Page 2661 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 15 August 2017
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had not changed. This answer confirms my concern that this government budgets for stagnation.
But one contributing factor to growth in the arts engagement might be the ACT’s significant population growth. Even if the number of programs and organisations did remain static, would not population growth alone contribute to growth in arts engagement? And if there were population growth, would not this suggest a need for an increase in the number of funded organisations and programs to meet the growing need of the population? Incredibly, the minister told me in an answer to a question on notice:
Accountability indicators are influenced by a number of factors from year to year and are not necessarily related to population or tourism.
What are they related to? It is this kind of head-in-the-sand approach to strategic thinking that concerns me most, especially when Canberra’s population is growing at the rate of 1½ per cent per year, and that is around 4,000 people or close to a suburb every year. What concerns me is that this government has no idea how to cater for the arts demands of people of the ACT.
This does not include growth in tourism, which the Chief Minister likes to talk about. But there is very little connection between tourism and arts in this budget or any government policy. The government’s own budget papers say that tourism is worth $2 billion a year to the ACT economy and will grow to $2½ billion by 2020. And the government’s own budget papers say that arts and culture play an important part in tourism figures. Yet the government is stagnating its support for the arts and has no plan for growth in the sector.
Contrary to the government’s own budget statement, this minister says that population and tourism do not necessarily influence the outcomes of accountability indicators. One of the government’s own answers to a question on notice acknowledged as much. It said:
A static target is set as the categories for funded organisations have not changed.
That is, the money has not gone up even though there is increased demand.
The government accountability indicators are stagnant. It is as simple as that. The minister and this government have no strategy for the arts engagement of the territory. It is as simple as that. The government and this minister are so bereft of any capacity for strategic thinking they cannot even take opportunities to value-add to visits by national and international artists that the government itself brings to the ACT.
What about giving local artists the opportunity to learn from visiting artists? What about workshops and master classes and visits to schools? No, this minister thinks that that is all a bit too hard and gets things like this into the schedule for visiting artists. It may be true in some cases but should the government just assume it applies to any and all artists it brings to the territory? Musica Viva does this. Why can’t the government?
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