. It was from this discretionary funding that the bulk of the $7.3 million in savings would have to be found (Australia Council, 2015 b, p. 2). The funds for the major performing arts companies were provided under the Major Performing Arts Framework and administered by the Australia Council on behalf of government (Australia Council, Major performing Arts Background). In adopting this Framework in 2011, the Federal and state governments signed up to funding arrangements that could not be altered without the consent of all parties (Australian Government, 2011, p. 5). The Framework therefore proscribed the Council from applying any of the Commonwealth’s efficiency dividends to its share of the funding for these 28 organisations. In 2016 the Council drew down $10 million from its reserves to enhance the amount of discretionary funds available (Grybowski interview, 16th November 2017, p. 21). These cuts came when the Australia Council was mid-way through an organisational restructure, the simplification of its grant programs and reform of its peer review processes. These changes had been required by Crean as a condition of an increase in its funding (Australian Government, 2013, p. 51).

These changes involved extending funding to key arts organisations to a six-year period in order to improve funding stability. As part of preparing for its restructured grants program, the Council terminated all contracts and required all key organisations to reapply under the new funding arrangements. The Brandis cuts had significant impacts on these plans. On the twenty-first of May 2015, the Australia Council announced it was cancelling its newly developed six-year funding program and the June round of grants altogether (Watts, 2015). Geordie Brookman, at the time the Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia and a member of a Council assesment panel, describes the implications of this contraction in funds for small-to-medium sized theatre companies:

That contraction from six years to three years has also involved a cap to the maximum amount of funding that can be sought, and that cap is...below the current level of funding for a number of currently funded companies (Geordie Brookman, Committee Hansard, Friday, 18 September 2015).

Brookman estimated that a third of key organisations would lose their funding. Horton describes the “awful and an embarrassing time” they had when six year funding offers were withdrawn, having to cancel the partnerships and research projects they had spent eight

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months negotiating (Interview, 17th March 2017, p. 5). In 2015, a significant part of the subsidised arts sector was caught up in a perfect storm, a funding hiatus caused by: withdrawal of the offer of six year funding by the Australia Council; less money for individual artists (Australia Council, 2015b, p. 2); and the lack of information on the NPEA funding. The consequences were every bit as bad as Brookman predicted.

On Friday thirteenth May 2016, the Australia Council’s announcement of successful grant applicants revealed that “more than half the applicants failed to receive organisational support...and 65 previously funded organisations no longer have funding” (Stone, 2016). Winikoff explains: “for the visual arts we lost 50 per cent of the previously funded arts organisations” and four out of the five peak arts advocacy organisations lost their funding: NAVA, Regional Arts Australia, Music Australia and AusDance (Interview, 16th March 2017, p. 5). There was a conflation of the impacts of the 2015 budget cuts and the Council’s new funding regime which, according to the Council’s CEO, was: “enabling new and diverse companies to access funding” (Grybowski, Interview, 16 h November 2017, p. 21). Here we can see a difference in the interpretation of these events. The Council’s CEO explained that funding losses to existing organisations were inevitable as this was what the new peer review system was supposed to deliver: an opening up of the closed shop. For the leader of an arts advocacy coalition seeking to sustain the mobilisation of the arts sector, this level of detail was not germane and likely to deflect focus from the Minister’s actions.

Campaigning Beyer describes how she mobilised the small-to-medium performing arts organisations and then how she and Winikoff linked up with Feral Arts to run the #Freethearts campaign. Beyer describes it as:

a grassroots thing that's just sort of appeared, and so we don't own it. I don't say that it's TNA's campaign or ArtsPeak's campaign. It's everybody's” (Interview, 17th May 2017, p. 4).

Horton describes it as a campaign that: “all pretty much took place on FaceBook and internet and email” and how “co-ordinated is not quite the right word, it was connected” (Interview, 17th March 2017, p.7). These networked arrangements, dispersed power and the reliance on social media are consistent with what Australian political scientist Ariadne Vromen, among others, identifies as new forms of political engagement (Vromen, 2012, pp. 200-206).

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#Freethearts’ mobilisations included organising a petition protesting Brandis’ initiative in association with the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance that attracted 12,000 signatures. A National Day of Action was organised for the eighteenth of June with flash mobs appearing in all capital cities. These and other forms of culture jamming, “parodies [of] official government or corporate messages using a range of media” (Smith et al., 2012, p. 380) became a feature of its actions. They included TheGeorgeBrandisExperience: satirical representations of the Minister appearing throughout social media and on-line. ArtsPeak convened a meeting of 50 arts leaders in Canberra and firmed up the commitment of Labor and the Greens to a Senate Inquiry. Brandis declined to meet with them (Winikoff interview, 16th March 2017, p. 6). By early July, forums were convened in Sydney and Melbourne to discuss strategy more broadly with the arts sector. The day after the Australia Council announced the cancellation of its six year funding application round Beyer had a meeting with, amongst others, Bill Shorten (Federal Opposition Leader) and Mark Dreyfus (Shadow Arts Minister), to gauge their support for a Senate Inquiry: support was strong. By the twenty-seventh of May Brandis was summoned to appear before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee Estimates to explain his actions.

By mid-June, the impact of the 2014 and 2015 Commonwealth Budget decisions on the Arts was referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Reference Committee with broad terms of reference following discussions between Federal ALP and Greens politicians and NAVA, Theatre Network Australia, and Feral Arts. The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance were also involved (Bandt Interview, 15 May 2017, pp.3 and 11). The referral was supported by the ALP, the Australian Greens and all eight members of the Senate crossbenches (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015, p. 77). The Member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, (Australian Greens), describes the uses of a Senate inquiry including bringing “the various affected people together...everyone can rock up and tell their story.” It is “a very powerful way of gathering information, including from the Department, from the Australia Council, from the Minister” (Interview 15th May 2017, pp.5-6). Submissions were prepared and members of the Inquiry committee were briefed. Winikoff describes how:

Feral Arts travelled from state to state both to prepare witnesses for the Senate Inquiry public hearings and helped with encouraging people to write submissions [and NAVA] did a lot of work encouraging not just our members but people from all across the sector to respond (Interview, 16th March 2017, p. 7).

Bandt’s office was involved, along with members of the arts advocacy coalitions, in briefing the Labor and Greens Senators because if they had: “a good grasp of the subject matter it

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[would make] an inquiry much more productive” (Bandt interview, 15th May 2017, p.7). In December 2015, the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Reference Committee released its report. The report recommended, amongst other things, the full restoration of the funds removed in the 2015 Federal budget. The campaign segued into a call for Brandis to be replaced as arts minister.

In September 2015, as calls for Brandis to be replaced intensified, Malcolm Turnbull became the new Prime Minister, replacing Tony Abbott. Senator Mitch Fifield replaced Brandis as the Federal Arts Minister in Turnbull’s first Cabinet, rebranding the National Program for Excellence in the Arts as Catalyst. The #Freethearts’ campaign for the return of the Catalyst funds to the Australia Council intensified and became an important platform during its campaign leading up to the 2016 Federal election. Winikoff describes how the campaign was assisted by the voices of some prominent artists, including Nick Cave, and philanthropists Neil Balnaves and Guido Belgiorno-Nettis. She also describes others: chairs of organisations, influential people within business, key figures within the arts industry, “very public well-known figures; they did it behind the scenes” (Interview, 16th March 2017, p.8). Labor’s Shadow Minister for the Arts, Mark Dreyfus, describes how Abbott seemed unaware of the way in which: “Brandis had poisoned relations with the Australian arts community”. He describes Turnbull as being:

good at the arts...he understood…many people in the arts community had contacted him, even while he was still Communications Minister, to say you've got to do something (Dreyfus interview, 26th May 2017, p.8).

Here we can see a mix of insider and outsider advocacy tactics at play to oust a minister.

Now that a new arts minister had been appointed, other tactics were brought into play to get Fifield to meet with the arts sector. On the sixth of November 2015, seventy people from diverse arts sectors met in Sydney for a one-day national roundtable, with another 50 individual artists and arts organisations participating on-line. The roundtable was convened by Feral Arts on behalf of #Freethearts and ArtsPeak to discuss the development of a shared national vision for arts and cultural development, national sector coordination and funding and financing options for the arts and cultural sector. Speakers at the roundtable included Bandt, Dreyfus, Fifield, and Grybowski. On the twentieth of November 2015, Fifield announced the return of $32 million over 4 years to the Australia Council (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c, p. 13). Dunn, the facilitator of the roundtable, offers this perspective: “Really the only thing that

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saved all of that was Brandis being turfed out and Fifield being put in”. Fifield’s experience with the disability sector had taught him:

you can have warring factions...But if you get them on the wrong side they will come together and bring you down…it was the same in the arts (Dunn interview, 22nd May 2017, p. 28).

On the second of July 2016, ArtsPeak convened a National Arts Election Debate that was streamed on YouTube. Fifield, Dreyfus and Bandt were invited to speak. Dreyfus and Bandt accepted immediately but:

Fifield kept us waiting until just a few days before the event. And we weren’t surprised...because it was an embarrassment to watch his struggle publicly with the fact that there was no arts policy and that there was no intention to address anything meaningful that had happened (Winikoff interview, 16th March 2017, pp. 9-10).

Bandt has this perspective on these events:

trying to elevate cuts beyond just the community that's affected to become a public issue isn't always an easy thing to do…I can't remember the last time arts policy got such a big airing prior to the election. It was a packed house...It was broadcast [feedback from his constituents was] an indication it had been elevated...everyone working together...got the government to the point of first rebranding and then a more significant shift (Interview 15th May 2017, pp. 10-15).

Immediately before the appointment of a caretaker government, on the second and eighth of May 2016, $23.3 million in Catalyst funding was announced, prompting “fears that the Government has allocated next year's funding hours before it went into caretaker mode” (Watts, 2016). Seventy-nine organisations, with a good geographical and “art form spread”, received funding (Stone, 2016). Some of the grants flouted the Catalyst guidelines which excluded capital works and capped single grants at $500,000. One million dollars was granted to a private trust established to conserve Australian artist Hans Heysen’s house in the federal seat of Mayo and another $1 million was given to the Australian Ballet for capital works on their Melbourne headquarters. It was just under another year, before Frank Panucci from the Australia Council could advise (email April 3, 2017) that: “$80.2 million over four years will be transferred to the Australia Council”. This included “$61 million in uncommitted funds, $32 million of which had been previously announced by the Minister in late 2015, which is already budgeted for in our grants program”.

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Strategy Halpin refers to the different mobilisation strategies favoured by insider and outsider groups (Halpin, 2012, p, 181). Outsider strategies are those designed to draw attention to an issue in order to establish or reorientate the policy agenda. These strategies may be intended to “embarrass” governments”. Insider strategies are designed to achieve “the possible” and can involve trading off short term losses for long term gains. Halpin suggests that outsider groups may not have the “skills or resources to get access” (Halpin, 2012, p. 181). I interpret this to include a lack of political or economic capital, something which is exemplified by some arts advocacy coalitions throughout this thesis

In the Brandis/Fifield era, there was consternation from the more powerful advocacy coalitions that some of the strategies employed during the campaign were too strident. Serow took exception to the expectation that AMPAG would: “come out with the same language and outrage and demonstration as the grass roots” when they could speak to the Minister about their concerns. (Interview 7th April 2017, p. 24). Beyer explained that what happened on the streets was not what happened in less public contexts in which work was done with: “the media and with people within the government” to build “really great and very true relationships” (Interview, 17th May 2017, pp. 19-20). Horton stated that there was “disdain for the kind of public nature of the protest stuff that happened with #Freethearts” He describes it as: “almost like a...class thing” in which he was told that these matters would be dealt with “separately behind closed doors through these board structures” (Interview, 17th March 2017, p. 16). The hierarchies of social and political capital are clear in the language being used here. There are people from the grass roots who voice their criticisms in public and there are those with access to the decision makers who have a quiet word, or words in the case of the Australia Council Chair: “this nuanced, subtle, sophisticated...conversation going on...proposing a way forward” (Myer interview, 28th February 2018, p. 18).

Strategies favoured by arts advocacy coalitions In 2017 I surveyed members of arts advocacy coalitions to discover their preferred strategies for political engagement (see Chapter 2 for more details of the survey). The findings in Figures 19 and 20 below show the percentage of respondents using specific strategies. For this analysis I have separated the data for advocacy and service organisations from the data for creative producers to see if different patterns emerge.

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Figure 19: Strategies for political engagement: advocacy and service organisations

Advocacy material for others

Policy infor for members

Op. Ed pieces

Press release & interviews

Co-ordinate campaigns

Submissions to Govt.

Reps to other politicians

Reps to Government

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

As expected, this data reveals a very high degree of political engagement by the 58 respondents to this question. This could be accounted for in part by the less than twelve months that had elapsed between my distribution of the survey (April 2017) and the Federal Election (2 July 2016). Engagement by respondents with government and other politicians and a submission to a government inquiry were features of the pre-election campaign launched by arts advocacy coalitions. It may also account for high degree of engagement with politicians who are not part of the government, as this bi-partisan approach is likely to be part of their modus operandi (Fraussen & Halpin, 2016, p. 476). An analysis of the individual responses indicates that campaign coordination is a more specialised function, predominantly undertaken by the peak advocacy bodies such as ArtsPeak, Feral Arts, MEAA and Regional Arts Australia, the peak artform organisations, arts and disability organisations and state- based arts industry councils. State-based organisations that are part of national networks, such as the writers’ centres or the music industry network are also very active in this regard.

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Figure 20: Strategies for political engagement: creative producers

Advocacy material for others

Policy infor for members

Op. Ed pieces

Press release & interviews

Co-ordinate campaigns

Submissions to Govt.

Reps to other politicians

Reps to Government

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

There were 49 creative producer respondents to this question. Again, the proximity of the survey to the pre-election campaign may account for the high degree of engagement recorded in relation to submissions to Government. The representations to Government are higher than to other politicians, and there is much less emphasis on campaign co-ordination, possibly as this is a resource intensive role. Their distribution of policy information to their members is lower than for advocacy and service organisations which could reflect that many creative producers are not membership-based organisations. What these results also show is the close relationship between creative production and policymaking: people who make art also make policy. It was this principle that influenced the structure and operations of the Australia Council (see Chapter Four). Throughout the thesis I have described successive restructures of the Council which have sought to separate the functions of creative production from policymaking. I also surveyed opinions of organisational respondents on the most effective advocacy tools. The responses were ranked from the most to the least effective and are presented in Figure 21 below.

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Cleavages My case studies show how cleavages between Australia’s national arts advocacy coalitions were often triggered by disputes over the elite funding status of the major performing arts organisations. Amongst the arts policy subsystem, rumours implicated these organisations in orchestrating the Brandis policy shock.

Nobody likes to be blamed for something they didn’t do, and this is evident in the experiences of Natalie Jenkins, Executive Director Black Swan State Theatre Company, when she recalled the breaking news on the 2015 budget. Describing the frantic confusion and rumours in the arts sector at that time; “speculation then just went crazy” and:

once we did start to unpick it the first response that came was not pleasant…[there] was suddenly this feeling of ‘well you guys as a major have caused this’…it suddenly felt that there had been this massive wedge put between us for things that most of us largely did not understand. Certainly, there were supporting hearsay claims (Interview, 27th October 2017, p. 4).

Jenkins describes how quickly animosity and distrust between the major and small-to-medium arts organisations were re-ignited. In referencing the hearsay, she does not categorically dismiss the accusations, leaving room for doubt. Then on the twenty-ninth of May 2015, this statement from Craig Hassall, at the time the CEO of Opera Australia, was picked up by Crikey:

Speaking [for] Opera Australia, my first thought is that I am relieved and delighted that major performing arts companies’ funding hasn’t been cut...I don’t really have a view on where the money comes from, as long as the government is spending money on the arts (Eltham, 2015c).

This intensified what was already the "blaming the majors” response, one of the three perspectives on cleavages expressed by Australian arts advocacy coalitions. The second perspective is the need to present a unified front.

This has been a feature of the arts advocates’ rhetoric since the early 1980s: the days of CAPPA (Macdonnell interview, 13th November 2017, p. 8) and, later that decade, Arts Action Australia. The need for the “single voice” for the arts to overcome politicians’ “classic divide and rule” (Travers interview, 1st April 2017, p.1). Dunn describes a manifestation of this feature and the attempts to stave off blaming all the majors for everything: “by Feral Arts, bringing in

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the majors and including them and getting them to say out loud, it wasn’t in anybody's interests for this to happen” (Interview, 22nd May 2017, p. 26-28). Dunn is not suggesting that all the arts sector should always come together . Rather she is suggesting that there is: “a shared view about what's needed in the sector as a whole, and then everyone's going to fight about how much of it each part of the sector gets” (Interview, 22nd May 2017, p. 26-28). Beyer’s view is that: “We only have strength if we talk as a whole sector” and cites the political divide and conquer rationale. In discussing the values of the campaign, she says: “a really important one was trying to stop the people who were bagging the majors too much”. She describes the positions adopted by various major performing arts companies on the issue of the Brandis cuts, distinguishing between the Australian Opera and Ballet, and others, like the state theatre companies to whose private views she was privy (Interview, 17th May 2017, pp. 17-18).

