Australia’s peak performing arts body Live Performance Australia today released its “election scorecard”, comparing the arts policies of four parties. This might be the only election scorecard you see in which the Arts Party is lined up alongside the Coalition, Labor and the Greens.
Unsurprisingly, it’s the Coalition who seems to be the least supportive of artistic endeavour.
LPA has been lobbying consistently for the Abbott-Turnbull governments to reverse their decision to cut funding to the Australia Council and provide additional funds to the small-to-medium companies hit hardest by the cuts.
In a media release, LPA Chief Executive Evelyn Richardson said:
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“Labor, the Greens and the Arts Party have all issued detailed policy statements on the arts, including policy positions that will support our live performance industry.
“In particular, we welcome their commitment to support the return of funding to the Australia Council to provide long term stability for small to medium performing arts companies along with other initiatives that recognise the economic, social and cultural importance of live performance.
“However, it’s disappointing that we’re just over two weeks from the election and the Coalition is yet to detail any policy for the live performance industry or the arts sector as a whole, apart from some ad-hoc project funding announcements.
“Senator Fifield’s appearance at the national arts debate in Melbourne recently was a missed opportunity for him to engage with industry representatives on the Coalition’s plan to support jobs, growth and innovation for Australia’s live performance industry.
“We hope the Coalition will take the opportunity before the election to set out some policy directions for the live performance industry which not only supports tens of thousands of jobs and creates billions of dollars of economic activity, but is also supported by 18 million Australians who attend a live performance every year.”
The scorecard summary is reproduced below, but you can view the full scorecard here.
