Struggling For Work After The Government’s Arts Cuts? Apply To Be Australia’s New Arts Minister!

At this point, it’s no secret that most of the Australian arts community are pretty pissed at our government. There are makeshift billboards all over our major cities calling the Prime Minister “hopeless”, and local bands have plainly told him to “wipe that shit-eating grin off [his] punchable face”. But since last week’s federal budget, much of that anger has been directed away from Tone himself and onto the rest of his band of merry garbage men.

This is because — following on from the $87 million gutpunch Joe Hockey delivered to the Arts portfolio last year — 2015 is looking just as bleak as ever for the creative industries, with further cuts to things like community radio and Screen Australia. Worse still: Arts Minister George Brandis has mistaken the nation’s ironic appreciation of that time someone made a remix of his metadata interview as a sign of actual respect, and essentially appointed himself as an artistic dictator. $104.7 million has been pummelled out of the Australia Council — the nation’s independent funding body for the arts — and diverted into the new government-run National Programme for Excellence in the Arts. And, with the details of this initiative still incredibly vague, there’s a lot to be worried about.

The way it looks right now is that our nation’s arts grants will no longer be awarded by a peer-review panel of leaders from the fields of arts and culture, but rather the office of a 57-year-old man who sometimes goes to the opera and has had more than one scandal about the cost and content of his $15,000 taxpayer-funded bookshelves. Spoiler: legal textbooks, Australia’s Best Political Cartoons and Lazarus Rising: A Personal And Political Autobiography by John Howard aren’t really considered part of the local literary canon.

BREAKING: George Brandis announces the winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award. #milesfranklin pic.twitter.com/gp3gbs0D4T

— Patrick Allington (@PatrAllington) May 19, 2015

Not content with the idea of all the nation’s arts funding heading directly to already wealthy opera companies and former Prime Ministers’ ghost writers, many in the arts community have been raising awareness about what this could mean for the future of the industry at large. If you work in these sectors you could be out of a job. If you enjoy reading, watching or listening to things from local creative types, you could soon have a lot less to choose from. And, much like last year, many have signed an open letter to George Brandis pleading their case.

“It is deeply disturbing for any Minister to attempt to directly control the kinds of culture produced in a democracy that values freedom of expression,” the letter reads. “The Minister himself has previously argued that art will always provoke debate, ‘that’s why we have an arms-length and peer-reviewed structure for the allocation for the funding’. What he now proposes is precisely the opposite.”

Citing the Australia Council’s enormous success with a broad array of organisations and individuals, the letter states “independence is essential to diversity in Australian arts” and argues that the proposed changes would see small arts organisations and emerging creatives put at risk.

“[This] will impoverish Australian culture and society. It will mean loss of livelihood for many arts workers. It will mean many important artworks – works that would inform national debate, expanding the possibilities of this country and its citizens – will simply never be made.”

The letter now has more than 4,100 signatories including representatives from nearly every major arts organisation in the country. It has been republished in a number of arts journals including Overland and The Lifted Brow, its sentiments have been discussed in a number of editorials, and its supporters have expounded on their points for other major news publications as well as social media under the hashtag #freethearts.

It turns out that messing with the country’s most creative people is a pretty foolish thing to do. And, to make this as painfully clear as possible, this little gem has recently popped up online:

The Federal Arts Minister’s job is currently being advertised on local job searcher Creative Foyer, amidst the dwindling selection of vacancies for artistic curators, managers and co-ordinators.

Here, it asks that applicants have “a demonstrated appreciation of all the arts and not just Opera”. They must also have “previous participation in the arms-length and peer-reviewed funding [model] which has ensured funding is distributed by merit and not used to assist friends or to make political gains”. Also, it would be great if they had “experience in encouraging all Australians to participate in meaningful artistic experiences, and not just Jukebox musicals and mainstream productions produced by the 28 major performing arts companies.”

“Current Arts Minister need not apply.”

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You can read more about the opposition to these changes and add you name to the open letter over here. Or, better yet, apply for the job here and fix everything yourself!