Rob Brookman described the efforts of the state theatre companies to speak out as a group and how this was prevented by “the largest two” companies (Interview, 19 h May 2017, pp. 7- 10). Australian journalist Ben Eltham alleged that a meeting between David Gonski, the Chair of the Sydney Theatre Company, and Brandis’ policy advisors caused the Company to “back away from any public statement” and that “other majors, sniffing the wind, also took fright” (Eltham, 2015c). Eltham identifies the third perspective on cleavages, that a real or implied threat to withdraw funding buys silence. However, Brookman has a more nuanced view:

an unfair construction to put on that would be to say that, as the largest...they would have the most to lose out of being offside with government, but [for them] government funding is a lot less critical...between 7-12%. Whereas, for companies like State Theatre Company [of South Australia], funding could be more like 45% of turnover. So, I think it was more a result of the fact that the Boards of those companies tend to be intrinsically more conservative and to be more intrinsically concerned about matters at a political level (Interview, 19th May 2017, pp. 7-10).

Here Brookman is referring to the influence of economic and social capital; an influence that operates between political decision makers and powerful arts organisations, insiders trading off short term losses for long term gains.

These perspectives on cleavages reveal different aspects of power. Blaming all the majors for everything is symptomatic of the ACF’s concept of the ‘devil shift’, imbuing them with more power and evil intent than they may have. It can also lead to treating powerful groups as homogenous, assuming they all have the same interests and admitting no room for diversity. The second perspective, present a unified front, needs to be deconstructed in order to

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distinguish between ideology, strategy and tactics. This could reveal more options for action and create more fluidity in the relationships between the powerful and less powerful. At certain times and under certain conditions coalitions come together, at others they do not. The third perspective, that even the powerful succumb to threats, I interpret as the projection of how the less powerful imagine that economic and political capital operates amongst elites. My perspective is that these elites are insiders and therefore no threats are necessary. This brings me to a discussion about leadership.

Leadership The types of leadership under scrutiny during this period included the leadership of the Australia Council, the Coalition and its Arts Ministers, and Labor and Greens arts spokesmen and their parties. The Australia Council has a powerful symbolic role as the embodiment of the policy core beliefs of the arts policy subsystem. There has also been a persistent belief that the Council’s Boards were bodies representing the sector. Board members participated in public arts advocacy, sometimes against the government (see Chapters Four and Six). Prior to this major shock to the art policy subsystem, the Boards had been dismantled and the arts sector looked to the Council for leadership. What opportunity did the Council have to fulfil this expectation? Archer relates how the Council’s chair wanted it to be a “stronger lobbyist” how he discussed this with the Council’s governing body and how: “the reality gradually dawned on all of us”. That reality came in the form of a senior executive from the Ministry for the Arts telling Waleed Aly in a Council meeting that, as a Council member, Aly was not allowed to publicly disagree with what Brandis had done; that he could only advise the government (Archer interview, 30th April 2017, p. 3).). Former Deputy Chair of the Council Dunn believes: “there are a lot of roles that they could play, and that legislation enables them to play. I think it was just a cop-out” (Interview, 22nd May 2017, p. 27). Dunn clearly disagrees with the Council’s compliance with the Department’s view.

Pledger summarised the disquiet expressed by “the majority of the active arts sector, the cultural media and the political culture” over a period of two years at the Australia Council’s silence. He concluded that: “the Australia Council’s advocacy has not worked, or worse still, was non-existent” (Pledger, 2017). Philanthropist Neil Balnaves and former General Manager of the Australia Council Michael Lynch went public with their criticisms: Balnaves reproached the leaders of the Council for failing in their “responsibility to advocate for artists”; and Lynch criticised “arts leaders more broadly” for not speaking out “earlier and louder” (Boland, 2017). Myer coupled the expectations of the sector that Council publicly advocate for artists and the smaller companies with their belief in “advocacy as a blood sport”. He acknowledged that: “the

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strident advocacy actually...gave us agency with the government, because they lost any justification had they wished to be critical of the Australia Council” (Interview, 20th February 2018, p. 20). The Chairman criticised the sector for what he perceived as a ‘strident’’ approach to advocacy, acknowledged that this advocacy was effective for the Council and yet seemed to abrogate any responsibility for facilitating engagement with the sector on matters of strategy and tactics.

Political leadership was an issue throughout the campaign. Dreyfus was impressed with how rapidly the arts sector mobilised and how the: “Feral Arts crew, sort of created themselves into this ginger group or resource group, which was terrific... I didn't need to push much. I was standing shoulder to shoulder rather than bringing into being the opposition.” (Interview, 26 May 2017, p. 5). Dreyfus’ perspective in this instance is as someone with a role to play within a broader mobilisation, rather than as the leader. Horton speaks about Feral Arts’ experiences with the ALP and how: “it’s been a very close run to get anything on the table”. He discerned that the ALP’s motivation was more about wanting: “to shore up...support in a few inner-city seats”. Horton is assuming that an arts vote exists in these seats. He does not believe that the ALP’S commitment in this regard was: “underpinned by principles that see what the value of arts and culture is”. He compared the ALP’s approach with the way in which Whitlam and Keating “talked about the role of the arts in society”. Horton believed that in the 2016 Federal Elections the Greens “set a benchmark that Labor hadn’t really had to try and meet” but that “it’s not engrained in a way that makes it vibrant and sustainable” (Interview, 17th March 2017, p. 12). Horton is talking about the difficulty in getting politicians to commit to expenditure on the arts in their election policies and the transient nature of those election policies. Crean’s perspective:

The thing that did disappoint me most of all was that having fought for this and delivered Creative Australia it wasn’t fought to be retained with the change of Government. The lobbying aspect disappointed me most of all (Interview, 6th June 2017, p. 12).

Both Horton and Crean are reflecting on the volatility and transience of the public policy cycle in recent years and the tendency for significant members of the arts policy subsystem, the politicians, the political parties and the arts advocacy coalitions, to get caught up in that.

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Part Two: interpretations of the policy beliefs, access and excellence

The Arts Minister’s interpretation There were no public statements foreshadowing this policy, however, with hindsight, early indicators can be seen in Brandis’ speech as Shadow Minister for the Arts in 2013:

The Coalition views the arts as one of the principal arenas in which Australians strive for and achieve excellence; the pursuit of excellence across all of the artistic genres will be the central value of cultural policy under a Coalition Government (Brandis, 2013, p. 1).

Brandis was extolling the virtues of the policy core belief of excellence: the value embodying the exercise of aesthetic judgement often referred to as taste. Brandis also signalled his distrust of instrumentalism in arts policy as it meant “the creative work of artists is not valued for its own sake – as something intrinsically good in itself” (2013, p. 1). Brandis acknowledged that the arts should be “accessible to all Australians” but condemned Australia’s cultural policy for its “obsessive concern to avoid being seen as elitist’”, rewarding instead “mediocrity and political correctness” (2103, p. 1). He promised that the Coalition would “encourage the telling of Australian stories in Australian voices”, while understanding that “our great artists and arts companies” should contribute to and interpret “the international repertoire – in particular the great classical works and artistic movements which have shaped and defined Western civilization” (2013, p. 3). It is clear that Brandis’ policy scope was international and his emphasis was on the Canon, and these views served to heighten the political construction put on his use of the term excellence by members of the arts advocacy coalitions: that it was code for the companies of excellence.

Brandis’ interpretation of access was in part a commitment to “the great regional and rural areas of Australia” that he accused Labor of neglecting with “their narrow and elitist outlook” (Brandis, 2013, p. 3). He also interpreted access not only in geographical but in intellectual terms stipulating that arts funding should be directed towards: “beneficiaries [willing] to present art which is accessible to and enjoyed by the broader public”. He made his view of government funding priorities clear: that “there is a necessary role for government in funding our great arts companies and artistic enterprises” (Brandis, 2013, p. 3). In summary, these extracts from his speech reveal a politician who believed in the intrinsic value of the arts. He clearly saw excellence as the central and dominant belief. He interpreted access in geographic, intellectual and financial terms arguing for affordability, but not suggesting that equity should be a government obligation along with the funding of excellence. This approach is consistent with

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that taken by the liberal democratic tradition in Zapata-Barrero’s framework in which government’s purpose:

is to ensure the cultural rights of citizens, without taking into account the means necessary for citizens to put these rights into practice (Zapata-Barrero, 2016, p. 544).

In 2013 Brandis’ attitudes to the policy preferences for peer review at arm’s length from government were less clear. His attitudes to these policy preferences became clearer in an ABC radio interview in May 2015, following the budget news on the cuts to the Australia Council. He referred to the:

widespread perception in the arts community that the Australia Council sometimes is a closed shop... I’m not endorsing that view but to pretend that isn’t the perception of the Australia Council is fanciful (Cathcart, 2005).

In his response to questions from the members of the Senate Estimates Committee, Brandis revealed his views as: “I am powerfully persuaded that the Australia Council should not be the monopoly provider of Commonwealth arts funding” (Committee Hansard, 27 May 2015). These successive quotes reveal a hardening of his resolve to create a parallel form of arts funding for the Commonwealth and the development of his arguments in support of this.

In the same Committee session Brandis was questioned about the NPEA. He argued that what the Government had “tried to do” was to develop two models of funding: the arm’s length model and the ministerial model. He explains that the principle here is:

contestability...one of my misgivings about the exclusive peer-to-peer funding model is: who represents the audience around the table? The minister, being the responsible officer in charge of taxpayers' money, has to be the voice for audiences (Commonwealth of Australia, 27 May 2015).

Brandis’ was expressing his views more confidently; using the language favoured by neo- liberalism. This perspective was accompanied by his construction of himself as the arbiter of taste on behalf of Australian audiences: a construction that drew criticism from witnesses in the Senate Inquiry hearings. The Minister also revealed how the major performing arts companies “are the heart and soul of the performing arts sector in this country”. He explained that this was the case because they were the “big employers of artists”, the people who do “most” of the domestic and international touring and that Australian audiences: “go to the

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performances of the major performing arts companies, whether it be drama, music, opera, ballet, dance” (Eltham, 2015b).

The Ministry’s interpretation I draw on discussions recorded in Hansard, on the draft guidelines for NPEA and the final guidelines to identify the Ministry’s interpretation of the core policy core values and policy preferences in relation to the NPEA/Catalyst program. Their interpretation would require the endorsement of the Arts Minister.

On the twenty-third of November 2015, Ms Sally Basser, Executive Director for the Ministry for the Arts, and Dr. Stephen Arnott, Assistant Secretary, Ministry for the Arts, appeared before the Senate Inquiry (Commonwealth of Australia, 23 November, 2015a). Appendix 8.1 provides the details on the membership of this Inquiry committee. By this time, a new Arts Minister had been appointed, Senator Mitch Fifield, and the NPEA had been rebranded as Catalyst. The Ministry had extended an invitation in June to the subsidised arts sector to provide feedback on the draft guidelines, to which they received 330 responses prior to the closing date on 31 July 2015 (Committee Hansard, 23 November 2015b). In their submissions to the Senate Inquiry and in the testimony of witnesses at the Inquiry hearings, arguments were made in favour of cultural pluralism, although most responses referred to traditional and contemporary interpretations of the excellence policy belief. The pluralist interpretation of excellence was not reflected in the Catalyst policy.

In response to questioning from Senator Bilyk (ALP), Arnott explained that there would be three assessors for every project, with a minimum of one independent assessor. The Answers to Questions on Notice clarify that: a minimum of one independent assessor would be selected from a pool of “arts professionals, philanthropists, producers and community representatives” for every two Ministry assessors; the assessors would not meet with other assessors; and the assessor’s views, consisting of comments and a completion of a rating scale, would be completed on line and forwarded to “be considered by Ministry staff”. The staff would “ensure a balance of art form, types of activity, geographic and community diversity in the range of projects recommended” (Committee Hansard, 23 November 2015b). This approach placed a lot of power and influence in the hands of the Ministry staff who selected the assessors, processed their advice, and then determined whether the project met the other considerations of balance and diversity. The independent assessor would not have an opportunity to speak to the other assessors or explain the rationale behind their rankings.

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In the Catalyst guidelines the assessment criteria were not defined other than through a series of dot points. The criterion of access clearly assumed a distributive interpretation of this policy core value, with emphasis on audience development, attendance numbers and geographic reach. The words innovation and participation replaced earlier terms of excellence and audience appeal respectively (Department for Communications and the Arts, 2015).

In summary, the policy guidelines were an exercise to provide a retrospective rationale for a funding program whose objectives were unclear. The tinkering with words betrayed a particular understanding about the policy principles of access and equity. Innovation was just as vexed a term as excellence, and neither was defined adequately. The provision for peer review was tokenistic and strongly mediated by the Department.

Witness testimonials: an overview The testimonials of the 282 witnesses who presented to the Senate Inquiry Hearings revealed. their strong support for the Australia Council. There was also a small but significant acceptance of the Minister’s right to establish his own fund, with the strongly expressed caveat that he should find new money with which to do this. There were very few qualifications concerning the policy preference for peer review and several testimonials from current and former peers and both successful and unsuccessful grant applicants defending this system.

One of the themes presented by the witnesses was the lack of any clear policy context for the NPEA program and a lack of clarity about NPEA’s objectives and eligibility criteria. The witnesses relied on their interpretations of the Minister’s statements to gauge these. The second theme was the impact of the diversion of funds to NPEA on the small-to-medium arts sector. Impacts included the flow-on effects of the sudden loss of funding stability to that part of the arts sector, threatening their viability. The third theme related to the impact of the diversion of Australia Council funding on the funds available for individual artists and the literature sector; a situation compounded by their exclusion from NPEA. The overwhelming concern of most of the witnesses was that the cuts had diverted funds provided for the operational costs of small-to-medium organisations to a program that only supported projects. A fourth theme related to the operation of the fund which was on a “first-come, first-serve basis” which Brookman described as a “classic libertarian approach” that was designed to: “favour the strong over the less well resourced” (Rob Brookman, Committee Hansard, 8 September 2015). Brookman was critiquing the funding model.

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The statements made by the Minister on the significant role played by the major performing arts organisations and the mediocrity of the work of other parts of the sector drew criticism and many witnesses concluded that the Government lacked an understanding of the depth and breadth of the arts sector, which served to emphasise the lack of an evidence base and policy framework for the program. There were four main themes to witnesses’ response to the Minister’s beliefs in this regard. The first of these was the notion of arts ecology: a term used to describe the creative interdependence of the arts sector. The second theme also related to this notion but cast the small-to-medium arts sector in the role of innovators, free from the restrictions created by a subscription model, playing on a world stage. The third theme provided statistics to challenge the Minister’s assertion that the major companies were the principal touring organisations attracting the highest audiences. This data demonstrated that the small-to-medium companies provided 73 per cent of the tours within Australia and, when touring internationally, attracted 82 per cent of the audiences. The final theme related to the impact of a reduced small-to-medium arts sector on the livelihood of independent artists and their pathways to employment. Witnesses cited that funding uncertainty was triggering job losses due to cancelled projects and initiatives with partner agencies. In summary, these witness statements during the Senate Inquiry Hearings presented a well-reasoned rebuttal of many of the Minister’s arguments for establishing a parallel arts funding source.

Witness interpretations of access and excellence The principal interpretations of access were distributive and educational. Witnesses were critical of the Minister’s failure to acknowledge the principle of equitable access to cultural experiences. A minority of witnesses supported a democratic interpretation of the access. They expressed the right of individuals and communities to express their creativity and condemned the failure of the NPEA to acknowledge citizens as creators.

The implicit and explicit coupling of excellence with the major performing arts organisations in the Minister’s statements and the draft guidelines was criticised by witnesses. Two themes to this argument were the privileging of the major performing arts organisations over the small- to-medium arts sector and the assumption that excellence could only be found within the Canon. Many witnesses supported the contemporary interpretation of excellence. A minority of witnesses objected to the privileging of the Canon over a commitment to recognise and support a diversity of cultural practices, cultural pluralism. Eleanor Jackson, Editor in Chief of Peril Magazine, argued that there were already questions about large organisations and “the diversity of their form and the diversity of their participants”. She argued that measuring their impact in terms of “how many bums on seats” evaded the issue of the need to build: “a strong

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and resilient participatory culture that also included members of non-dominant minority groups” (Committee Hansard, 4 November 2015).

Senate Inquiry findings In December 2015 the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee handed down its report of its inquiry into the Impact of the 2014 and 2015 Commonwealth Budget decisions on the Arts The report was endorsed by five Senators (three ALP, one Independent and one Australian Greens) and the dissenting was signed by the Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ian Macdonald (Queensland) and Western Australian Senator Dean Smith (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c).

