Page 2926 - Week 10 - Thursday, 7 October 2021
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I want to talk about one sector in particular that has been affected by the pandemic. Artists have been hard hit. Performances were shut down. Live music fell silent. Galleries closed their doors. The artists who create our music and TV and books—the stuff that got us through when we were locked in our homes—have been left struggling.
Now, artists run businesses. They have ABNs. They file tax returns. They pay staff and they pay their bills. But most do not earn above the GST threshold of $75,000 each year. Industry survey after industry survey shows this. Writers earn an average of $12,900 each year from their writing. More than a third of musicians earn $30,000 or less from their craft. The Australia Council found that in 2015 artists earned, on average, $48,400, and that figure includes the supplementary income from their non-arts work.
Most professional practising artists do not make $75,000 a year. But they are real businesses, and they are businesses we want for our economy and for our culture. The Australian Taxation Office understands this. For over a decade, the ATO has accepted that arts businesses are legitimate but that they do not earn as much as other businesses. This is why the ATO and grant bodies and the arts industry do not require professional artists and arts businesses to register for GST. They do not require artists to earn over a certain threshold. The ATO allows arts businesses to file tax returns and claim losses without meeting the usual turnover requirements. They have special eligibility criteria to determine whether someone is an “arts business” or a “hobbyist”. This is an extremely well-established exception. It is a standard that is not based on business turnover and we have had it in place for over a decade.
Artists and arts businesses have ABNs, they lodge tax returns, they pay their bills, they employ their staff, but apparently they are not considered to be real businesses. Most artists were not eligible for the COVID-19 business grants because of this. I know a few—very few—sole practitioners and arts businesses who were registered for GST, and they all lost their GST registration as a result of the pandemic, because they lost their income during the pandemic. Very few arts businesses have been eligible for COVID-19 business grants. Those grants were all tied to GST registration, effectively locking out an entire sector.
I am delighted that Minister Cheyne brought out a targeted round of Homefront and Amp It Up! grants. This really helped. It was quick, it was well-targeted and it was well-timed. I also understand that it was the federal government, not the ACT government, that set that GST requirement, but it is simply not good enough. We need to get the federal government to understand this sector. They do not have to listen to me, they do not have to listen to the arts sector, they do not even have to listen to the ACT government. They could find out from their own federal bodies. The ATO and the Australia Council already understand this. They have criteria and exemptions already in place for the arts sector.
If we want art, music, movies, TV, live performance, poetry and books, we need a society that values art and the artists that make it. I encourage everyone in this chamber to write to their federal party leaders, as is called for in the motion. Please
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