Page 1216 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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up the soul of a community. Without music and without drama and dance, literature and art, just to speak in very broad terms, where would our civilisation be? How would life in our city be without these things?
At the daily level, if I could not walk into my room upstairs and see a few paintings on the wall and be able to turn on a radio and hear some music of my choice, my day would be much less happily spent. If I did not have the opportunity of opening the Canberra Times and looking at what is coming up in the artistic and cultural world, my prospects and what I write into my diary would not be all that stimulating. The arts are fundamental to the way in which we live. In this inquiry I will be fascinated to undertake a more thorough examination to see the impact of the arts on Canberra.
There are several components of that. The people who benefit are the ordinary citizen at large, people like me who go to the theatre from time to time. I do not want to pretend that I am any great culture bug, but I certainly enjoy a variety of activities. But what is the benefit, in social or in spiritual terms, if you like, to the citizens in Canberra of the wide range of arts activities? Let us not exclude the generation that will go to a disco and listen to the very loud music that is there. That is an element we will need to look at.
What also are the benefits of the arts to that very large group of people who work in the field: the musicians, the artists, the performing artists, the visual artists, the photographers that Mr Jensen mentioned, a whole range of people? I do not have any idea of the number of people in Canberra who derive a living from the arts or who spend a great amount of time on the arts, on the one hand, and those who benefit from simply working in them in an amateur or very involved capacity. How many people in this community are sustained through their own activity in the arts? The Government, as a sponsor for the arts, needs to take a close interest in them and I will be very glad to share in that look.
There is one thing I will add, Mr Jensen, to your terms of reference, as you allow us to do, as we come down to consider these matters, and that is the impact that the arts can have on the image of Canberra. We all know, and it has been mentioned in this chamber from time to time, that Canberra suffers from the journalistic abbreviation that "Canberra" has today done something or other, so that the broader community develops a particular image of Canberra. It is the shorthand version of "the Federal Government", if you like.
I know, as I go back to places I have lived in before, that Canberra is not always viewed sympathetically. I am sure that the arts and the promotion of the arts can do quite a deal to soften that image. This is a lively place. I realised recently that just in Canberra, I know - not well,
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