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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1689 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

The ACT Writers Centre is another example of triennial funding working very well. It is the peak writers organisation in the ACT and it promotes and supports literary activities. Currently the ACT Writers Centre boasts over 650 members. The centre runs a consistently high-quality program to support strong and emerging literary community activities, and some huge talent. Mr Wood will have the pleasure that I do in being able to be present at many of the launches of work done by writers in the ACT and surrounding region. The level of talent that exists in this city never ceases to amaze me.

Another triennial funded organisation is Craft ACT. Mr Wood mentioned that he was going to an exhibition this evening. This is the peak body for contemporary craft and design and it promotes excellence in professional contemporary crafts and design practice. Craft ACT has presented numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally and was invited to showcase some of the region's outstanding glass artists at the recent Focus on Business Conference here in Canberra. Eight out of the 25 Australian glass artists have also been selected from Canberra for the prestigious Australian contemporary glass exhibition touring Australia and Germany in 2000-2001.

Triennial funding enables these organisations to contribute to Canberra's thriving art sector and to allow real innovation in the arts with forward planning. The ACT government supports, and I as arts minister, and Mr Humphries before me, support, triennial funding very definitely, and we look at moving more organisations onto triennial funding over time when they have proven their capacity to continue to operate and to continue to innovate.

Every year we look at expanding this program because the arts, like anything else, need to be able to plan into the future and need to be able to look to what they want to achieve, not just for the next 12 months but in a significantly longer term way than is the case on just annual grants. So we will continue to go down the path of triennial funding and hopefully be able to expand that program in the future.

MS TUCKER (4.31): I also appreciate the opportunity to congratulate those Canberra organisations who were awarded triennial funding. I am well aware of the importance of Canberra's professional arts infrastructure. My two daughters greatly enjoyed and benefited from their involvement with the Canberra Youth Theatre.

I do think we need to be cautious, however, in our expectations of these organisations which, despite the luxury of some certainty in funding from the ACT government, need to run very tightly, with little or no fat to absorb any of the slings and arrows that come their way. The demise of Company Skylark a couple years ago, and now Studio One, demonstrates very clearly that the triennial agreements that are made with Arts ACT are only one small part of the economic equation that professional arts organisations must manage if they are to survive.

Basically, three-year funding is good, but the actual level of funding in terms of the outputs and the outcomes expected for it is always fairly low. In fact, the very equation that underscores the existence of these organisations is now under question, thanks to the federal government's new taxation system. Anyone who has worked professionally in the

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