Australia Council for the Arts

Function

It is responsible for funding arts projects around Australia, formulating and implementing policies to foster and promote the arts in Australia. The Council also advises governments and industry on arts-related issues. Each year, Australia Council provides over 1700 grants to artists and arts organisations. In addition, it supports strategies to develop new audiences and markets for the arts both in Australia and overseas.

Australia Council itself has since 21013 been funded by the Attorney-General's Department.

History

Australia Council was formed in 1967 by Prime Minister Harold Holt as a body for the public funding of the arts and was given statutory authority in March 1975 by the Australia Council Act. The Council's predecessor, the Australian Council for the Arts was established in 1968 by Prime Minister John Gorton as a division of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. The Council then incorporated other government projects, such as the Commonwealth Literary Fund and the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board. It operates in co-ordination with the various state government agencies.

In early 2014 federal Ministers Brandis and Turnbull told artists at the Sydney Biennale that they were ungrateful and selfish to protest about the role of Transfield in Nauru. In December 2014, Arts Minister, George Brandis, took away a large portion of literature funding from Australia Council.

In May 2015, Brandis cut $26 million a year for four years from Australia Council arts funding, a third of its arts funding, receiving significant criticism from the arts community. The money was reallocated to a new program, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts (NPEA). NPEA in turn was criticised by many artists and arts organisations for lacking the "arms-length" funding principles that had applied to the relationship between the government and Australia Council since its inception in the 1970s. These principles have traditionally had bipartisan support. Brandis was criticised previously for giving Melbourne classical music record label Melba Recordings a $275,000 grant outside of the usual funding and peer-assessment processes. Brandis's changes to funding arrangements, including the quarantining of the amount received by Australia's 28 major performing arts companies, were widely seen to disadvantage the small-to-medium arts sector and independent artists. Following Malcolm Turnbull's successful spill of the leadership of the Liberal party in September 2015, Brandis was replaced as arts minister by Mitch Fifield. In November Fifield gave back $8 million a year for four years to Australia Council, changed the NPEA to the Catalyst Fund, and stressed it would have a focus on smaller arts projects. The arts community was not impressed by the changes.

As a result of the reduced funding, Australia Council cancelled project funding rounds for small groups and individuals in 2015 and then cut funding to over 60 arts organisations across the country in May 2016.

In addition, Education Minister Simon Birmingham indicated that the government is considering cutting funding to students who wish to undertake creative arts training, saying that he believes training in the creative arts is a ‘lifestyle’ choice and cannot lead to a satisfactory career or any economic outcome, and that he intends to cut loan support for students to undertake this form of education and training, cutting loans for over 50 arts training programs, including programs in ceramics, photography, dance, acting, animation, all forms of design, circus, music, film, fashion and journalism.

Boards

Australia Council is composed of seven boards. Each board has seven members including a chair, except the Major Performing Arts Board, which has eight members.

The seven boards are: