Have your say – Theatre Network Victoria will respond to the National Cultural Policy consultation.
Theatre Network Victoria will be submitting our own response to the National Cultural Policy discussion paper http://culture.arts.gov.au/discussion-paper on Friday October 21st, 2011. We continue to welcome TNV members’ contributions to our submission, by Wednesday 19th October, 2011. Email Nicole@tnv.net.au
We also strongly encourage members to fill in the Quick Online survey on the National Cultural Policy website, so that the government realises that the national Cultural Policy has broad industry support http://culture.arts.gov.au/have-your-say
TNV has consulted widely to develop this submission, and has worked in partnership to help develop other arts industry submissions and to ensure important issues are raised by many different voices. TNV was part of the ArtsPeak delegation that met with Minister Crean in August this year to voice our support for the policy, and to flag some key issues. Some issues from the ArtsPeak submission are included in TNV’s submission as endorsements.
TNV has worked closely with the rest of the Australian Theatre Forum team and a consultant to develop a comprehensive submission on behalf of the 280 attendees of the Australian Theatre Forum in Brisbane. This ATF submission will be available on the ATF website after the 21st October, and many of the issues have been included in TNV’s submission. http://australiantheatreforum.com.au/ (after 21/10/11).
TNV also invited members to a consultation session run by the Arts Industry Council Victoria, ( http://aicv.org.au on which TNV sits as a Board Director), and the issues from that session are also included in TNV’s own submission.
The following is a preview of the TNV submission, which will be finalised and published on the TNV website on the 21st October.
Preview – Theatre Network Victoria submission to the National Cultural Policy.
TNV supports the development of a National Cultural Policy as we believe that artists and arts and cultural industries have a central and fundamental significance in Australia and we believe that an articulation of goals and strategies that will further enhance that significance is a vital task.
TNV’s main concern with the discussion paper is that it omits any mention of the need for the arts and cultural sectors to address issue of environmental sustainability – yet we in the arts are greatly concerned about the impacts that climate change will have on our world, and we recognize that the arts needs to take drastic and urgent action along with all other industries.
We therefore call for inclusion in the National Cultural Policy of an Environmental Sustainability goal, wherein the arts and cultural industries are supported to develop capacity for addressing Environmental Sustainability within their operations and practices.
Regarding the four proposed goals from the Discussion Paper:
GOAL 1: To ensure that what the Government supports — and how this support is provided — reflects the diversity of a 21st century Australia, and protects and supports Indigenous culture
TNV agrees with Kultour that having Australia’s multiple identities imbedded throughout the policy rather than as a separate item, and embedded in its construct and reflecting Australia’s contemporary cultural makeup in the 21st century, is a significant step forward.
TNV endorses Arts Access Australia’s call for the government to include the National Arts and Disability Strategy (NADS) within its new National Cultural Policy, and to invest in the $24 million needed to implement the NADS over the next four years.
TNV agrees with Ananguku Arts that Australia’s Indigenous culture is at once the oldest living culture in the world, as noted in the discussion paper, and the driver of a dynamic contemporary modern arts movement in urban, regional and remote Australia. TNV agrees that a statement of support for traditional and contemporary Indigenous arts should be included in the National Cultural Policy in a prominent position.
TNV endorses the IFACCA 5th World Summit on Arts and Culture’s call to action that governments, including the Australian government, should:
“Commit to activating and implementing the spirit and principles of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression (2005) and deliver on its objectives by making it central to national, state and local cultural policies.” (IFACCA, 6 October, 2011, Melbourne).
GOAL 2: To encourage the use of emerging technologies and new ideas that support the development of new artworks and the creative industries, and that enable more people to access and participate in arts and culture
TNV endorses Feral Arts’ proposal that the NBN budget includes a reasonable and meaningful percent of its funds to providing the arts and cultural sector with the resources to create broadband content and capacity, including support for industry training programs to enable theatre professionals to get access to best-practice expertise in new and emerging technologies.
“Given that the NBN is also poised to play a central role in the new National Cultural Policy a ‘percent for content and capacity’ program would provide the sector with the necessary resources to properly implement the new policy.” (Feral Arts, 2011).
TNV believes that a new digital realm will mean that copyright and intellectual property rights will become extremely complex, and the arts industries will therefore need support for addressing these complexities with integrity for art makers, producers and presenters.
TNV agrees with ANAT that: “The arts have been involved in an ongoing exploration that has led to the growth and evolution of a vibrant, living culture in digital realms. If our culture is to continue to flourish in these spaces then censorship and classification cannot be allowed to diminish its expression.” (ANAT, 2011).
GOAL 3: To support excellence and world-class endeavour, and strengthen the role that the arts play in telling Australian stories both here and overseas
TNV joins with the Australian Theatre Forum in questioning the discussion paper’s promotion of excellence as a purview of only the major funded organisations. One of the current proposed strategies is to ‘promote excellence and encourage world standards in Australia’s major funded organisations and individuals’. Given the use of the term ‘major organisations’ in the Australia Council’s funding programs to describe a particular specified group of companies, it would be better if this was rephrased to acknowledge that all artists and organisations are encouraged to be of world standard, and should be resourced to do so.
TNV joins the Australian Theatre Forum in calling for the following strategies:
=> Develop and fund a coherent national strategy for the international promotion of Australian culture that would include an enhanced program for touring Australian theatre to the world.
=> Introduce an easy artist visa for foreign artists, and negotiate similar arrangements with other countries for Australian artists working abroad
=> Ensure that all Government decisions to support excellence reflect Australian diversity by seeking the widest practical input
=> Ensure that funding structures and levels of support acknowledge the crucial role of independents and smaller companies
=> Set up an inquiry into ways to support individual artists throughout their careers, and include consideration of best-practice international models such as those in France, Belgium and Switzerland.
GOAL 4: To increase and strengthen the capacity of the arts to contribute to our society and economy.
TNV endorses the views of NAVA in calling for support for facilitation and brokerage services for individual artists, in order to capitalise on the creative potential of artists in many areas of Australian society.
“Increasingly, artists’ creative capability is also having effect in very broad areas of public and private sector enterprise: in health; the environment; manufacturing and industry; urban development; object, industrial, graphic and fashion design; media and advertising. Indeed, their capacity for innovation is influencing almost every area of endeavour.
However, this needs facilitation. The cultural policy should inject new support for both organisational and individual brokerage between artists and potential employers and commissioners. This would foster much greater provision of opportunities for these creative thinkers and makers to contribute to innovation and the evolution of the economy. Education and training is needed to enable them to fulfil this role, both pre and in-practice. An ideas-based economy will have greater durability and a longer future for Australia than minerals export.” (NAVA, 2011).
TNV joins the Australian Theatre Forum in calling for the following strategies:
=> Ensure that all Government agencies acknowledge the legitimacy and value of people’s choice to pursue careers in the arts, and remove the obstacles to this pursuit in current social security practices.
=> Ensure that young people regularly experience professional live performance as a core part of the Australian Curriculum currently being developed
=> Utilise the creative and practical skills of artists by appointing them to management, advisory and governance bodies across all Government agencies
=> Develop new models of arts funding based on upfront investment to complement existing programs.
Have your say!
We continue to welcome TNV members’ contributions to our submission, by Wednesday 19th October, 2011. Email Nicole@tnv.net.au
We also strongly encourage members to fill in the Quick Online survey on the National Cultural Policy website, so that the government realises that the national Cultural Policy has broad industry support http://culture.arts.gov.au/have-your-say