The majority report was a detailed and respectful account of the Senate Hearings, reflecting the evidence presented within the context of well researched background material on the impact of 2014 and 2015 budget decisions on the arts. The majority report’s recommendations supported arm’s length funding and peer review. It did not dismiss the option for Catalyst to continue under the Minister’s direction, with the caveat that new money was found (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c, p. vii), which reflected the tenor of the evidence given. The report also recommended support for geographic equity and cultural diversity in the allocation of Commonwealth arts funding (recommendations 10 and 11 respectively, (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c, p. viii). In this sense, the authors supported, although not in an exclusive way, the distributive interpretation of access and the pluralist interpretation of excellence.

The minority report supports five of the 13 recommendations, although it categorises recommendations 10 and 11, dealing respectively with the equitable geographical distribution of arts funds and government support for cultural diversity, as statements of principle rather than recommendations. The recommendations of the majority report concerning the return of Catalyst funds to the Australia Council and the provision of transitional financial support to small-to-medium arts organisations and individual artists affected by the changes were not supported. The recommendation to apply the Australia Council’s peer review resources and processes to the Catalyst funding decisions was rejected on the grounds that it failed to: “consistently deliver outcomes that reflect the public interest” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c, p. 89). The minority report made complaints concerning the conduct of the hearings, including the biased selection of witnesses (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c, p. 86). In my interview with Senator Macdonald, I asked him whether he could recall how many witnesses he proposed that were not selected. His response was that there were: “a number that were supportive, but you'll find very few of them were asked to give evidence” (Interview, 22nd June

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2017. p. 11). The majority report detailed and acknowledged the testimony of witnesses supportive of NPEA/Catalyst (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c pp. 25-26) and observed that the evidence was “notable... for the consistency of its message”. It stated that the Inquiry’s recommendations reflected: “the overwhelming weight of opinion and analysis received by the committee” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c, p. 77).

The minority report was also critical that only arts organisations responded, and that the broader community were not sufficiently interested to become involved (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c, p. 86). Eighty-seven per cent of the 2,718 submissions to the Inquiry were from individuals and included artists, parents, schoolteachers, and people describing themselves as arts lovers. Submissions were also received from ten local governments, four state government agencies and eight community development organisations. Not surprisingly, the minority report asserts that the Inquiry was a cynical political exercise by the Opposition and the Greens (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c, p. 85). Macdonald reflected in our interview that at one time the findings of Senate committees were “seriously considered as important research documents...Nowadays...very little serious policy work is done” (Macdonald interview, 22nd June 2017 p. 6).

Part Three: support for policy preferences

Arm’s length funding: views of the Inquiry witnesses From my analysis of the transcripts, the witnesses’ views on arm’s length funding can be grouped into three categories: political mediation limits freedom of expression; political control distorts cultural policy priorities and compromises arts sector development; and a minority view that a dual system of ministerial control and arm’s length decision-making is acceptable as long as the quantum of funds is not reduced. I provide an example of each of these perspectives below.

Pledger believed that arm’s length funding for the arts was important if the arts were to investigate “the views that are contestable”. He gave the following example of what he meant by this:

Adam Goodes. What did he do? ...he made a dance. From inside his culture and his artistic sensibility, that combination had a... profound effect on a whole series of things that we were not discussing. That in and of itself is an extremely important part of our democratic process that we need to protect, and the arts has a very fundamental function in that (Pledger, Committee Hansard, 5 August 2015).

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Pledger is referring to Goodes’ response to persistent racist slurs directed at him from spectators attending AFL matches. His response was to perform a war dance during a match in defiance of this behaviour. Pledger’s interpretation of Goodes’ dance highlights the role of culture in constructing meaning; in this instance a meaning that challenged racist cultural hegemony. It also highlights the implications for Australia of restricting freedom of expression.

Another witness discussed their time on the Playing Australia Committee, which was part of the Department at the time. With a background as a member of the Theatre Board, she was used to a situation where the Board made decisions:

I assure you that the minister took up the option to change things, and they were not little tweaks. Sometimes the thing from the top of a panel would disappear, and something that was... definitely not to be funded would appear in the announcement (Annette Downs, Senior Producer, Tasmanian Performs, Performing Lines, Committee Hansard, 3 September 2015).

This witness described her exposure to political intervention and how political mediation can distort cultural policy priorities and compromise sector development.

Most witnesses wanted the money used to establish NPEA returned to the Australia Council. Kovatseff put forward this view:

return...the funds to the Australia Council... the six-year-funding arrangements to go back into place [and then have] money distributed through a ministry...It could be quite productive if there were guidelines and consultations (Committee Hansard, 18 September, 2015).

Kovatseff was sanguine at the possibility of a dual system of funding: one at arm’s length and one through a government department under ministerial control if this did not jeopardise the quantum of funding at the Council’s disposal. These views were supported by AMPAG, some of whose members have enjoyed direct line funding.

Feral Arts was present at every hearing and actively involved in most aspects of the campaign to restore the funding to the Council. Horton believed that the “principle of independence” was what underpinned the unanimity of the response “there was almost universal support for Council” during the hearings even from those who had never had a successful application. He believed that the principle of independence from government:

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touched a nerve for a lot of people, we’ve got them off their seats and out in the streets in 2015 and I think it will again” (Interview, Horton, 17th March 2017, pp. 8-12).

Horton is describing the role that the core policy preference of arm’s length funding played in mobilising arts advocacy coalitions in response to the Brandis policy shock. In this statement, for him the Council embodies the policy beliefs of the arts policy subsystem, making it difficult to envisage another option for a policy venue. I will now examine whether the views of my interview subjects resonate with these perspectives two years after the hearings.

Arm’s length funding: contemporary views Figure 22 shows the distribution of the thirty-seven responses of the thirty-three interview subjects to this question. This disparity is accounted for by the fact that only twenty-five out of thirty-three responses fitted exclusively into one of these three categories; one respondents gave both qualified and unqualified support for arm’s length funding and three respondents gave both qualified support for arm’s length funding and support for ministerial fiat.

Figure 22: Contemporary interpretations of arm’s length funding policy preference

11%

35% 54%

Unqualified support Qualified support Ministerial fiat

There were thirty-one responses to this question. The relatively large proportion of responses giving qualified support for the principle of arm’s length funding is unexpected in the light of the frequency with which a commitment to this belief has triggered mobilisations of arts advocacy coalitions in Australia, most recently over the Brandis intervention. The believers. outnumber the waverers. Once again, the percentages total more than 100% as three respondents for a ministerial fiat also had qualified support for arm’s length funding. An examination of the interview transcripts may provide more insight.

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My interview subjects did not find it difficult to find reasons why the arm’s length principle is a good thing, citing artistic freedom of expression as a strong argument in its favour. It was also seen to enable more risk taking and encourage sector development when compared to what were perceived as the risk-averse approaches of bureaucratic decision making. It also protected the minister. They also found many reasons against the ministerial model. They perceived it as unfair and prone to pork barrelling, and hampering sector development McMullan’s perspective was: “if a government has found the Australia Council making some decisions it didn't like...then we bring them into the department... I think...that's always a self- defeating policy and we're much better doing it the way we do.” (Interview, 6th June 2017, 15- 18). In this thesis I have provided many instances where that has happened over the last 30 years. There were a minority in favour of the ministerial system: “there is nothing wrong with having a ministerial amount of money to do other things” (Serow Interview, 7th April 2017, p. 18).

The former federal Minister for the Arts and at the time of this interview Labor’s shadow minister for the arts, Tony Burke, expressed his interpretation of the core policy preference of arm’s length decision making in these terms: “you want to have arm's length funding, but no minister wants to render themselves irrelevant” (Interview 22 February 2018, p.7). Burke sums up one of the enduring internal contradictions of the Australian arts policy subsystem: how can an arts minister have any authority within an arts grants system that keeps her/him at arm’s length? This contradiction is exacerbated by the dominance of the patronage policy mode favoured by all Australian governments which almost requires the exercise of personal taste by the Minister. Macdonnell’s perspective:

I've never really understood arm's length...I mean given that we live in a democracy...what is it in the arts that we are scared about that we are not scared about in health... in education? (Interview 13th November 2017, p. 26-29).

Macdonnell’s perspective assumes that the policy status of culture in Australia is on a par with health or education.

There is an element of political fatalism in some of the responses. Grybowski acknowledged that “Ministers will always want to make more decisions and more controls” and how, in a climate of reduced budgets, there is “less discretionary spends [and] more spotlight on how decisions are made”. He also noted how the Council: “a small agency, [with] a large remit” looks attractive if you are trying to find money from somewhere (Interview, 16 h November 2017, p. 38). Grybowski identified the tensions between the policy preference for arm’s length

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decision making and the urge to exercise power by successive arts ministers. He also acknowledged the pressures on ministers to find money for an initiative they support in a fiscal environment where new money for the arts has not been sustained since Garret’s stint as arts minister in the first Rudd government. Peter White is a Gamilaroi Murri man and museologist and has this perspective:

with the Australia Council, they've always championed autonomy, linked in with the sector, as opposed to the ministry, which is an instrument of the government...This is sort of also the failing, because much the same as in the First Nations experience with ATSIC, you're still an instrument of government. You may look and feel a bit different, but you're still beholden, you still operate under an act....So they say, well, here's another million-dollar cut...So that gets down to control (Interview 4th March, 2018, pp. 14-16).

White is identifying the idea of the Council as the representative of the arts sector, an idea also expressed by Hawkes (see Chapter Four) and confronting the politics of the arm’s length relationship. It is a relationship based on an unequal distribution of power. In summary, it is clear from the interview responses that there is a strong level of general support for this policy core preference while the detail reveals equivocation.

Peer review: views of the Inquiry witnesses Following Crean’s review of the Council, prompted in part by complaints that the Council had become a closed shop in relation to its grants assesment processes, the art-form Boards of the Council were dissolved, the grants system simplified and the number of peers expanded (Australia Council, 2017, p. 16).

My analysis of the Inquiry transcripts reveals strong support for the peer review system. This support was not blind to the weaknesses of this approach but acknowledged that it was the best available. Witnesses spoke from the perspective of grant applicants, peer assessors and grant administrators from other parts of the arts policy subsystem. Their reasons for support had to do with their confidence in the people making the assesment, confidence in the equity and transparency of the process, and respect for the good arts policy that is made when artists are in these environments. Their confidence in the assessors was based on the trust that grant recipients had for the expertise and insights of their peers and their knowledge of the particularities of different working environments. They were confident that the process was properly governed, but more so in the diversity of perspectives operating within the process and the vigorous debate that this generated. Their confidence that this process could produce

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good policy was because it allowed “an anticipation of values and aesthetic forms which are sensed but not fully grasped” to emerge (Nikos Papastergiadis, Committee Hansard, 5 August 2015).

Concerns were with the subjectivity of peer judgement and the challenge in assembling peers with the right mix of artistic and cultural credentials from across a country as large as Australia, particularly when some jurisdictions had a relatively small pool on which to draw, such as Western Australia (Boston interview, 26th October 2017, pp. 32-33).

Peer review: contemporary views Figure 23 shows the distribution of the thirty-one respondents to this question. Significant parts of one response align with each of the categories of support, qualified support and ministerial fiat.

Figure 23: Contemporary interpretations of the peer review policy preference

13% 32%

68%

Unqualified support Qualified support Ministerial fiat

Overall, opinions on peer review are much more highly qualified by my interview subjects than their views on arm’s length funding. The believers. are significantly outweighed by the waverers. This high level of qualification is significant. Of the thirty-one respondents to this question, six gave answers that were in more than one category. Twenty-one gave qualified support for peer review and ten gave unqualified support, and four supported ministerial fiat. The percentages total more than 100% because four supporters of ministerial fiat also gave qualified support to peer review.

In my analysis of the relationship between how my interview subjects ranked their support for peer review and arm’s length funding, I identified a direct relationship between how they

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ranked these two policy preferences in fourteen cases. They offered the same level of support for both. Where respondents’ interpretations of these policy preferences are inconsistent, there are more who offer unqualified support for arm’s length funding but qualified support for peer review rather than the other way around. The Australia Council radiates confidence in its revised peer assesment process (interviews with Grybowski, Archer and Myer). So why did not more of my interview subjects share this confidence?

My analysis of their transcripts reveals that some of these concerns relate to how peer review systems operate and the complexities in convening a panel that meets the Council’s requirements for diversity and geographical representation. Similar concerns were raised by the Inquiry witnesses. These are not new concerns and have bedevilled the Council since its establishment (Macdonnell, 1991, pp. 98-99 & p. 128). Other concerns relate to how to define a peer. This is not a new concern either but what is new is that it seems to be coming up more in discussion. What is a new concern is the split between the assessment process and policy and strategy, leaving the peers without a strategic framework within which consider applications.

The controversy about what constitutes a peer has to do with the fact that “all of us in this sector participate in those processes all of the time, and have done for many years” (Jenkins Interview, 27th October, 2017, pp. 15-17) and “Too many of them and their credentials happen to be that they are on the board of an arts organisation but that doesn’t mean that they have a deep understanding of how the arts works” (Winikoff, Interview, 16th March 2017, p. 19). Jenkins is describing how the assessors and the assessed are drawn from the same pool. Winikoff does not see enough expertise assembled with an understanding of the arts sector. The number of creative genres from different cultural traditions requiring assesment presents challenges. As Letts puts it:

you can't have a separate panel for every flicker of a genre, it can't be afforded but going to the other extreme and saying all the peers can all judge everything is nuts. It's an abdication. (Interview, 27th March 2017, pp. 15-16).

Rob Brookman raises the issue of tokenism, when “the desperate effort that has gone into assembling a panel that ticks all the boxes” fails to appoint a peer with a sufficient understanding of the art in their community (Interview, 19th May 2017, pp. 26-27). Is Brookman’s concern with this peer a reflection of their different interpretations of excellence? Brookman and Letts are each concerned about who is not in the room and the challenges involved in assembling an appropriately skilled and informed peer assessment panel.

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Several interview subjects expressed concerns about what they perceived as the lack of strategy and policy in the new peer review process. White observed that what was a process involving: “very high-level strategic thinking.... not just about making funding decisions. It was shaping policy and direction” has been reduced to “a transaction”. He argues that the peers are there “to make a decision of how that money gets spent...not who the money goes to” (Interview, 4th March 2018, pp. 14-15). White is stating that the Council’s focus on process, can mean a failure to consider outcomes. Horton makes the point that without a policy framework: “that used to be there with the artform boards it means that the assessment process is less strategic”. An awareness of:

what had come before and what was coming in the future; that doesn’t seem to exist anymore. The capacity for sharing that knowledge doesn’t seem to be there either (Interview, 17th March 2017, p.10).

Horton is raising the same concerns as White. What Horton had experienced as a process with a strategic and forward-looking focus, based on the expertise in the room, had become an exercise in ranking applications against each other. Boston believes that: “we’ve suffered a failure of the policy framework” (Interview 26th October 2017, pp. 32-33). Winikoff:

There’s a difficulty with simply throwing people in at the deep end who haven’t got a national overview. Now what comes in over the table is looked at in comparison with what they happened to be competing with at the time and the peers make a decision (Interview, 16th March 2017, p. 19).

Winikoff’s concerns were that different kinds of organisations such as creative producers, service organisations and advocacy bodies were competing against each other in the same funding round. She also drew a “distinction between decisions in relation to individual artists compared with organisations” (Interview, 16th March 2017, p. 18-19). White, Horton, Boston and Winikoff are critical of a peer assessment process that takes place uninformed by a policy framework appropriate to their art form or genre. White observed the shift in the focus of decision-making from a strategic emphasis on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of funding decisions to the “transactional” decision on who gets the money. He and Boston are also sceptical of the Council’s strategic plan as a basis for informing any strategic approach in relation to grant decision-making (White interview, 4th March 2018, pp. 15-16).

In their recommendations for the restructure of the Australia Council Trainor and James proposed the establishment of Sector Advisory Panels which would “inform the work” of the

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Council’s governing body (2012, p. 26). This recommendation was accepted by the Gillard Government (Australian Government, 2013, p. 139). In response to my question about whether these had been established, Grybowski replied:

What we decided to do, through the transition period, was to not form another layer of panels and reviews, but we pull them together when there’s a policy issue. My view is that the sector...should drive a lot of this” (Interview, 16th November 2017, p. 40)

In the interviews, rather than a wholesale approach to the application of this core policy preference, distinctions are now being made within the sector about when peer review may be an appropriate decision-making mechanism and when it may not. For instance, it is seen by some as an appropriate mechanism only for individual artists and project grants. Objections have been raised by some about its appropriateness for organisations, particularly when decisions may be made less on the organisation’s merits and more in relation to the other applications on the table. Another concern is the apparent failure of the Council to provide an adequate strategic framework within which the deliberations of the ad hoc groups of peers can take place.

Patronage wins

The evidence presented in this chapter is a compelling example of the framing of national arts policy within the patronage policy mode. It provides evidence that culture has a low political and policy status. This is apparent in the Government’s failure to consider the impact on the arts ecology of the diversion of significant funds away from organisations and artists towards ministerially approved projects. When seen in the context of the Abbott Government’s modus operandi, Brandis’ intervention was just another example of “the captains’ pick”: a decision made on the run to give more scope to the Minister’s ambition. The assertion that peer review fails to serve the public interest expressed by Brandis and his fellow Senator MacDonald, was another attempt to justify a patronage policy mode without the mediating influences of a policy framework.

