Page 2626 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 1993
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We are No. 2 in terms of museum attendance and pop concerts. That might not be such a bad thing, I suppose. We come in on the lower end of the scale, at No. 5, only in respect of musicals, and that is a reflection, Madam Speaker, of the fact that we do not have the facilities in the ACT for us to bring major musicals like Cats, or Les Miserables, or whatever it might be, to the ACT. The other table on that page indicates the relatively high rate of arts workers as a percentage of the total working population of the ACT. Our arts population is about one per cent of our total working population, and that is nearly double that of some other places in Australia, which I think is also an indication of the vitality of our artistic endeavour.
Madam Speaker, the Government has adopted an arm's-length funding approach in the ACT. Indeed, many governments have adopted that policy. Policy and funding are therefore, under this approach, developed by an independent or relatively independent body. I think that is basically a good model. It is a model which underpins the policy presented here and I think that is essentially one which works well; but, of course, there are dangers. As the Minister will know, a body like that, especially one which consists entirely of volunteers, is subject to enormous pressure. Unfortunately, the peers of the people who work on these bodies, whether they be the Cultural Council or the subcommittees under the Cultural Council, are not always very tolerant of the work which is done by those people, and sometimes, in fact, are highly critical of them.
Madam Speaker, there are some problems confronting us which I think need to be addressed as this policy is fleshed out and developed over the coming years. One is the problem of bringing the arts from the status of being at the fringe of the life of our city, of our community, to the heart of social activity in this town. The high disposable income which Canberrans enjoy, I think, reflects itself in the high levels of participation in cultural activities in this town. The nagging question at the back of my mind is: How many ordinary Canberrans, if I might use that phrase, are reached, or reached regularly, by the arts in the ACT or benefit from arts funding in the ACT? I note that there are no really good figures available on this sort of thing around the country, and I doubt whether there are any figures available in the ACT, in particular.
I suspect, Madam Speaker, that the figure is much less than half and that it could be dramatically smaller even than half. That is a matter of some concern because we should never see the arts as merely being the preserve or the expression of a small minority of people. It should always be at the very heart of our community's life, at least in theory. I note that the principles referred to on pages 10 and 11 of the report, which underpin the strategy for dealing with the mission and the vision articulated in this document, do not address or mention the question of diversifying the base of the arts, of making the arts reach more and more people in this community, and I think that they should. I hope that the Minister will take that on board.
On page 8, in articulating the vision, the council makes this statement:
The ACT Cultural Council wants to contribute to an ACT where it is part of everyday life to examine the cultural impact of all and any activities, from the erection of a new building to the putting to air of a television program.
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