Page 3042 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 17 November 1992
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CULTURAL COUNCIL - ARTS GRANTS PROGRAM
Ministerial Statement and Paper
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning): Madam Speaker, I seek leave of the Assembly to make a ministerial statement on the work of the ACT Cultural Council and the announcement of the ACT arts grants program.
Leave granted.
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, it is my purpose today to announce the major ACT Government arts grants for activities which will occur in 1993. I am doing this by way of a statement because too often these significant grants, and I think other grants as well, simply slip by without people noting them. Madam Speaker, I ask that the papers be circulated. In doing this, Madam Speaker, I wish to acknowledge and commend the work of the ACT Cultural Council and its co-opted artform committees. More than 30 people have spent a great number of unpaid hours carefully examining many grant applications. The task of assessing applications in an environment of high quality proposals against a limited budget is an exacting, time consuming and often thankless task. I have a considerable amount of praise for the people involved in this process. My confidence in their work is reflected in the fact that I have supported all their recommendations.
It is timely at this point to reflect on some of the rhetoric which surrounded the formation of the Cultural Council. Its formation was one of the major recommendations of the Select Committee on Cultural Activities and Facilities. The select committee was established in August 1989. An interim report was tabled in October 1990 and the final report was presented in June 1991. While the inquiry was activated by the need to examine redevelopment proposals for section 19, the investigation into cultural activities and facilities was much broader.
The key recommendation to emerge from the report was the formation of a cultural council to "improve administration and planning, and to provide a more powerful voice for the arts". In June 1991 the ACT Cultural Council was a concept. In November 1991 its proposed framework was presented to this Assembly. In December 1991 its membership, which was always intended to reflect broad rather than specific cultural interests, was announced. This new peak advisory body has wide-ranging terms of reference. To quote briefly from my speech to the Assembly about a year ago:
It will be expected to foster and encourage excellence and achievement in the arts and cultural activities. It will be expected to promote the development and continued growth of a creative, diverse and dynamic cultural sector in the ACT, with appropriate input from the community.
We must remember that the council held its first formal meeting in February this year, barely 10 months ago. Its achievements have been considerable, although they have not always been publicly conspicuous.
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