The lack of appreciation for the viability of Australia’s arts and cultural sector is also demonstrated in what are becoming the routine raids on the Australia Council as a ready source of cash for pet ministerial projects in a fiscal environment that is unwilling to find new money for the arts. The ambitions of Ministry staff were apparent in their attempts in the Catalyst guidelines to promote themselves as the policy advisor to the Government and omit to mention the Australia Council’s statutory role in this regard.

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The evidence also presents an extraordinary account of a widespread and sustained mobilisation of the Australian arts policy subsystem. It reveals the agility and strategy employed by the leaders of this process in keeping the issue in the public eye over more than two years. Their deft use of media and social media helped here, as did the theatre of ten Senate Inquiry hearings held around Australia. The Senate Inquiry provided an important vehicle for the mobilisation of arts advocacy coalitions, giving them a platform through which the consequences of the Coalition Government’s treatment of the subsidised arts sector and its arts agencies could be catalogued, broadcast, and documented. It also provided an enduring record of the values and beliefs driving the Australian subsidised arts sector and some Australian politicians at that time. It enabled the subsidised arts sector to engage with a range of politicians and familiarised them with the dynamics of national arts funding. It kept the issue on the boil through a leadership spill in the Coalition and probably helped convince Malcolm Turnbull to replace Brandis as arts minister. It also provided a theatre in which policy actors could present their interpretations of policy core beliefs and preferences observed by their peers. Due to different interests and the devil shift, cleavages between arts advocacy coalitions were inevitable, but they were managed.

The Government’s support for the policy preference of arm’s length funding has been in question in each of these case studies. This is reflected in the equivocation of some of my interview respondents. Underlying this equivocation is the dawning realisation, probably prompted by the Brandis policy shock and possibly by the removal of the Council’s Boards, that the Council can no longer be framed as a “representative of the arts”. It is now being understood for what is always was: “the representative of government towards the arts”. The saliency, until recently, of this original framing helps explain the anger and disappointment expressed by the arts sector, politicians, philanthropists, and journalists at the perceived failure of the Council’s leadership over the two years. Fatalism is evident in some of my interview subjects’ acknowledgement of the inevitability of government control of what, for so long, has been imagined as a voice for artists.

The core policy preference of peer review is undergoing revision. This was not so apparent in the theatre of the Senate Inquiry hearings where the tactics required a steady focus on the main game: getting the money returned to the Australia Council. It was more evident in the views of interview subjects, particularly those who have experienced the new peer review system. The Council’s focus on process, a feature of managerialism, at the expense of the policy and strategy required to establish outcomes, is fracturing trust in this peer review. The Council’s failure to develop a mechanism with which to “inform the work” of the Council and its assesment panels merely reinforces their focus on process.

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Chapter Nine: Concluding remarks

Culture, policy beliefs and neo-liberalism

The influence of policy frames How have the beliefs and activities of Australia’s arts sector constrained Australia’s national cultural policy? I have identified three frames that are applied to the national cultural policies which are the subject of this thesis. These are a focus on art rather than culture, a focus on the subsidised arts and a commitment to the patronage arts policy mode. I will discuss these and then review what I have established in relation to the policy core beliefs of excellence and access and the policy preferences of arm’s length funding and peer review. Following this I will then review what I have established in relation to the fourth frame, neo-liberalism.

In Chapter Two I examined the literature in relation to the scope of cultural policy and the arts policy modes favoured by governments. This literature suggested that Australian cultural policy can be limited in scope to art rather than culture and to the subsidised arts rather than popular or commercial arts and culture. The literature indicated that Australian governments favour the patronage and neo-patronage policy modes. In Chapter Three I applied these insights to Creative Nation, Creative Australia and Catalyst and concluded that these were each predominantly framed in terms of the subsidised arts and favoured the patronage and neo-patronage policy modes. In the case of Creative Nation and Creative Australia these policy modes coexisted with the less dominant policy mode of architect.

In Chapters Six to Eight I explored the dynamics of these policies’ development and it is here that the structural inequality of the neo-patronage arts policy mode within the Australian national arts policy subsystem becomes most evident. The Brandis shock (Chapter Eight) provided a context within which the full realisation of the neo-patronage policy mode and its implications for the rest of the arts sector struck home. In the current political and fiscal climate for cultural policy, this privileged treatment of the major performing art organisations provides sustainability to a few at the expense of many. Many arts organisations have lost their funding and many more will lose it (Watts, 2019). Under these circumstances, the former Chair of the Australia Council noted the impact that this will have on artists, the arts sector, and on the “Australianness” of national cultural policy (Interview Meyer, 28th February 2018, p. 24).

Having established that the three cultural policies under examination were predominantly framed as arts policy (see Chapter Three), I then examined the extent to which these policies’

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development had been constrained by this frame. I was able to demonstrate that the possibilities offered by the wider cultural frame to reconcile the subsidised arts with popular culture and creative industries were not supported by the arts policy subsystem in the case of Creative Nation and Creative Australia (Chapters Six and Seven). This opportunity was not presented in the case of Catalyst. In Chapters Six to Eight, I established that the national cultural policies under consideration in this thesis was constrained by their focus on the subsidised, or non-commercial, arts. This is despite attempts by Keating and Crean to expand the scope of their policies into creative industries and by some arts advocacy coalitions to assert a broader cultural frame. I concluded that the failure of these efforts was due to the interests within the arts policy subsystem in maintaining the status quo in terms of administrative arrangements and a patronage arts policy mode.

Maintaining the status quo in favour of the patronage and neo-patronage arts policy modes suited governments. In this way they could continue to grant favours to social elites (O’Faircheallaigh, 1999, p. 275). As Schultz puts it “the agencies with control of money were comfortable thinking that the arts were discretionary.” (Interview, 15th March 2017, p. 5). As Chapter Eight shows, Brandis’ National Program for Excellence in the Arts was the embodiment of the patronage and neo-patronage policy modes. The Minister decided what would be funded. And, through the status conferred on them by the Minister by receiving a grant under his program, these arts activities were endorsed as excellent.

Policy core beliefs in excellence and access In Chapter Four I describe how interpretations of the policy core beliefs in excellence and access have evolved. I show how these policy beliefs were susceptible to the social and political influences of the time and were therefore always located within a broader ideological context. Often older and more recent interpretations of a policy belief co-existed within the arts policy subsystem. The instrumentalisation of cultural policy had its critics amongst Australian arts advocacy coalitions. However, arguments putting forward the contribution of arts and culture to Australia’s social and social and economic well-being have become more prominent during these last four decades, including amongst Australia’s national arts advocacy coalitions (see Chapters Two, Six and Seven).

In Chapter Four I establish that the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust (AETT) perpetuated traditional interpretations of excellence and the distributive and educational interpretations of access. These interpretations of access were also evident in the early policies of the Australia Council (Hull, 1983). I describe how the AETT emerged in the late 1940s and became the exemplar of the inherent values of excellence and of arts patronage at arm’s length from

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government (Chapter Four). Coombs had a key role in the formation of the Australia Council: its statutes, the composition of its first Board and its structure (Chapter Four). I refer to how the Australia Council became this exemplar and how this made it difficult for many arts advocacy coalitions to imagine a policy venue for cultural policy other than the Council (Chapters Four and Eight). In Chapters Six to Eight I present evidence that the national performing arts institutions established by the Trust are still privileged today and how, in policy terms, these institutions have become the exemplars of the policy belief in excellence.

The policy core preferences of peer review and arm’s length funding In Chapter Four I explain the rationales behind these two policy preferences used by the principal architects of the Australia Council: Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and Coombs, his personal advisor, and Chair of the Council’s predecessor the Australian Council for the Arts. In Chapters Six to Eight I analyse the persistent attempts by Federal governments to evade and modify these two core policy preferences in the interests of gaining more control over cultural funding.

Neo-liberalism: the framing and development of Australian cultural policy The influence of neo-liberalism manifests in the commodification of public policy. As Chapters Six to Eight demonstrate, this has been a strong influence on Australian cultural policy since the early 1980s. The intrinsic value of the arts was challenged, and later replaced, by its exchange value (Gray, 2007). This became apparent in the requirement of cultural policy to contribute to economic and social policy. Creative Nation’s instrumentalism was the result of this influence of neo-liberal ideology and of the perceived need to reinvigorate and re-orientate Australian cultural institutions and conserve Australia’s civilisation and heritage. The policy’s instrumentalism is evident in the role assigned to culture in nation-building, social cohesion and fuelling the knowledge economy. In this regard the policy aimed to stimulate the capacity of Australia to maintain its cultural sovereignty by developing expertise and fluency in the knowledge economy. It proposed to do this through establishing the arts policy mode of industry development, without relinquishing its reliance on patronage (see Chapter Six). Gray’s notion of policy attachment (Gray, 2007, p. 208), a feature of neo-liberalism policy, is evident in Keating’s coupling of the arts and a more powerful policy domain, the economy. The policy’s apparent disregard for multiculturalism has been interpreted as a “retreat” by Labor from support for multiculturalism (Khan, Wyatt & Yue, 2015, p. 220).

The commodification of cultural policy through the attachment of the arts policy domain to other, more powerful domains is evident in Creative Nation and Creative Australia. With

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Creative Australia, Crean wanted to bring cultural policy in from the margins. He did this by attaching it to the economic and social policy domains. One consequence of this attachment is that goals which serve the dominant policy domain can displace those that focus on cultural development. This displacement is particularly evident in Creative Australia. Here policy objectives seek to apply culture in order to secure international trade and expand the stature of our cultural artefacts and creative industries in the global marketplace. Except for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, there was no consideration of Australia’s cultural diversity in the policy’s provisions. The more dominant policy domains define the focus and intent of the policy (see Chapter Seven). As it was in this case, these intentions may be “incompatible” with a cultural diversity agenda for Australia (Khan et al., p. 232).

In the case of the National Policy on Excellence in the Arts (NPEA), Brandis, professed his aversion to the commodification of cultural policy and was aware of the impacts commodification could have on cultural development (see Chapter Eight). His cultural policy shock took place in a context in which the political executive had more authority over the development and implementation of policy than the public service. This came about due to neo-liberalism, and its offspring managerialism.

The increase in lobbying by special interest groups over the last forty years (Keating and Weller, 2000, p. 51; Christensen & Laegreid, 2011, p. 11) has been matched by the growing leverage exerted by the hierarchies of influence within government on which interpretations of policy beliefs make it into the policy. These hierarchies comprise the minister, ministerial advisors, and the Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet. In each case study the influence of these hierarchies on policy content was clear.

Zapata-Barrero reminds us that constructions of citizenship are always political and that cultural citizenship

is a field in which the rights to access to production, distribution and consumption of culture become a field of struggle and conflict. (Zapata-Barrero, 2016, p. 539).

Within the liberal democratic liberal tradition, the state determines citizenship and the rights associated with citizenship. In cultural terms, these rights entitle citizens to engage with culture as a citizen consumer/spectator. Each of Australia’s national cultural policies discussed in this thesis gives this role to cultural citizens. Australia’s liberal democratic tradition has influenced the role assigned to cultural citizens as consumer/bystanders (Zapata-Barrero, 2016) but so too has neo-liberalism:

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The primary policy consequence flowing from the influence of economic rationalism in Australia...has been the increased emphasis on audience development (Bennett et al., 1999, p. 240).

The early stirrings of this can be seen in Creative Nation where access is interpreted in distributive and educational terms only and attempts by Keating’s Advisory Panel to assert a citizen’s right to creative self-expression were edited out of the policy statement. The policy’s instructions to the Australia Council that they focus less on culture’s production and more on its distribution is another example of this tendency (see Chapter Six). This approach was reprised in Creative Australia, including the sidelining of an attempt by Crean’s advisor, Schultz, to assert the rights of citizens to creative self-expression into the policy (see Chapter Seven). Her contribution was overlooked in favour of an emphasis on the citizen as a consumer of culture. In this instance the views of some arts advocacy coalitions were also overlooked. The same emphasis on the citizen as cultural consumer is evident in the later NEAP/Catalyst guidelines (see Chapter Eight)

Policy beliefs and Australian cultural policy: the tussles The direct way in which arts advocacy coalitions attempt to influence cultural policy involves lobbying to get their interpretations of policy core beliefs into the policy.

The struggle for cultural hegemony in relation to policy core beliefs was won by the major performing arts organisations early in the Hawke Government (Chapter Six). The Hawke Government allowed powerful advocacy coalitions to further enhance the political privilege they enjoyed. The governing bodies of the companies of excellence had significant social, economic, and political capital. They were an elite to whom politicians granted favours. These included more money and commitments to three-year funding. Some of them were transferred from the Council to the Department, a move which effectively quarantined them from competition for funding. The Hawke Government’s decisions reflected their concern at offending powerful elites and their unwillingness to confront the financial and political implications of their party’s policy.

Chapter Six indicates that there was little direct evidence of the influence of arts advocacy coalitions on Creative Nation. The evidence I do have suggests that Keating made himself available to representatives of the national cultural institutions he wanted to re-invigorate and that the Department facilitated formal and informal discussions with scholars, researchers and Arts Action Australia (Santamaria, 1994, p. 9). An Advisory Panel of artists was also appointed

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by Keating, including the Chair of the Australia Council. From these sources and from an examination of the policy statement, I conclude that the influence of the arts advocacy coalitions on Creative Nation are evident only where they coincided with Keating’s own vision for the “financial support and refurbishment of the traditional artistic institutions” (O’Brien, 2015, p. 694). From this we can conclude that the major performing arts organisations won the struggle over policy core beliefs and that the traditional interpretation of excellence triumphed over cultural pluralism and distribution and education triumphed over cultural democracy.

Creative Australia’s architects designed a much more open consultation process and representations were received from arts advocacy coalitions arguing for each of the interpretations of the policy core beliefs of excellence and access. The submissions supporting a pluralist interpretation of excellence and a democratic interpretation of access were strong, but fewer in number. Cultural pluralism and cultural democracy were largely overlooked as interpretations of excellence and access respectively in both Creative Nation and Creative Australia. This happened despite these interpretations of policy beliefs being put forward by arts advocacy coalitions (see Chapters Six and Seven). One reason for this could be the way in which neo-liberalism has led to increased mediation of the policy content by powerful members of the national arts policy subsystem: the minister and the minister’s advisors. Most of the involvement of arts advocacy coalitions in NEAP occurred after its announcement.

Traditional and contemporary interpretations of excellence and distributive and educational interpretations of access have been the dominant meanings attached to these policy core beliefs over the thirty years from Keating to Crean. This would indicate that the advocacy coalitions associated with cultural democracy and cultural pluralism were less powerful. It may also indicate the neo-liberal meanings that the arts policy subsystem, including its politicians and ministerial advisors, have assigned to cultural policy and to cultural citizenship.

My interview subjects were almost equally divided in their interpretations of excellence between the traditional/contemporary interpretations on the one hand and the pluralist interpretations on the other. These proportions are not represented in the views expressed in submissions in response to Creative Australia’s Discussion Paper or in the views of witnesses appearing before the Senate Inquiry hearings where traditional/contemporary interpretations of excellence were in the majority. My interview subjects were almost equally divided between a democratic interpretation of access on the one hand and a combination of the distributive and educational interpretations on the other. The support for distributive and educational interpretations of access were in the majority in the responses to the Creative Australia

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Discussion Paper and in the views expressed by witnesses to the Senate Inquiry These variations I think can be interpreted in the context of the different settings in which these views were expressed. The interviews were seeking more general responses and reflections on these policy beliefs. The views expressed in trying to influence cultural policy would necessarily be more concrete as the author would be advocating for particular interpretations in an attempt to influence the policy. The tactics demanded by the Senate Inquiry required the return of the money to the Australia Council above all else. The Inquiry Report did recommend support for cultural diversity in government funding (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015 c, p. viii).

Policy preferences and Australian cultural policy: the tussles In Chapters Six to Eight I analyse the how the policy preferences of peer review and arm’s length funding have triggered mobilisations of and cleavages between arts advocacy coalitions for over forty years. I also establish the tension that these two policy preferences have generated between Federal Arts Ministers and the Council and between the Council and the subsidised arts sector. I establish how these tensions triggered amendments to Council statutes to enable governments to exert more control over the Council. They also precipitated the transfer of responsibility for the oversight and funding of some major performing arts organisations and government initiatives from the Council to the Department for the Arts. The policy preferences for arm’s length funding and peer review were also featured in each policy reflecting the contested nature of these policy preferences.

