Page 4224 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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MR STEFANIAK: I do not think he has been. Does the Minister agree that the unbalanced nature of arts funding in this Territory jeopardises the survival of important artistic endeavours within this community?
MR HUMPHRIES: I thank Mr Stefaniak for his very well worded question. Of course, Mr Stefaniak is referring to the advertisement which appeared in the Canberra Times on Saturday dealing with funding for 1991 through the Arts Development Board.
Mr Wood: Yes, hands-off funding is dead.
MR HUMPHRIES: I might point out that Mr Wood would know all about hands-on funding, given that that was the experience of last year,s Arts Development Board grants. So let us not point any fingers in that regard, Mr Wood.
I must say that I was surprised to read the advertisement that appeared in the Canberra Times, particularly because throughout the year, throughout 1990, I have been in very constant contact with the arts community about ways of developing good strategies for funding of the arts and for dealing with a whole series of issues of importance to the arts community. I have held regular arts forums with that part of the community and they have been very productive.
I have to emphasise that the decisions that were criticised implicitly by that advertisement were decisions based on advice received from the Arts Development Board - a mechanism which this and previous governments have used to deal with issues of funding of the arts. I do not believe that the individuals and the organisations who signed that advertisement can have it both ways. They criticise the Government for taking decisions based on ADB advice and yet they then attack the Government for not accepting other ADB advice about particular arts grants.
I think I should remind the Assembly that we are in a very tight financial situation, despite which we have been able to increase arts funding in the recent budget by 7 per cent, in line with inflation, and in fact also add $45,000 for an artists incentive scheme - one of the very few new initiatives to emerge in a funding sense from my portfolio. I have to say that this is a rather good result in the circumstances.
We want to balance pro-am with professional arts, large and small arts organisations. That kind of balance is very important. But that balance, or the unbalance to which those critics referred, is a decision based on advice from the Arts Development Board itself. I believe that it is a good basis and I intend to proceed with it and to build on the consensus we have already established to ensure that we do, in fact, have very balanced arts funding in the ACT.
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