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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1778 ..

Mr Moore: That is an important part of it.

MS TUCKER: Mr Moore interjects, "That is an important part of it". We also need to recognise that they are public servants who maybe could not say exactly what they thought anyway. The broader arts community, obviously, have an interest in this issue. I think it would have been much better if they had been considered in this consultation to the same degree, and they would hopefully feel quite free - and they obviously do, by the public meetings that we have attended - to express their concerns.

I think, as Mr Wood said, there may be some useful things in this Cultural Authority; it may not be bad at all. However, I think one of the issues is that there is insecurity in the arts community. We had a process last year where there was a proposal, involving the Office of Financial Management, to actually change the grants process. Mr Humphries changed his mind about it and moved away from it. That is something that is still very clear in the memory of the arts community and has them worried about exactly what the agenda of this Government is. The Government needs to show the arts community what its agenda is, and that means giving them an opportunity to hear and discuss what these proposals actually are. There is some uncertainty and confusion about actually where arts policy and the strategic vision of arts in the ACT are coming from at the moment. I understand the Cultural Authority is developing an arts strategic plan or a development plan or something. I do not recall exactly what it is called, but it is supposed to be dealing with policy. Members of the arts community were not clear about that and even where that process was.

I think it is quite appropriate that we do have an adjournment so that the arts community has time to confer with the Government. It may well end up that they are prepared to accept this Cultural Authority Bill even as it is, if they know that there are other steps in place to deal with how policies are developed in the ACT and what power this authority would have relative to the power of other groups who are seeking funding. Obviously, a fear you would have is that there would be this basically powerful group who publicly control arts venues and who are seeking money from the same pool as a rather disparate group of community arts people. They need to know and understand that the processes will be fair, so that their type of art will not be lost in what can be seen Australia-wide actually as a trend towards what can be called eventism in the arts, which is this tendency to look at what will bring money into places rather than necessarily the more subtle, social grassroots community arts stuff which may not bring in the tourist dollars but which may give great benefits to the society on a different level. I will be very pleased to see the Government continue what it has now started, and that is meaningful consultation, by giving the Bill to the arts community. I hope to see dialogue between all the people concerned. I hope that we end up with something that makes sense.

MR MOORE (4.40): In rising to speak to the Canberra Cultural Authority Bill, I would like to support what has been said by Mr Wood and by Ms Tucker about the consultation process, but I have no need, as I see it, to go through that area again. In fact, when I looked at the Canberra Cultural Authority Bill, before I had been lobbied at all, I thought, "This Bill actually makes quite good sense". Perhaps it is an opportunity missed, in that a body like the Canberra Cultural Authority may have been able to take a much broader role; but I would be interested in hearing what the community has to say about that.

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