In Chapter Eight I provide evidence from my interviews that the support for arm’s length funding is still strong, and much less qualified than the support for peer review. However, the Brandis arts policy shock confronted the arts advocacy coalitions with the reality of government’s authority over the Australia Council and the Minister’s right to reallocate funds within his or her portfolio. The support for peer review is highly qualified. There is a loss of confidence in a decision-making process that does not locate funding decisions within a strategic framework (Chapter Eight). In Chapter Four I establish how Boards of artists were conceptualised by Coombs as the entity responsible for the development of the Council’s policy and programs and as a conduit for communication with the arts sector. In Chapters Six to Eight I establish how the Boards were gradually dismantled and how the Council’s governing body and staff, rather than artists, have assumed responsibility for these functions.

In my application of the ACF to an examination of the development of three national Australian cultural policies I have found that the influences of the cultural policy networks are not as dominant as the theory suggests. One area in which the influence of these networks is evident

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has been in their commitment to the Australia Council as the preferred policy venue due to its embodiment of the policy preferences of arm’s length funding and peer review. However, the cracks in the commitment of both governments and the arts sector for these policy preferences are widening. Another influence of the arts advocacy networks is on the dominant interpretations applied to the policy beliefs in excellence and access which have created a dominant hegemony precluding the consideration of other more pluralist interpretations. The networks’ influence is also evident in how national cultural policy is framed: betraying a reluctance to expand arts policy to include cultural policy or to depart from the patronage arts policy mode.

The case studies also show that the influences of the cultural policy networks have been mediated by the impact of neo-liberalism. This is evident in the growing influence of arts ministers, their advisors, and their agency staff on national cultural policy.

Limitations of the research and future lines of inquiry There are many limitations to this research, some of which were necessary to make this inquiry manageable. I would have liked to go deeper into the operations of the arts advocacy organisations to learn more about how they operate in relation to their constituencies and with each other. Where state-based arts advocacy organisations have developed a federal arm of their organisation, for example, in the arts and disability, literature, or contemporary music areas, how do state needs align with the demands of a federal perspective? It would have been fruitful to examine advocacy organisations such as the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance and Live Performance Australia for example, which span the divide between subsidised arts and commercial cultural activities, to discover how they differ and what they have in common with those arts advocates that work only within the sphere of the subsidised arts. I would like to have gone deeper into the issue of how arts advocacy organisations are structured and financed, including those that operate through loosely organised networks, to compare their leadership styles and unravel some of the issues involved in policy advocates accepting funding from governments, and what kinds of strings are attached if they do.

In relation to future research it would be interesting to bring together cultural policy theorists with the full range of government agencies involved in arts and culture within the Australian Federal jurisdiction to explore what benefits they would derive, if any, from working within a shared cultural development framework. It would be worth exploring how policy development and policy advocacy operate within state jurisdictions and whether there are examples of policies in which the subsidised arts, popular and commercial culture co-exist.

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Another fruitful area for research would be the influence of the attachment strategies favoured by neo-liberalist policy frames on the production of the arts. Do the requirements of the more powerful policy domains to which arts and culture are attached have any influence on how the work is produced and for whom? And if so, what are they? Equally interesting would be research into the impacts of the Brandis cultural policy shock and the ongoing cuts to the discretionary funds of the Australia Council on those organisations who have lost their funding, or had it substantially reduced. This research would consider the impacts on the organisation itself but should also find ways of assessing the impact on the individuals and communities with which they were involved.

And a challenging, but potentially rewarding, area for ethnographic research, a research approach which is “particularly useful for studying sensitive topics” (Halperin and Heath, 2012, p. 289), would be to observe and record how the Australian arts policy subsystem deals with the unintended consequences of the structural inequality in Australia’s federal arts support system. I am referring to the impact that the Major Performing Arts Framework is having on the sustainability of Australia’s arts ecology.

Despite the limitations to my research, this inquiry has broken new ground for political science and cultural policy literature. I have done this by combining the two knowledge domains of public policy and cultural policy theory in order to interpret how Australia’s national arts policy is developed and framed and the power dynamics that operate in trying to influence that policy. I have gathered interview material from key actors involved in these policies’ development. My interview subjects have consented to this material being placed in the public domain where it will be available to other scholars. I have also provided a chronicle of these policies’ development. My approach has acknowledged my own subjectivity and the subjectivity of the other policy actors involved in this inquiry. It is an incomplete account, but an account nonetheless of activities that have a significant impact on Australian culture and society. My account extends the work of other scholars who have contributed so much in the area of cultural studies into the present.

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Appendices

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Appendix 1.1: Interview subjects (all interviews have transcripts)

Name Description Interview date and location 1 Archer, Robyn Artist, international and Australian arts festival director and former Deputy 30 April 2017, NIDA, Kensington Chair of the Australia Council (July 2013-August 2016) NSW

2 Anon Prominent philanthropist June 2017, Confidential; 3 Bandt, Adam Greens MP and Greens spokesperson for the arts 15 May 2017 296 Fitzroy, Melbourne 4 Beal, Suzie Former member of the Theatre Board, former Assistant National Secretary 18 May 2017, Northcote, Actors Equity Melbourne

5 Beyer, Nicole Executive Director of Theatre Network Australia (TNA) and co-convenor of 17 May 2017, TNA offices, 222 ArtsPeak South Melbourne 6 Bott, Jennifer General Manager of Musica Viva, CEO of the Australia Council (1999- 31 March 2017 Balmain, NSW 2006), Chair of the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) 7 Brennan, Kevin Cultural policy scholar and a member of the Reference Group 16 May 2017; Richmond, Melbourne 8 Boston, Henry Executive Director, Chamber of Arts and Culture WA 26 October 2017, Chamber offices, Perth 9 Brookman, Rob Executive Director of the Adelaide Festival and prior to that artistic director 19 May 2017 State Theatre of of the South Australian Theatre Company South Australia, Adelaide

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10 Burke, Tony Federal Arts Minister in the Rudd Government (26 June 2013- 18 22 February 2018, September 2013) and Opposition spokesperson for the Arts Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices Sydney NSW 11 Cassidy, Stephen Director of the National Cultural Policy Taskforce, Creative Nation 6 June 2017, Hackett ACT 12 Crean, Simon Federal Labor Arts Minister 6 June 2017, , Barton ACT 13 Cunningham, Stuart Australian researcher and cultural policy theorist 26 June 2017, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland 14 Donnelly, Sue Executive Director of the Queensland Theatre Company and former ED the 27 June 2017, 78 South Brisbane, Australian Major Performing Arts Group Queensland Theatre Company offices, Brisbane Queensland 15 Donnelly, Merindah Executive Producer BlakDance Australia 28 June 2017, BlakDance Australia offices, East Brisbane 16 Dreyfus, Mark Federal MP and Shadow Minister for the Arts 18/10/2014-23/7/2016 26 May 2017 Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices Sydney 17 Dunn, Ann Deputy Chair of the Australia Council 1988-1991 22 May 2017 Cumberland Park, South Australia 18 Gallasch, Keith Journalist and writer and theatre director 16 June 2017 Darlinghurst, Sydney 19 Grybowski, Tony CEO of the Australia Council has a background in the performing arts 16 November 2017 and 23 March having worked with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Musica Viva, the 2018, Australia Council for the Arts Australian Youth Orchestra, Arts Victoria and as a senior officer with the Offices, Surry Hills, Sydney NSW Major Performing Arts Board

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20 Hawkes, Jon Australian cultural activist, artist and administrator 18 May 2017, Northcote, Melbourne 21 Horton, Norm A director of Feral Arts 17 March 2017 Balmain NSW

22 Hunt, Cathy Creative investment consultant 27 June 2017, Brisbane, QLD

23 Innes, Carol A Noongar woman, Manager, Aboriginal Cultural Heritage and Arts, 27 October 2017, Perth Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority, previously with Arts WA and the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council 24 Jenkins, Natalie Executive Director Black Swan State Theatre Company 27 October 2017, State Theatre Centre of WA, Perth 25 Kasat, Pilar Community artist and facilitator and a member of Crean’s National Policy 26 October 2017, Perth Western Reference Group Australia 26 Kovatseff, Gail Chair of the Arts Industry Council of South Australia 22 May 2017 Media Resource Centre Morphett Street Adelaide 27 Lee-Shoy, Tiffany Manager of the Cultural Development division at Fairfield City Council, and 2 August 2017, Fairfield City previously arts officer with the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Council premises Councils 28 Letts, Dick Director of the Music Board of the Australia Council (1982-1987), Director 27 March 2017, Circular Quay, of the Australian Music Centre and the founder-director of the Music Council Sydney NSW of Australia 30 Lloyd, Ken Secretary Regional Arts Australia and GM Country Arts SA 23 May 2017, Carrick Hill, Springfield, South Australia

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31 Lynch, Michael Former GM Australia Council, former General Manager of the Sydney 9 June 2017, Bronte NSW Theatre Company 32 McMullan, Bob Bob McMullan Minister for the Arts and Administrative Services in Keating’s 6 June 2017, Canberra, ACT second Cabinet (March 1993-January 1994) 33 Macdonald, Senator Senator for Queensland since 1990 and is Vice-chair of the Legal and 22 June 2017, Parliament House Ian Constitutional References Committee which implemented the Senate Canberra, ACT Inquiry 34 Macdonnell, Justin Arts policy advocate and advisor and former Executive Director of CAPPA 13 November 2017, (Confederation of Australian Professional Performing Arts) Carriageworks, Sydney 35 Madden, Mark Chief of Staff for Simon Crean 15 May 2017, RMIT, Melbourne, Victoria 37 Myer, Rupert Philanthropist, corporate leader and Chair of the Australia Council 28 February 2018, Australia Council for the Arts Offices, Surry Hills, Sydney NSW 38 O’ Neill, Helen Senior Advisor to Simon Crean, Federal Arts Minister 9 February 2017, British Council offices, Point Piper NSW

39 Serow, Bethwyn Executive Director, Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG) 7 April 2017, AMPAG offices, Sydney, NSW

40 Schultz, Julianne Cultural policy commentator, editor of the Griffith Review and Chair of 15 March 2017, Griffith Review Federal Arts Minister Simon Crean’s National Policy Reference Group on Offices, Double Bay Sydney, Creative Australia NSW

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41 Sowry, Vicki Member of ArtsPeak and CEO of the Australian Network for Arts and 22 May 2017 ANAT offices, Technology (ANAT) Adelaide, SA 42 Tabrett, Leigh Former Head of Arts Queensland, and an advisor on the development of 27 June 2017, Coorparoo, Australia’s second national arts and cultural policy, Creative Australia, Queensland 43 Throsby David Australian cultural economist 24 May 2017, Macquarie University, NSW 44 Travers, Mary Executive Director of Arts Action: Australia (1989- 1997), performing artist 1 April 2017 Blaxland, Blue and writer, former staff member of the Australia Council’s Theatre Board Mountains NSW 45 Webb, Emma Director of Vital Statistix 23 May 2017, Vital Statistix premises Port Adelaide, SA 46 White, Peter a Gamilaroi Murri man and museologist 4 March 2018, Balmain, Sydney NSW 47 Winikoff, Tamara CEO of NAVA and co-convenor of ArtsPeak 16 March 2017 NAVA offices Woolloomooloo NSW

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Appendix 2.2: Semi Structured Interview Schedule

Arts Advocacy in Australia

Interview Schedule for Face-to-Face Interviews

[Please note that this schedule is designed for semi-structured interviews and that not all questions will necessarily be asked of all participants. In some cases relevant information will have already been gained from documentary sources or from other participants. Some questions will only apply to some participants. The appropriate emphasis for the questions where options are indicated will be selected for each interview subject on the basis of what prior research indicates may be their particular field of interest, whilst allowing them the option of discussing other events.]

1. Introduction

• Thank you for your time today. I appreciate you taking the time to contribute to what I hope will be a useful study for the arts sector.

• Do you have any preliminary questions about the signing of the participant consent form?

• You are aware that this interview is being recorded?

2. Establishing the role of the interview subject

• You have been asked to give this interview because of the key role you play(ed) in some or all of these events. How would you describe your role in the arts sector?

3. Establishing the focus of the interview

• Are you comfortable if we move to a discussion of your perceptions of the events surrounding Creative Nation/Creative Australia/the events precipitating changes to the Australia Council in the 2015 Federal Budget? Before the end of this interview we can check again to see if there are any other issues you would like to discuss. Can you please describe for me the nature of your involvement in this/these event/s?

4. Identifying other key individuals and organisations in the event/s

• Who would you identify as the key individuals and organisations acting as advocates for the arts and artists in Australia at the time of the events you have described?

• Who would you identify as the key individuals and organisations acting as advocates for the arts and artists in Australia today? Which ones are they? Do you feel they have a significant role?

• Have you been involved with any of these groups and if so which ones and over what period?

• What trends or changes have you noticed in arts advocacy activities in your time?

5. Identifying the interview subject’s beliefs and values about arts policy

• What values or principles should guide Australia’s arts policy?

• How important is the principle of arm’s length funding for the arts today and why?

• How important is the principle of peer group assessment of requests for arts funding today and why?

• How important is the principle of funding excellence in the arts today and why?

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• How important is the principle of supporting access to the arts today and why?

• Which values do you see reflected in government arts policy at the moment? Have you noticed any shifts in government values and beliefs about the arts over time? How would you explain these shifts?

6. Identifying the subject’s views about the status arts policy

• At the beginning of this interview we discussed your perceptions of the events surrounding Creative Nation/Creative Australia/the events precipitating changes to the Australia Council in the 2015 Federal Budget. What do this/these events tell you about the status of arts policy in Australia?

• How do you see the future prospects for arts policy in Australia?

7. Identifying the interview subject’s perceptions of the beliefs and values of the prominent arts advocacy groups identified by them in question 4

• Earlier you mentioned some arts advocacy groups that you thought were prominent. What values and beliefs do you think that they represent?

• How have you seen them demonstrate these values and beliefs in recent times?

• Are there any of these values and beliefs with which you agree/disagree and if so, why?

• Overall, how do you think their values and beliefs align with yours?

8. Any additional comments by the participant

• At the beginning of this interview we agreed to check again if there were any other issues you would like to comment on before we finish up.

9. Remind participant of arrangements for reviewing the transcript of the interview and thank participant.

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Appendix 2.3 Introductory Letter Interview Department of Government and International Relations School of Social and Political Sciences

ABN 15 211 513 464

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR NAME CONTACT DETAILS Professor Rodney Smith Room 286 Professor of Australian Politics Merewether H04 Department of Government and International Relations The University of Sydney The University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA

Web: http://www.sydney.edu.au/ Email: [email protected] T: +61 2 93516632

Associate Professor Jennifer Barrett Room L2.09 Director, Culture Strategy The Quadrangle A14 Office of the Vice-Chancellor and Principal The University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA T: + (61 2) 9351 6559 M: + (61) 040 114 2556 Email: [email protected]

Arts Advocacy in Australia - INTERVIEW

You are invited to take part in a study being undertaken by Deborah Mills as research for her Doctorate of Social Science. Deborah’s thesis is on the influence of Australia’s arts advocacy groups on national arts policy.

This study applies theories of cultural policy, critical cultural studies and public policymaking to three case studies of to the following events in Australia’s arts policy history: • The emergence in 1993 of Australia’s first national arts and cultural policy, Creative Nation; • The development in 2013 of Australia’s second national arts and cultural policy, Creative Australia; and • Events precipitating changes to the Australia Council in the 2015 Federal Budget.

The study’s intention is that each of these events, located in their wider historical and political context will illustrate the impact of the arts policy beliefs and policy preferences of Australia’s arts advocacy groups.

In addition to an examination of the literature, this study involves interviews, in person or via SKYPE, with key figures in Australian cultural policy in the periods leading up to and including the events identified above. The interviewees include current and former federal and shadow ministers for the arts, their policy advisers, the leadership of arts advocacy groups, senior arts agency officials, key media personnel, academics and the leaders of arts organisations.

Because of the significant role you have played/play in the development of Australian national arts policy and the unique perspective that you will bring to this project I am inviting you to be interviewed for this study.

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The attached Participant Information Statement tells you about the research study. Knowing what is involved will help you decide if you want to take part in the study. Please read this sheet carefully and ask questions about anything that you don’t understand or about which you need to know more.

When you have read this information, I will be happy to answer any questions you may have and can be contacted on [email protected] or phone: 02 9555 2533. Professor Rodney Smith and Associate Professor Jennifer Barrett will answer any further questions you may have. If you would like to know more at any stage during the study, please feel free to contact myself or Professor Smith on Email: [email protected] or by Phone: +61 2 93516632 and Associate Professor Barrett on Email: [email protected] or by Phone + (61 2) 9351 6559.

Yours sincerely,

Deborah Mills Doctoral Candidate

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Appendix 2.4 Participant Information Statement Department of Government and International Relations School of Social and Political Sciences

ABN 15 211 513 464

Web: http://www.sydney.edu.au/ Email: [email protected] T: +61 2 93516632

Arts Advocacy in Australia

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT INTERVIEW

(1) What is this study about? You are invited to take part in a study being undertaken by Deborah Mills as research for her Doctorate of Social Science. Deborah’s thesis is on the influence of Australia’s arts advocacy groups on national arts policy. This study applies theories of cultural policy, critical cultural studies and public policymaking to three case studies of the following events in Australia’s arts policy history: • The emergence in 1993 of Australia’s first national arts and cultural policy, Creative Nation; • The development in 2013 of Australia’s second national arts and cultural policy, Creative Australia; and • Events precipitating changes to the Australia Council in the 2015 Federal Budget.

