Submission to the Senate Inquiry investigating the impact of the 2014 and 2015 Commonwealth Budget decisions on the Arts.

Submission by the Association of Sculptors of Victoria, 15 Laver St,. Kew Vic., 3101
Written by Michael Meszaros OAM B. Arch, Vice President, member of the Visual Arts Board (1977-80).
Emailed to legcon.sen@aph.gov.au

Much of the effect of this policy is hard to define since the finer details of how it will be administered are not yet known. However, there are a number of elements in principle, which are most disturbing.

The most concerning factors are:-

This appears to be a politicisation of arts funding. The setting up of a new arts funding body under the direct control of the Minister appears to be a mechanism for the Minister to fund arts organisations, individuals and styles or movements which are favoured by the Minister, compared to the at-arms- length approach which has characterised the Australia Council.

The concept of the new body implies a disapproval of the Australia Council’s performance without actually defining what that objection might be. The suspicion is that it does not conform to the Minister’s taste, which is a highly dangerous path to follow. If the Minister changes, will the next Minister’s taste force a change of direction, and the next Minister again force yet another change of direction. What effect will this have on any consistency of direction and funding? Such uncertainty and inconsistency will affect all the categories of potential funding recipients listed under Item (i). Will it lead to the production of work calculated to please the Minister’s taste rather than as genuine artistic expression?

If the Minister denies the wish to personally direct the thrust of funding, why create this new body at all. Why not negotiate with the Australia Council to review its policies in the light of the current Government’s concerns?.Such a process would give the Australia Council the chance to state its case, refute the reasons for the proposed change or modify its position. This in itself would promote transparency of policy and process, which appears to be lacking at present.


  While it is true that art trends and movements have influenced the decision making of the Australia Council to some degree, the structure of the various Boards has ensured that there is a breadth of view, taste, opinion and connection, which gives a far better chance of a fair and broad assessment of applications. So far, the processes of selection under the new proposal are not known, to us, at least, and if such processes are influenced by the Minister, this would be a highly disturbing and unsatisfactory situation, regardless of the Minister’s personal taste.

The new program claims through its title to pursue or encourage ‘excellence in the arts’. The implication is that the Australia Council is not achieving that aim. How is this to be measured and how will the new program achieve this if the Australia Council his deemed to have failed? It must be remembered that investing in new artistic approaches is always a high risk venture and a significant failure rate has to be expected. Investing in more conventional approaches may be safer, but those artists have a better chance of self-sufficiency and may not need Government support. I fall into that category myself and have never had, or needed, a government grant. If it is felt the Australia Council should support a different spread of artistic approaches, this should be stated and debated.

The influence of a single person’s taste could create a particularly dangerous limit on artistic freedom and could leave wide open the charge of personal influence on the distribution of Government funds to the arts. The Australia Council’s structure is a far better insulation against such a potential charge. This proposal smacks strongly of an attempt by the current Government to dismantle a successful Labour program stemming from the days of the Whitlam Government. The current Australia Council process is far more divorced from individual taste and is therefore much more likely to grant funding to a wide variety of artistic approaches and cultural diversity.

The question of funding criteria and implementation processes is a matter of extreme importance. If substantial funding is removed from the Australia Council, it again implies strong disapproval of its criteria and processes. Assuming this disapproval, what will the new body’s criteria and processes be, and how will they improve on those of the Australia Council? If they are simply aimed at imposing the Minister’s personal taste on the arts, this would be a catastrophe of principle. If there is another agenda, this will have to be exposed by the new criteria, which will have to be significantly different from those of the Australia Council.

The creation of this new body will involve a complete new and duplicated bureaucracy. Given the Government’s desire to cut costs and improve efficiency, this seems highly counterproductive. How will the two bureaucracies work in parallel and what will be their respective areas of responsibility? What will be the advantage to the arts community? Any change in policy and approach must be an improvement, not just the imposition of a politically motivated agenda. Will artists or arts organisations have to go through the stress of applying to two separate bodies to try to get funding?

The writer’s connection with the arts is as a full-time, self-supporting sculptor for 45 years, who has been a President of the Association of Sculptors of Victoria 11 times. He is a Churchill Fellow (1969), has been Australian Delegate to the International Art Medal Federation for 43 years, and has won prizes and awards locally and internationally. He has been involved in a number of processes involving the conditions under which artists operate, including the initiation of the move towards Moral Rights for Artists legislation, changing the Taxation Act on averaging income for artists and contributing to the standardising of competition and commissioning conditions for artists through the Victorian Ministry for the Arts and NAVA.

Michael Meszaros, for the Association of Sculptors of Victoria

and more on the submission to the Senate....

http://www.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/grants-and-funding/richard-watts/senate-inquiry-into-arts-funding-flooded-with-submissions-248746

Just in - guidelines from the Ministry of Art http://arts.gov.au/nationalexcellenceprogram