Page 1384 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 April 2019
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Those of us lucky enough to live here in the ACT in the nation’s capital know the importance of our national cultural institutions and the role they play in holding our shared history and inspiring future generations. Our city’s children have the benefit of school excursions to places of culture and history that others travel thousands of kilometers to attend. Our local residents take pride in seeing these buildings and places beamed around the country and the world as examples of our modern, progressive society.
I bring this motion to the Assembly today to seek support from this Assembly to make the case for our national cultural institutions, to underline the need for them to be properly resourced, and to provide a non-partisan mechanism for their long-term support.
The question might be asked why we even need to have this discussion. Disappointingly, successive federal governments have consistently underfunded these places of learning. Budget after budget, the institutions that tell our cultural, historical, political, legal, scientific, educational, sporting and financial story have been ravaged by cuts and efficiency dividends, undermining the essential role they play in the fabric of our nation.
Successive federal governments have actively starved our National Library of essential staff. Last year it was reported that, when it rains, the National Gallery of Australia, home of the national art collection and host to world-class exhibitions, is forced to put buckets on the floor to cope with leaks. This should not be the fate of our collective story.
This week we have seen the release of the federal budget and there have been some flickers of relief for our beleaguered institutions. Most national institutions will see no changes to their staff numbers, but the War Memorial will gain an extra 12 staff in the next year, Old Parliament House will lose two staff members and the National Capital Authority will gain two. These figures hardly touch the sides when we consider that 21 jobs were cut across the national institutions last year.
With regard to funding, I was pleased to see that the National Library will receive $10 million over the next four years to start a digitisation fund and $8 million will be spent this year to ensure that buildings such as the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, the National Film and Sound Archive and the National Library of Australia are compliant with building code standards. One would think that that is a minimal requirement. Questacon and the High Court will both benefit from funding to expand educational activities, with $15.1 million to be spent over the next three years on expanding Questacon’s education and outreach activities and $2 million pledged over two years to the second stage of the Australian Constitution Centre at the High Court.
What we have seen also, however, is that once again the Australian War Memorial is a key winner in the federal budget. That is a point that I would like to elaborate on today. The Greens are deeply concerned about, and in fact opposed to, the excessive pool of funds being directed to the Australian War Memorial in an era when our national institutions are being starved of the critical resources they need.
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