In addition to an examination of relevant literature, this study involves interviews, in person or via SKYPE, with key figures in Australian cultural policy into the periods leading up to and including the events identified above. The interviewees include current and former federal and shadow ministers for the arts, their policy advisers, the leadership of arts advocacy groups, senior arts agency officials, key media personnel, academics and the leaders of arts organisations.

You have been invited to participate in this study because of the significant role you have played/play in the development of Australian national arts policy and the unique perspective that you will bring to this project.

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This Participant Information Statement tells you about the research study. Knowing what is involved will help you decide if you want to take part in the study. Please read this sheet carefully and ask questions about anything that you don’t understand or about which you need to know more.

(2) Who is running the study? The study is being carried out by Deborah Mills, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Government and International Relations, The University of Sydney under the supervision of Professor Rodney Smith and Associate Professor Jennifer Barrett.

(3) What will the study involve for me? You will be asked to agree to an interview about your experience in the arts sector and the perspective it has given you on the influence of Australia’s arts advocacy groups on national arts policy. In general terms the interview questions will seek your views on the values and beliefs informing national arts policy and the activities of Australia’s arts advocacy groups. You will also be asked for your views on the impact that the activities of Australia’s arts advocacy groups have had on national arts policy. You are being invited to participate in this study because of your expertise on these topics.

The format of the interview will be semi-structured in order to allow you the opportunity to direct the flow of the interview and to introduce matter that you feel would enrich understanding of any or all of the events under consideration and the broader social and political context in which these events took place The interviews are planned for between March and November 2017 and will be at a place and time that is convenient to you.

The interview will be recorded. A transcript of the interview will be sent to you for your review before it is applied to the research study. More detail on these procedures is provided in the text related to question 8 below.

(4) How much of my time will the study take? Your involvement in the interview will take up to 1 hour and your review of the summary of the transcript between 15- 30 minutes (see text under question 8 below).

(5) Do I have to be in the study? Can I withdraw from the study once I've started? Participation in this research study is voluntary. Your decision whether to participate will not affect your current or future relationship with the researchers or anyone else at the University of Sydney. By giving consent to take part in this study you are telling us that you: • Understand what you have read. • Agree to take part in the research study as outlined below. • Agree to the use of the information you provide as described.

If you do consent you can withdraw at any time without prejudice or penalty. You can do this by contacting the researcher or her supervisors.

You are free to stop the interview at any time. Unless you say that you want us to keep them, any recordings will be erased and the information you have provided will not be included in the study results. You may also refuse to answer any questions that you do not wish to answer during the interview.

(6) Are there any risks or costs associated with being in the study? The risk associated with your participation in the study is the inconvenience in giving up your time to participate in the interview and review the interview transcript and possibly, depending on your individual circumstances, some degree of discomfort if your views are not already known within the arts policy network and are published. You have the right for your participation in this study and the material gathered and used from your interview to remain anonymous.

(7) Are there any benefits associated with being in the study? While there are no direct financial benefits to you and we cannot guarantee any non-financial benefits to you personally for participating in this study, the study has potential benefits for the arts sector. This study seeks to understand what prompted the events examined in the study and equally importantly seeks to provide a useful resource for those working in the arts. As there is no comprehensive record of Australia’s arts advocacy groups and incomplete descriptions of their membership, policy beliefs and the interactions between these groups, the results of this study could be of benefit to the arts sector.

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Arts policy is an area of public policy that is rarely analysed through the lens of political science, so an analysis of the workings of Australia’s arts advocacy groups and their impact on arts policy could be a useful contribution to scholarship.

(8) What will happen to information about me that is collected during the study? Study findings may be published for example in the researcher’s thesis, as conference papers or journal articles where, unless you advise to the contrary, all references to material gathered and used from your interview and incorporated within these documents will be acknowledged within the text. Your contribution to this study will be included in Acknowledgements.

If you give your permission the information collected on your perspective on the events under consideration for the research project and your views on the values and beliefs informing national arts policy and the activities of Australia’s arts advocacy groups and their impact on arts policy will be included in the thesis. By providing your consent, you are agreeing to us collecting this information from you. Your information will only be used for the purposes outlined in this Participant Information Statement, unless you consent otherwise, and will be used only for this project.

If you give permission, your interview will be recorded and a transcription made by a transcription service. You will have the opportunity to amend the transcription of your interview before it is used in the study. The interview transcript will not be published as a whole. It will only be seen by the researcher working on the project and the transcription service.

As the interviews conducted for this study are potentially a long-term historical resource about key moments in Australian arts policymaking, then, with your permission, the interview transcripts produced for this study will be stored in perpetuity in the National Library of Australia.

(9) Can I tell other people about the study? Yes, you are welcome to tell other people about the study.

(10) What if I would like further information about the study? When you have read this information, please contact Deborah in the first instance at [email protected] or by phone on 02 9555 2533. If you have any further questions then Professor Rodney Smith and Associate Professor Jennifer Barrett are also available. If you would like to know more at any stage during the study, please feel free to contact Deborah in the first instance or Professor Smith on Email: [email protected] or by Phone: +61 2 93516632 and Associate Professor Barrett on Email: [email protected] or by Phone + (61 2) 9351 6559.

(11) Will I be told the results of the study? You have a right to receive feedback about the overall results of this study. You can tell us that you wish to receive feedback by advising the researcher or by ticking the relevant box on the consent form. This feedback will be in the form of summary of the research findings which you will receive after the study is finished.

(12) What if I have a complaint or any concerns about the study? Research involving humans in Australia is reviewed by an independent group of people called a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). The ethical aspects of this study have been approved by the HREC of the University of Sydney (Protocol number 2016/897]. As part of this process, we have agreed to carry out the study according to the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007). This statement has been developed to protect people who agree to take part in research studies.

If you are concerned about the way this study is being conducted or you wish to make a complaint to someone independent from the study, please contact the university using the details outlined below. Please quote the study title and protocol number.

The Manager, Ethics Administration, University of Sydney: • Telephone: +61 2 8627 8176 • Email: [email protected] • Fax: +61 2 8627 8177 (Facsimile)

This information sheet is for you to keep.

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Appendix 2.5 Participant Consent Form Department of Government and International Relations School of Social and Political Sciences

ABN 15 211 513 464

Web: http://www.sydney.edu.au/ Email: [email protected] T: +61 2 93516632

Arts Advocacy in Australia

PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM INTERVIEW

I ,, agree to take part in this research study.

In giving my consent I state that:

✓ I understand the purpose of the study, what I will be asked to do, and any risks/benefits involved.

✓ I have read the Participant Information Statement and have been able to discuss my involvement in the study with the researchers if I wished to do so.

✓ The researchers have answered any questions that I had about the study and I am happy with the answers.

✓ I understand that being in this study is completely voluntary and I do not have to take part. My decision whether to be in the study will not affect my relationship with the researchers or anyone else at the University of Sydney now or in the future.

✓ I understand that I can withdraw from the study at any time.

✓ I understand that I may stop the interview at any time if I do not wish to continue, and that unless I indicate otherwise any recordings will then be erased and the information provided will not be included in the study. I also understand that I may refuse to answer any questions I don’t wish to answer.

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✓ I understand that the results of this study may be published, but these publications will not contain my name or any identifiable information about me unless I consent to being identified using the “Yes” checkbox below.

 Yes, I am happy to be identified.

 No, I don’t want to be identified. Please keep my identity anonymous.

I consent to:

• Audio-recording YES  NO 

• Reviewing a transcript of the interview YES  NO 

• The lodgement of the transcript of the interview with the National Library of Australia YES  NO 

Would you like to receive feedback about the overall results of this study?

YES  NO  If you answered YES, please indicate your preferred form of feedback and address:

 Postal: ______

______

 Email: ______

...... Signature

...... PRINT name

...... Date

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Appendix 2.6 Survey Questionnaire Department of Government and International Relations School of Social and Political Sciences Faculty of Arts and Social Science

ABN 15 211 513 464

Arts Advocacy in Australia

Survey for Arts Advocacy Groups/Organisations

Thank you for agreeing to complete this survey which is part of a study on the influence of arts advocacy groups and organisations on Australian arts policy. The intention of the survey is to gain up-to-date information on Australian’s arts advocacy groups, the advocacy tools they use and how advocacy groups interact with each other. By completing and returning the survey you consent to the information collected on your arts advocacy group being included in the write up of the study. While your name and the name of your group will be cited in the study, the information gained from this survey will be consolidated and the particulars of your organisation will not be identifiable.

Please return the completed survey to [email protected] by .

1. Name of your group or organisation?

2. Your name?

3. Your position in the group/organisation?

4. Please tell us the purpose of your group/organisation

______

5. How many members and/or registered subscribers does your group/organisation have? Individuals Organisations

6. For how long has your group/organisation been operating? (Please tick one box only) Less than 3 years 3-10 years 11-20 years More than 20 years

7. Who does your group/organisation represent? (Please tick as many boxes as apply) Individual artists Individuals working in the arts including artists Arts organisations working in Australia National arts organisations only Other (please specify) ______

8. What arts practice does your group/organisation represent? (Please tick as many boxes as apply) Visual arts Crafts Performing arts (music, dance and drama, circus and musical theatre) Literature Publishing

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Experimental arts including hybrid and interdisciplinary work Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts Community arts and cultural development Other (please specify) ______

9. Please describe the arts advocacy activities of your group/organisation (Please tick as many boxes as apply) Representations to government on arts policy Representation to other political stakeholders (e.g. Members of the Opposition, political candidates) on arts policy Dissemination of information on government arts policy to your members Press releases and media interviews Submissions to government inquiries or task forces Op Ed pieces for on-line and other media Provision of advocacy material for use by others Coordination of arts advocacy campaigns

10. Please describe the advocacy tools you use (Please tick as many boxes as apply and rank in order of their impact on your advocacy activities with the most effective tool at the top) Letter writing Petitions Social media Coordination with other arts advocacy groups and organisations Protest in the public domain Satirical or other political art Influential ambassadors Other (please describe)

11. Please indicate the frequency with which you interact with other arts advocacy groups and organisations. We realise that sometimes your interaction may be very intense and at others less so. What we are seeking is an indication of the average degree of interaction over a year.

Name of arts advocacy group or Frequency of interaction organisation Never Less than Less than More than once a year once a once a month month ANKAAA, Association of Northern Kimberly and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists 2. Arts Access Australia 3. Arts Law Centre Australia 4. Australia Council 5. Australian Copyright Council 6. Australian Network of Art and Technology 7. Australian Major Performing Arts Organisation 8. Australian Music Centre 9. Australian Writers’ Guild 10. ArtsPeak 11. Contemporary Arts Organisations Australia 12. Creative Partnerships Australia 13. Design Institute Australia 14. Feral Arts/Arts Front 15. Live Performance Australia 16. Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance 17. Museums Galleries Australia

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18 National Association for the Visual Arts 19 National Congress of Australia’s First People 20. Performing Arts Touring Alliance 21. The Australian Society of Authors 22. The Music Trust 23. National Exhibitions Touring Support 24. Regional Arts Australia 25. Theatre Network Australia 26 National Writers Centre Network 27 Ministry for the Arts (Dept. of Communication and the Arts)

12. Are there any arts advocacy groups or organisations we have overlooked? Please advise us of their name(s) and your frequency of interaction with them.

Name of arts Frequency of interaction advocacy group Never Less than once Less than once More than once or organisation a year a month a month 1 2 3 4 5

Thank you for your participation in this survey.

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Attachment 2.7: Letter of Introduction survey Department of Government and International Relations School of Social and Political Sciences

ABN 15 211 513 464

Web: http://www.sydney.edu.au/ Email: [email protected] T: +61 2 93516632

Arts Advocacy in Australia - SURVEY

In addition to an examination of the literature, this study involves research on the development and operations of Australia’s arts advocacy groups and organisations and their influence on national arts policy. The study includes a survey aimed at obtaining up-to-date information on Australian’s arts advocacy groups, the advocacy tools they use and how advocacy groups interact with each other.

You have been invited to participate in this study because of the significant role you and your group have played/play through your arts advocacy activities, in the development of Australian national arts policy and the unique perspective that you will bring to this project. While your name and the name of your organisation will be cited in the study, the information gained from this survey will be consolidated and the particulars of your organisation will not be identifiable.

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Appendix 2.8: Selection of survey participants

In developing my list of potential survey respondents I excluded the government agencies that appeared before the Hearings (one State arts agency, ArtsSA; and two National arts agencies: the Australia Council, and the Federal Ministry for the Arts) as I judged that the survey format was inappropriate for government agencies. Screen Australia, having agreed to participate in the survey, later elected to withdraw on the same grounds. Due to my failure to specify in the survey that the Ministry for the Arts was a Federal agency all responses had to be discarded due to the possibility that some respondents may have been referring to a State Government agency. I excluded the 31 individuals appearing before the hearings from the survey as the intent of the survey was to capture information about the groups involved in advocacy for national arts policy.

Attempts were made to contact all those organisations on the mailing list to request permission to send the survey. A brief description of the survey was also prepared and distributed when requested which explained the objectives of the survey and the confidentiality protocols. From these preliminary contacts I compiled a survey list of 150 organisations. The survey instrument I used was Qualtrix. Respondents can be coded as ‘individual’ thereby restricting the survey completion to an individual, or as ‘multiple’ enabling respondents to forward the survey onto their constituents. A total of 135 surveys were categorised for individual recipients and a total of 15 surveys were categorised for multiple recipients.

The survey was distributed on 30th April 2017. Responses peaked in the first 8 days of May and then peaked again on the 14th May 2017 following the distribution of a reminder email. The final response was recorded on 7th June 2017.

One hundred and twenty-two responses were received and of these four were duplicates. In these cases, I selected the most completed survey and discarded the other so as not to inflate the results. One survey respondent withdrew, and one wrote to advise that they declined to complete the survey. One survey was completely blank and 8 had only the name of the organisation completed. The final number of surveys for analysis was therefore 107, with 87 responses from those emailed individual surveys and 20 responses from those multiple survey questionnaires (five organisations that were not on the original mailing list had the survey referred to them by another (multiple) recipient.

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Appendix 2.9 Survey Respondents

Name of person Name of group or organisation completing survey Alex Marsden Museums Galleries Australia (MGA)

Andy Miller Multicultural Arts Victoria

Irine Vela Outer Urban Projects

June Moorhouse Community Arts Network WA Ltd

Anthony Pun Multicultural Communities Council of NSW

Scott Brook Centre for Creative and Cultural Research

Tiffany Lee-Shoy Fairfield City Council

Rosie Dennis Urban Theatre Projects Norm Horton and Sarah Feral Arts Corp Ltd Moynihan Anne Sorenson Southern Edge Arts

Veronica Pardo Arts Access Victoria

Joe Bugden Salamanca Arts Centre

Abi Binning Wide Angle Tasmania

Meagan Shand Arts Access Australia

Jacinta Le Plastrier Australian Poetry

Erika Gelzinnis Open Cage Ensemble

Alexie Glass-Kantor Contemporary Art Organisations Australia

Jo-Ann Kellock Australian Design Alliance SAMAG (Sydney Arts Management Advisory Lizzy Galloway Group) Vicki Sowry Australian Network for Art & Technology

Caitlin Comerford Stompin

Chris Bowen Music Australia

Lorna Hempstead Professional Arts North Queensland Inc

June Moorhouse Community Arts Network WA Ltd

Sue Lorraine Gray Street Workshop ASSITEJ Australia - YPAA (Young People and Sue Giles the Arts Australia) John Kirkman Information and Cultural Exchange

Nicole Beyer ArtsPeak

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Joel Edmondson QMusic

Peter Kift Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company

Wes Morris Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre

Mark Smith MusicNT

Channon Goodwin All Conference Australian Music Industry Network, Music Patrick Donovan Victoria Natalie Jenkins Black Swan State Theatre Company

Andy Miller Multicultural Arts Victoria

Pat Rix Tutti Arts

Andrea Beattie City of Sydney

Kay Jamieson Chamber Music Adelaide

Anthony Bonney Tasmanian Creative Industries Ltd

Joe Toohey Regional Arts Victoria

Jane McCredie NSW Writers' Centre

Jane Kreis Theatre Network NSW

Kristy Ayre BalletLab Association Inc

Sue Donnelly Queensland Theatre

Fiona de Garis Performing lines WA

Claire Summers Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair Foundation

David McMicken tracks Inc.

Tricia Walton Carclew

Scott Howie Eastern Riverina Arts

Christian Ramilo Darwin Community Arts

Anne Robertson Public Galleries Association of Victoria

Simon Keen WA Youth Jazz Orchestra

David Doyle DADAA LTD National Association for the Visual Arts Tamara Winikoff (NAVA) Katrina Douglas PACT centre for emerging artists

John Oster Regional Arts Australia

Charles Parkinson Tasmanian Theatre Company

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Steve Henty Junction Arts Festival

Cheryl Pickering Chamber Music Adelaide Australian Performing Arts Centres Katherine Connor Association (APACA) Katie Woods Queensland Writers Centre

Jade Lillie Footscray Community Arts Centre

Kyle Page Dancenorth

Rachael Jennings Australian Dance Council—Ausdance Inc.

Zoe Angus Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance

Ellile Ray Devonport Regional Gallery Australian Craft and Design Centres (ACDC) Lisa Cahill Network Suellen Maunder JUTE Theatre Company

Jami Bladel Kickstart Arts

Jenny Bisset Blacktown Arts centre

Madonna Davies Full Throttle Theatre Company Inc

Guillaume 'Willem' Brugman Centre for Australasian Theatre Inc.

Leigh Boswell The Young Company Theatre

Melissa Robertson Arts Nexus

John Davis AUSTRALIAN MUSIC CENTRE LTD. Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts Paul Jenkins (ACPA) Christie Anthoney Festivals Adelaide

Julian Hobba The Blue Room Theatre kelli mccluskey pvi collective

Iris Shen Bankstown Arts Centre

Sarah Parsons Outback Theatre for Young People

Henry Boston Chamber of Arts and Culture WA

Courtney Webber Volunteering Tasmania

Moya Deigan Theatre Council of Tasmania

Sean Pardy Brown's Mart Arts Ltd

Louise Dunn Nexus Multicultural Arts Centre

Jamie McGleave Propel Youth Arts WA

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Geordie Brookman State Theatre Company South Australia

Justin Bishop KickArts Contemporary Arts

Michael Edwards NETS Australia

Pauline Lampton Biddigal Performing Arts

Shona Barrett Melbourne Writers Festival

Jonathan McBurnie Umbrella Studio contemporary arts

Merryn Carter Performing Arts Touring Alliance

Emma Webb Vitalstatistix

Rick Chazan AAM

Nicole Beyer Theatre Network Australia

Caroline Wake University of New South Wales

John Smithies Cultural Development Network

Robyn Ayres Arts Law Centre of Australia

Sarah Tooth SA Writers Centre

Hania Radvan Penrith Performing & Visual Arts Ltd

Laura Harper Music Tasmania

Nick Hughes Restless Dance Theatre

Kate Larsen Writers Victoria

Kate Larsen National Writers Centre Network (NWCN)

Bethwyn Serow AMPAG

Juliet Rogers Australian Society of Authors

Kaye Weeks Windmill Theatre Co

Richard Letts The Music Trust The Mill Adelaide Amber Cronin

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Appendix 3.1: Creative Nation funding commitments (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994)1

Cultural organisation/agency Australian Cultural Development Office2 Operating Limited/ one- Operating funding Limited or one-off funding pa off funding funding Agencies Arts Training3 7.3 Australia Council 59.2 Australian Opera 7.4 Australian Film and TV School 10.7 Film and TV4 259 Australian National Maritime Museum 13.5 Playing Australia per 3 annum and funds to 850K increase Australian Opera touring National Film and Sound Archive 9.1 National Gallery of Australia 19.1 National Library of Australia 33.2 National Museum of Australia 6.2 Australian Archives 30.5 Aust. Film Commission (Screen Australia) Agencies 181.5 Australian Cultural Development Office

1 All figures rounded up 2Part of the Federal Department for Communications and the Arts 3 Includes ongoing per annum funding for National Institute for Dramatic Arts 3.1 m.pa, Australian Ballet School 600 K, Australian Institute for Indigenous Performing Arts 3.6 4 Includes ongoing per annum funding for Aust. Children’s TV Foundation 2.1 m., Film Australia 6.4 m., ABC 172 m., SBS 25 m., Film Finance Corporation 54 m.

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Creative Nation Arts and Heritage Initiatives Opera and Ballet Orchestras 700 K5 Heritage/refurbishment of Sydney Customs 24 House Australian Institute for Indigenous 3.6 Performing Arts Community Broadcasting 3.1 Cultural organisation/agency Australian Cultural Development Office Operating Limited/ one- Operating funding Limited/ one-off funding funding pa off funding

Extend Musica Viva’s school tours 2 Arts and Heritage Initiatives 9.4 Creative Nation Cultural Industries Initiatives Tourism industry development 250 K Multimedia6 21 Cultural Industries Initiatives 21 Funding not specified Refurbishment for Old Parliament House x Lending Rights x National Film and Sound Archive x Tax incentives for x philanthropists and investors

5 To upgrade base line funding for musicians 6 Includes establishment of Aust. Multimedia enterprise, Cooperative Multimedia Development Centres, National multimedia forums, Commissioning of CD ROMs to expand access to national collecting institute, assistance to film agencies to move into multimedia

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Additional Funding for Sydney Symphony x Orchestra National Academy of Music x National Australian Opera x Upgrading state library technology x

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Appendix 4.1: Members of the inaugural Australia Council (adapted from Macdonnell, 1992, pp. 95-96; and Rowse, 1985, p. 13)

Chairman H. C. Coombs, General Members Professor Richard Downing: renowned economist and scholar, a member of ACFTA, Director of the Melbourne Theatre Company, Chair of the Australian Ballet School and Chair of the ABC from 1973. Peter Brusey: lawyer Harry Bluck: musician, band leader and President/Secretary of the WA Musicians Union Betty Burstall: founder of La Mama contemporary theatre in Melbourne Kym Bonython: gallerist John Menadue: former private secretary to Whitlam during his period as Deputy Leader and Leader of the Opposition. General Manager of News Limited, publisher of The Australian Chairmen of Boards Dick Roughsey Aboriginal Arts Marea Gazzard Crafts Geoffrey Blainey Literature Don Banks Music John Baily Visual Arts Peter Hall Theatre Philip Adams Film and Television Artist Members Judith Wright: poet Don Burrows: jazz musician David Williamson: playwright Clifton Pugh: painter Tim Johnson: conceptual artist Caroline Jones: journalist and broadcaster Government Members Sir John Bunting: Secretary of the Department of Prime Ministers and Cabinet Talbot Duckmanton: General Manager of the ABC (1965-1983); James Oswin: Secretary of the newly formed Commonwealth Department of Media Sir Keith Waller: diplomat and Secretary of the Department of External Affairs

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Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair Foundation tracks inc. Carclew WA Youth Orchestra Junction Arts Festival Footscray Community Arts Centre Dance North Devonport Regional Gallery Jute Theatre Co. Blacktown Arts Centre Full Throttle Theatre Co. Centre for Australasian Theatre The Young Company Theatre Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts The Blue Room Theatre pvi collective Bankstown Arts Centre Outback Theatre for Young People Brown’s Mart Propel Arts WA State Theatre of SA KickArts Contemporary Arts Biddigal Performing Arts Melbourne Writers Festival Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts Vital Statistix University of NSW Gallery Penrith Performing & Visual Arts Restless Dance Theatre Windmill Theatre 46 Government Arts Agencies National Government Arts Agencies Sate/Local

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Appendix 5.2: Arts Action Australia’s membership

This list is compiled from several sources: the Travers interview, the South Australian Regional Council Newsletter, January 1990 (Travers Archives) and the Arts Action 1992 Annual Report (Travers Archives).

Name Background Prue Acton Fashion designer and artist

Phillip Adams Commentator

Ron Barassi AFL football

Marc Beson Fashion retailer and art collector

Annette Blonski Film script editor and writer

Peter Carey Writer

Joan Carden Opera singer

Stuart Challenger Conductor

Professor Manning Clarke Historian

Michael Crosby National Secretary Actors Equity

George Fairfax Retired head of the Victorian Arts Centre and Chair of AAA

Martin Ferguson President of the ACTU

Margaret Fink Film producer

Dr Des Griffin Director Australian Museum

Janet Holmes a Courte Philanthropist

Professor Donald Horne Author and Australia Council Chairman

Sir James Killen,) Liberal Federal politician (retired)

Michael Kirby Jurist

Professor Ken McCracken

Professor Ken McKinnon Former Director of the Australian Education Commission and Chancellor of Wollongong University

Anne Lewis, Visual arts patron

Councillor Winsome McCaughey Lord Mayor City of Melbourne

Dame Elizabeth Murdoch Philanthropist

Sarah Myer Philanthropist Justice Howard Nathan Supreme Court Judge and philanthropist

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Jean Pratt Philanthropist

Robert Perrier Theatre director and founder of the Fruit Fly Circus

Peter Redlich, Labour lawyer

Mandy Salomon Actor

Gordon Samuels Judge of the Supreme Court

Leo Schofield Festival director, journalist and advertising executive

Daryl Somers TV personality and musician

Professor Hugh Stretton, Historian and urban planning scholar

Professor David Throsby Cultural economist

Paolo Totaro Former Director Community Arts Board Australia Council

Gough Whitlam Former Australian Prime Minister

David Williamson Playwright

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Appendix 5.3: ArtsPeak Membership August 2017

This information was retrieved from the ArtsPeak website http://artspeak.net.au/members/ during August 2017

ArtsPeak Executive (Interim)

Theatre Network Australia (TNA) Nicole Beyer National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA), Co-convener Tamara Winikoff Co-convener

Chamber of Arts and Culture WA, Henry Boston Diversity Arts Australia, Lina Nahlous

Childers Group, Julie Dyson Performing Arts Touring Alliance, Merryn Carter

Feral Arts, Norm Horton and Sarah Moynihan

Organisation Contact Ananguku Arts and Culture Aboriginal Elizabeth Tregenza Corporation Arts Access Australia (AAA) Meagan Shand Arts Industry Council (SA) Julianne Pierce & Gail Kovatseff Arts Industry Council (Victoria) Michelle Silby & Andy Miller Arts Law Centre of Australia Robyn Ayres Association of Northern Kimberly and Arnhem Christina Davison Aboriginal Artists (ANKAAA) Ausdance – Australian Dance Council Julie Dyson (see Childers group). Australian Copyright Council (ACC) Fiona Phillips Australian Craft and Design Centres (ACDC) Lisa Cahill Network Australian Design Alliance Jo-Ann Kellock Australian Music Centre (AMC) John Davis Australian Network for Art and Technology Vicki Sowry (ANAT) Australian Performing Arts Centres Assoc. Rick Heath (APACA) Australian Publishers Association (APA) Michael Gordon-Smith & Sarah Runcie Australian Society of Authors (ASA) Juliet Rogers Australian Writers Guild (AWG) Emma Rafferty BlakDance Merindah Donnelly Blakfella Performing Arts Alliance Eva Grace Mullaley

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Chamber of Arts and Culture WA Henry Boston Childers Group David Williams & Julie Dyson Copyright Agency Nick Pickard Council for Humanities Arts and Social Sciences Divya Das Creative Recovery Network Scotia Monkivitch Cultural Development Network & Creating John Smithies Australia Desart Philip Watkins Feral Arts Norm Horton & Sarah Moynihan Institute for Creative Health Maz McGann Kultour – Diversity Arts Australia Lena Nahlous Live Performance Australia Evelyn Richardson Media Entertainment Arts Alliance (MEAA) TBC Museums Galleries Australia Alex Marsden Music Australia Chris Bowen National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) Tamara Winikoff Performing Arts Touring Alliance (PATA) Merryn Carter Playwriting Australia Tim Roseman Tasmanian Creative Industries Council Jane Longhurst Theatre Network Australia Nicole Beyer – ArtsPeak Convenor

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Attachment 5.4: The Key Producers Network (Australia Council, 2009).

The Key Producers Network was a group of eleven organisations working in community cultural development and funded by the Australia Council. The Network was established in 2008 and its meetings were resourced by the Australia Council. The Network meetings ceased in 2015 following a decision by the Australia Council to no longer resource them (Discussion with Norm Horton, Feral Arts 18/7/2019).

Members of the Key Producers Network were:

• Arts Access Victoria: www.artsaccess.com.au

• Barkly Regional Arts: www.barklyarts.com.au

• Beyond Empathy: www.beyondempathy.org.au

• Contact Inc; www.contact.org.au

• DADAA Inc. www.dadaawa.org.au

• Feral Arts: www.feralarts.com.au

• Footscray Community Arts Centre: www.footscrayarts.au

• Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE): www.ice.org.au

• Shopfront Contemporary Arts Centre: www.shopfront.org.au

• Somebody’s Daughter Theatre: www.somebodysdaughtertheatre.com

• Tutti Ensemble: www.tutti.org.au

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Appendix 5.5: contact between advocacy organisations

Q 11 contact responses7

No. organisation All contact More Less Less than than than once a once a once a year month month 1. ANKAAA (Association of Northern Kimberly and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists) 26 3 8 15 2. Arts Access Australia 76 7 31 38 3. Arts Law Centre of Australia 84 3 37 44 4 Australia Council for the Arts 103 42 51 10 5 Australian Copyright Council 78 6 27 45 6 Australian Network for Technology and the Arts (ANAT) 39 2 13 24 7 Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG) 49 8 22 19 8 Australian Music Centre Ltd (AMC) 31 2 13 16 9 Australian Writers’ Guild 48 2 20 26 10 ArtsPeak 71 12 31 28 11 Contemporary Arts Organisations Australia (CAOs) 32 3 11 18 12. Creative Partnerships Australia 89 4 50 35 13. Design Institute of Australia 26 1 7 18 14. Feral Arts/Arts Front 72 13 34 25 15. Live Performance Australia 57 10 24 23

7 The survey included the Ministry for the Arts (Department of Communication and the Arts) in the options listed under Q11. This organisation recorded 93 contacts. However, due to the ambiguity of the wording it was clear in the responses that many of them referred to State arts agencies rather than the Federal arts agency as was intended. Therefore, these responses have not been included in the data analysis.

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16. Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) 73 3 26 44 17. Museums Galleries Australia 43 2 20 21 18. National Association for the Visual Arts 62 14 30 18 19. National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples 27 1 9 17 20 Performing Arts Touring Alliance 40 5 11 24 21 The Australian Society of Authors 25 4 11 10 22 The Music Trust 14 2 5 7 23. National Exhibitions Touring Support (NETS) 27 3 7 17 24. Regional Arts Australia 89 7 42 40 25. Theatre Network Australia 65 18 31 16 26. The National Writers Centre Network 32 15 11 6

Q 12 Responses to other advocacy organisations identified and frequency of interaction

No. Name of organisation All contact More than once a Less than onc month month 1 GLAM Peak 1 1 2 Council of Australasian Museum Directors (CAMD) 1 1 3 Arts Access Victoria 3 3 4 Access 2 Arts (WA) nil

5 Council of Australian Art Museum Directors (CAAMD) 1 1 6 International Council of Museums (ICOM) 1 1 7 Arts Industry Council of Victoria 5 5 8 Chamber of Arts and Culture WA 6 4 2 9 Queensland Chamber for Arts and Culture 2 1 1

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10 Arts Industry Council of SA 9 4 5 11 N T Chamber of Arts and Culture 2010 2 1 12 Creative Island – Tasmanian Creative Industries Council 2 1 1 13 Community Arts Network WA 1 1 14 Regional Arts Victoria nil 0 0 15 ArtSource nil 0 0 16 Blackfella Arts Alliance 1 1 17 Blackfella Performing Arts 1 1 18 Octapod 1 1 19 Australian Production Design Guild 1 1 20 CHASS Council for the Humanities Arts and Social Sciences 2 1 1 21 AGDA 1 1 22 Music Australia 7 3 3 23 APRA/AMCOSS 4 3 1 24 AMPAL 1 1 25 Arts Tasmania 2 2 26 Department of Culture and the Arts WA 1 1 27 Australian Music Association 1 1 28 ARIA Australian Recording Industry Awards 2 1 1 29 Australian Music Industry Network 3 2 1 30 Music Victoria 1 1 31 Music NSW 2 2 32 WAM nil 0 0 33 QMusic 2 2 34 Music NT nil 0 0

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35 Music Tasmania nil 0 0 36 Music SA nil 0 0 37 Music ACT 1 1 38 Guildhouse (SA) nil 0 0 39 BlakDance 2 1 1 40 Cultural Development Network incorporating Creating Australia 3 1 2 41 Country Arts WA 2 1 1 42 Diversity Arts Australia (Kultour) 3 2 1 43 Screen Producers Australia 2 1 1 44 Australian Directors Guild 1 1 45 Tasmanian Writers Centre 1 1 46 Australian Cinematographers’ Society 1 1 47 Creative Recovery Network 2 2

48 PAC Australia (formerly Australian Performing Arts Centres Association – APACA) 2 1 1 49 Copyright Agency 1 1 50 Ausdance National (Australian Dance Council) 6 2 3 51 Ausdance Victoria 1 1 52 Desart 3 1 2 53 Indigenous Arts Centre Alliance 2 2 54 AACH WA (Aboriginal Arts Centres Hub of Western Australia) 1 55 Ananguku (APY Lands Arts Centres) nil 56 Museums and Galleries NSW 2 2 57 Public Galleries Queensland 1 1 58 Regional Galleries Association of SA 1 1

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59 University Arts Museums Australia nil 60 All Conference 1 1 61 Australian Design Alliance 2 1 1 62 Theatre Network NSW 3 2 1 63 NSW Producers Network 1 1 64 Indigenous Regional Communications Association (IRCA) 2 1 65 National Advocates for Arts Education 2 1 1 66 Australian Society for Music Education 1 1 67 World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific 1 1 68 Contemporary Art Tasmania 1 1 69 Australian Craft and Design Centres (ACDC) Network) 1 1 79 SAMAG 1 1 71 Arts Nexus 1 1 72 Arts Party 1 73 Tasmanian Theatre Company 1 74 Kickstart Arts 1 75 Confederation of State Theatres (CAST) 1 1 76 National Local Government Cultural Forum 1 1 77 First Nations Australian Writers Network (FNAWN) 2 1 78 Western Sydney Arts and Culture Lobby 1 1 79 Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare (ASPAH) 1 1 80 Green Music Australia 1 1 81 Australian Music Managers (AMM) nil 82 Creative Victoria 1 1

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Appendix 7.1: Policy by review

A significant policy shift during the Howard era was the emphasis on ‘policy by review’ (Throsby, 2006) which was a significant step in institutionalising the neo-patronage arts policy model (see Chapter 3), the ground for which had been laid in the Keating-directed establishment of the Major Organisations Board of the Australia Council.

The first of these was the Major Performing Arts Inquiry (DOCITA, 1999). All members of the Inquiry had substantial experience in the corporate world, were arts philanthropists and non-executive directors of large arts organisations, including in the case of the inquiry’s chair, Dr. Helen Nugent’s membership of the Australia Council and its Major Organisations Fund (DOCITA, 1999, p. i). This membership profile was to be repeated in most of the other policy reviews. This review’s objectives were to determine what needed to be done in order to ensure the financial health, artistic vibrancy and broad accessibility of the 31 organisations that were the subject of the inquiry (DOCITA, 1999, p. i). In its 2000 budget the Government provided $43.3 million over four years for major performing arts organisations: $31.2 in continuing subsidy and a one-off grant of $12.1 million for “industry adjustment” (Gardener-Garden, 2009, p. 51).

In 2001 a Contemporary Visual Arts and Craft Inquiry was announced. It was chaired by Rupert Myer, businessman and philanthropist, and its brief was broader than the investigation into the major performing arts companies: requiring inquiry into the contemporary visual arts and craft sector as a whole (Commonwealth of Australia 2002, p. 5). In response to this report the State and Federal Governments made a commitment to provide $19.5 million over four years to contemporary visual arts and craft organisations (Gardener-Garden, 1999, p. 52).

Prompted by a recommendation of the Major Performing Arts Inquiry the orchestras were reviewed next. This review was chaired by James Strong, another businessman and philanthropist. His brief was to look at their overall sustainability and in the report, issued in March 2005 (DOCITA, 2005) he recommended that steps be taken to establish responsible governance, realistic financing, viable employment arrangements and sustainable structures (DOCITA, 2005, p. 95), including reducing the size of the orchestras in South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland. This particular recommendation triggered political uproar and was rejected by the Government (Gardener-Garden, 2009, p. 53 and Marr, 2005). Once again more money was found ($25.4 million over four years (Gardener-Garden, 2009., pp. 53-55) to help the orchestras separate from the ABC, become self-governing, eliminate accumulated deficits and improve the working arrangements for musicians (DOCITA, 2005, pp.1-3).

The increasing influence on arts policy by philanthropists and corporate directors is clear in most of these reviews. This influence may also have prompted the Howard Government’s efforts to encourage private support to the arts through taxation concessions and, in the late 1990s, through its direct support to organisations charged with soliciting private financial support for the arts. In 1999 the Government

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established the Australian Business Arts Foundation (AbaF). It also expanded the number of approved cultural organisations on the national Register of Cultural Organisations thereby making donations to them eligible for tax deductions. Artsupport Australia was established in 2003 as a joint initiative of AbaF and the Australia Council (Gardener-Gaden, 2009, pp. 47-48) to further drive the contributions from individual and corporate philanthropy to the arts.

Lower priorities in the arts Policy by review: small to medium arts organisations In 2000 the Cultural Ministers Council affirmed the “pivotal contribution of small-to-medium sized arts organisations to the cultural vitality and diversity of Australia” and agreed to an inquiry into their artistic and financial viability which was carried out by government officials. Their report made a case for increased funds and improved continuity of funding for this part of the sector, but these were not forthcoming (Gardener-Gaden, 2009, pp. 51-56).

Arts in education In 2004 Dr. Brendan Nelson, the Federal Minister for Education launched the National Review of School Music Education and appointed as chair Professor Margaret Seares, Deputy Vice Chancellor of The University of Western Australia and former chair of the Australia Council (1997 –2001). There were 5,936 submissions to the Review from individuals and groups (Pascoe, 2005, p. xi), more than double the number of submissions to the 2015 Senate Inquiry into the impact of arts funding cuts (see Chapter 8). The report of the Review, released in November 2005, sought to: move discussion beyond the opinions and advocacy positions of enthusiasts for music in schools [and grounded its recommendations]..in rigorous, extensive and longstanding research that establishes the benefits and value of music in the education of all Australian students in schools K-12 (Pascoe, 2005, p. xxvii).

The report recognised the need for leadership and action in federal and state/territory government jurisdictions to overcome the lack of access and equity in the provision of music education in schools (pp. xi-xii):“However, there was little in the government’s actions or policy statements on arts education that demonstrated a commitment to improving arts education at the grass roots (Gardener-Gaden, 1999, p. 56-57).

Brendan was Federal Minister for Education until 2006, but for some reason the momentum for reform had been lost.

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Appendix 7.2: Submissions reviewed for analysis of Reponses to Discussion Paper (2011) Retrieved from: 9.

No. Organisation

Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) ArtsPeak and the National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) Arts Access Australia Arts Industry Council of SA Ausdance Australian Coalition for Cultural Diversity (ACCD) Australian Publishers Association Australian Society of Authors Australian Youth Forum Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG) Australian Library and Information Association Bangara Dance Theatre Australia City of Rotterdam WA Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Council of Art Museum Directors Council of Australasian Museum Directors Cultural Development Network Currency Press 357 Desart ANKAA, ‘Ku Arts Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia Game Developers Assoc Key Producers Network Legs on the Wall Logan City Council Marrickville Council Metro Screen Museum of Democracy Museums Australia National Heritage Committee National Advocates for Arts Education National Library of Australia National Museum of Australia National Rural Health Alliance National & State Libraries Australasia

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OzPAC Performing Arts Touring Alliance (PATA) Pubic Galleries Assoc of Vic. Regional Arts Australia 114 KALACC 125 Gondwana Choirs NAISDA 70 Museums Australia Community Museums National Network 82 Somebody’s Daughter 106 National Exhibitions Touring Support (NETS) Australia 111 Community Arts Network SA 117 National Archives of Australia 118 UMI Arts 121 Live Performance Australia (LPA) 141 Object: Australian Centre for Design 145 Music Council of Australia 150 Creativity Australia 159 Northern Rivers Creative Industries Consortium 170 The pvi collective 179 Melbourne Fringe 183 Artback NT 190 Arts Law 198 Playwriting Australia 205 City of Sydney 210 The Australian Youth Orchestra 219 CAOs (Contemporary Art Organisations Australia) 230 National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) 249 Theatre Network Victoria & Australian Theatre Forum 277 St Martin’s Youth Theatre 294 Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra 301 Australian Ballet School 310 National Disability Services 312 Multicultural Arts Victoria 314 The Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH) 315 Kultour 316 Melton Shire Council

317 Chamber Made Orchestra 323 Community and Public Sector Union

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329 Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Festivals (CATSIF) 334 Marian Street Theatre for Young People (MSTYP) 338 Music Victoria 339 Belvoir 352 Jazz Australia

353 Griffith Centre For Cultural Research 359 NIDA 362 CANWA 365 Department of Culture and the Arts (DCA), State Government of Western Australia 370 The Chamber of Arts and Culture WA 372 Music in Communities Network 379 Powerhouse Youth Theatre 392 Queensland Writers Centre 405 Orchestra Victoria 413 Queensland University of Technology 416 The Australia Business Arts Foundation (AbaF) 417 Sidney Myer Fund and The Myer Foundation 420 Google Australia Pty. Ltd. 430 Yopinion 431 Australian Academy of the Humanities 433 National Portrait Gallery 437 Opera Australia 459 National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples 436 Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance Tandanya The Torch The Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of the VCA and Music, University of Melbourne Western Riverina Arts, Thieves Theatre, Arapiles Community Theatre Writing Australia Ltd. Young People and the Arts Australia Australia Council for the Arts

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Appendix 7.3: The National Policy Reference Group Membership (source: personal archive of Kevin Brennan)

Name Details Chris Warren Federal Secretary, Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance

Professor Julianne Schultz Centre for Public Culture and Ideas, Griffith University; Founding Editor Griffith Review; Director ABC; and Chair Queensland Design Council

Louise Adler Chief executive, Melbourne University Press; Member Book Industry Strategy Group

Marcus Westbury Founder and Creative Director Renew Australia

Doug Mitchell Filmmaker; And Partner Kennedy Miller Mitchell

Pilar Kasat Managing Director, Community Arts Network Western Australia; and Board member WA Chamber of Arts and Culture

Dean Ormston Head of Corporate Services APRA/AMCOS

Callum Morton Visual artist (significant international profile, represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2007))

Anne-Maire Schwirtlich Director-General, National Library of Australia

Magdalena Moreno Chief Executive Officer, Kultour

Dr. Helen Nugent AO Chair, National Portrait Gallery

Louise Heron Chair, Australia Council Major Performing Arts Board

Professor David Throsby Department of Economics, Macquarie University

Professors Stuart Cunningham Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation Queensland University of Technology

Kevin Brennan Executive Officer. Arts Management Advisory Group

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Steven Pozel Director, Object – Australian Centre for Design

Professor Amanda Lawson Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong

Sam Mostyn Australia Museum, Australia Council, SportsReady

Wesley Enoch Artistic Director Queensland Theatre Company

From time to time other people attended as this extract from the record of the Melbourne Meeting, 23 January 2012, the National Cultural Policy Reference Group indicates: (source Kevin Brennan personal archive).

Government (Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport) Ms Glenys Beauchamp Mr Richard Eccles Ms Celia Street Dr Fiona Webster Ms Rebecca Rush (Note-taker) Ms Leigh Tabrett (Consultant) Minister for the Arts, the Hon Simon Crean MP Ms Helen O’Neil (Office of Minister the Hon Simon Crean MP) Mr Mark Madden (Office of Minister the Hon Simon Crean MP)

Non-Government Professor Julianne Schultz (Chair) Mr Chris Warren Ms Louise Adler Mr Marcus Westbury Ms Pilar Kasat Mr Dean Ormston Mr Callum Morton Ms Anne-Marie Schwirtlich Ms Magdalena Moreno Dr Helen Nugent AO Professor David Throsby Professor Stuart Cunningham Mr Kevin Brennan Mr Steven Pozel Mr Tony Ellwood

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Ms Lynne Williams Mr Wesley Enoch Stephen Armstrong (Chair, Theatre Board, Australia Council – in place of Louise Herron) Ms Gabrielle Trainor (Australia Council Review Co-chair) Mr Angus James (Australia Council Review Co-chair)

Apologies Ms Sam Mostyn Ms Louise Herron Mr Doug Mitchell (Philanthropy Review Chair)

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Appendix 7.4: Overview of Creative Australia Structure

Executive Summary p. 5

The Australian Story – a Vision for Australia’s Cultural Sector p. 26

The Five Goals p. 44

Creative Australia – Pathways for Action p. 50

• Modernise funding and support • • Creative expression and the role of the artists • • Connect to national life for a social and economic dividend

p. 118 Tracking and Targeting

p. 123 Appendix A Community and Sector Feedback

Appendix B Review of the Australia Council Australian Government Response p. 131

Appendix C review of the Private Sector Support for the Arts in Australia Australian p. 143 Government Response

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Appendix 7. 5: Comparisons between the founding Act for the Australia Council (1975) and the new Act (2013)

(Those functions highlighted in the 2013 Act are the amendments)

1975 Act Section 5. The functions of the Council 2013 Act (1) The Council has the following are functions:

(a) to formulate and carry out policies designed- a) to support Australian arts practice that is (i) to promote excellence in the arts. recognised for excellence.

b) to foster excellence in Australian arts practice by supporting a diverse range of activities.

(ba) to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts practice.

(bb) to support Australian arts practice that reflects the diversity of Australia.

(e) to support and promote the development of markets and audiences for the arts.

(f) to provide information and advice to the Commonwealth Government on matters connected with the arts or the performance of the Council’s functions.

(g) to conduct and commission research into, and publish information about, the arts.

(h) to evaluate, and publish information about, the impact of the support the Council provides

(ii) to provide, and encourage the provision of, opportunities for persons to practise the arts.

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(iii) to promote the appreciation, understanding (d) to promote the appreciation, knowledge and and enjoyment of the arts. understanding of the art.;

(iv) to promote the general application of the arts (bd) to promote community participation in in the community; the arts. v) to foster the expression of a national identity by means of the arts.

(vi) to uphold and promote the right of persons to (bc)to uphold and promote freedom of freedom in the practice of the arts. expression in the arts.

(vii) to promote the knowledge and appreciation of Australian arts by persons in other countries.

(viii) to promote incentives for, and recognition of, (c) to recognise and reward significant achievement in the practice of the arts. contributions made by artists and other persons to the arts in Australia. (ix) to encourage the support of the arts by the States, local governing bodies and other persons and organizations. (e) to support and promote the development of markets and audiences for the arts

(c) to furnish advice to the Government of the (f) to provide information and advice to the Commonwealth, either of its own motion or upon Commonwealth Government on matters request made to it by the Minister, on matters connected with the arts or the performance of the connected with the promotion of the arts or Council’s functions; otherwise relating to the performance of its functions.

(g) to conduct and commission research into, and publish information about, the arts. ; (h) to evaluate, and publish information about, the impact of the support the Council provides.

(i) to undertake any other function conferred on it by this Act or any other law of the Commonwealth.

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(d) to do anything incidental or conducive to the (j) to do anything incidental or conducive to the performance of any of the foregoing functions. performance of any of the above functions

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Appendix 8.1: Members of Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee: Impact of the 2014 and 2015 Commonwealth budget decisions on the arts

(Source: Commonwealth of Australia, 2015c )

Members Senator Penny Wright (AG, SA) (Chair) until 24.6.2015 Senator Glenn Lazarus (IND, QLD) (Chair) from 25.6.2015 Senator the Hon Ian Macdonald (LP, QLD) (Deputy Chair) Senator Catryna Bilyk (ALP, TAS) Senator Jacinta Collins (ALP, VIC) Senator the Hon Joe Ludwig (ALP, QLD) Senator Linda Reynolds (LP, WA) until 12.10.2015 Senator Dean Smith (LP, WA) from 12.10.2015

Substituted Members Senator Lisa Singh (ALP, TAS) to replace Senator Jacinta Collins 5.8.2015 Senator Carol Brown (ALP, TAS) to replace Senator Jacinta Collins 3.9.2015 Senator Anne McEwen to replace Senator the Hon Joe Ludwig for 18.9.2015

Participating Members Senator Scott Ludlam (AG, WA) Senator Nick McKim (AG, TAS) Senator the Hon Jan McLucas (ALP, QLD) Senator Nova Peris (ALP, NT) Senator Larissa Waters (AG, QLD)

Attendance

Melbourne Members in attendance: Senators Bilyk, Lazarus, Ludlam, Ludwig, Rice, Singh. Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Perth: Members in attendance: Senators Bilyk, Lazarus, Ludlam, Ian Macdonald, Reynolds: Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Hobart: Members in attendance: Senators Bilyk, Carol Brown, Lazarus, Ludwig, McKim, Singh. Thursday, 3 September 2015

Brisbane Members in attendance: Senators Bilyk, Lazarus, Ludlam, Ludwig, Ian Macdonald: date: Friday, 11 September 2015

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Adelaide Members in attendance: Senators Bilyk, Lazarus, Ludlam, McEwen, Reynolds: Friday, 18 September 2015

Cairns Members in attendance: Senators Bilyk, Lazarus, Ian Macdonald, McLucas, Waters. Tuesday, 27 October 2015

Darwin Members in attendance: Senators Bilyk, Lazarus, Ian Macdonald, Peris. Thursday, 29 October 2015

(Western) Sydney Members in attendance: Senators Bilyk, Jacinta Collins, Lazarus, Ludlam, Ian Macdonald. Wednesday, 4 November 2015

Sydney Members in attendance: Senators Bilyk, Jacinta Collins, Lazarus, Ludlam, Ian Macdonald Thursday, 5 November 2015

Canberra Members in attendance: Senators Bilyk, Jacinta Collins, Lazarus, Ludlam, Ludwig, Ian Macdonald, Singh, Smith. Monday, 23 November 2015

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