Arts and Creative Industries

Principles

The NSW Greens believe:

1. The arts are fundamental to the wellbeing of all Australians and should be valued as integral to Australia’s cultural heritage;

2. The unique and diverse character of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ culture and heritage must be respected, protected, preserved and promoted;

3. The community has a right to reasonable and affordable access to the arts as audiences and participants, and there should be sufficient funding to support this;

4. Art education is an important component of a comprehensive education, from early childhood onwards;

5. Adequate funding should be provided to enable affordable and accessible artistic education and expression, with the retention of intellectual property rights by artists over their creations;

6. Art education provides an important foundation for employment and for the economic contribution of the arts and creative industries;

7. The arts are an important contributor to the NSW economy and also provide an attractor for tourists and visitors;

8. The carbon emissions resulting from the production and consumption of art should be minimised;

9. Innovation, including advances in electronic communication, in the production and consumption of art should be encouraged, including the provision of new opportunities and markets on a global scale;

10. The arts make an important contribution to social and democratic life, including by reflecting and questioning the challenges of a complex and ever changing society;

11. Freedom of expression is fundamental to our just and democratic society; and

12. Artists should be free to comment on the nature of our society.

Aims

Funding

The Greens NSW will work towards:

13. The substantial increase in funding and support for the arts in NSW by:

  1. Continuing to support established arts companies and programs;
  2. Ensuring that the proportion of arts grants and funding to the NSW community is increased, including to small and medium organisations at the local and regional levels;
  3. Increasing the level of funding by state and local government to support art and artists, including:
    1. supporting new and emerging artists;
    2. increasing support for arts programs for disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, e.g., people with disability, migrants, prisoners, and juvenile justice detainees;
    3. increasing support for arts programs that promote health and wellbeing, including in the aged, mental health and disability sectors;
    4. encouraging state and local government to utilise the services of artists in the development and production of educational and consultation materials; and
    5. ensuring contributions from development approvals to support art at the local level, including contributions to the development, management and maintenance of cultural spaces and services;
  4. Ensuring the arts at rural and regional levels are adequately supported;
  5. Increasing NSW government funding for:
  6. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts education; and
  7. Accessible and affordable tertiary level education, including in the regions, to ensure there is better alignment of educational outcomes and industry needs, while providing sound fundamental knowledge that is applicable to any technology that artists can creatively utilise;
  8. Providing funding for community radio and television;
  9. Increasing the per capita funding allocated to local government for public libraries;
  10. Continuing to encourage the film and television industry with an increase in the grants program;
  11. Ensuring government-employed arts workers, such as those involved in funded projects, grants and one-off hire, are paid above the average wage in New South Wales;
  12. Simplifying application processes for grants and funding;
  13. Ensuring royalty schemes on resale of original works are implemented and that Australians can access resale royalty schemes that exist in other countries;
  14. Ensuring open and transparent processes for funding decisions;
  15. Ensuring financial support for artist-run ventures such as galleries and performance ventures, Empty Spaces and Renew projects;
  16. Encouraging artists by ensuring prizes are expanded to include emerging technologies and support emerging artists as well as established artists and securing appropriate attribution and the protection of copyright; and
  17. Encouraging increasing levels of private sponsorship and philanthropy to support art and artists;

Freedom of expression

The Greens NSW will work towards:

14. Preventing any legislative or administrative action that limits, on political grounds, the freedom of expression in art by artists;

15. Providing support to advocacy organisations:

  1. to represent artists and to inform debate at state and local level by consultation, policy and decision making; and
  2. that represent people with disability as artists, arts-workers, participants and audiences;

Access to the arts

16. Promoting equal and adequate access to the arts by ensuring:

  1. All government-funded arts, cultural and educational institutions, including libraries, make community development and access essential parts of their activities;
  2. Access to public cultural institutions such as libraries, galleries and museums is free of entry charges;
  3. The inclusion of cultural infrastructure as part of greenfield urban settlement developments;
  4. The removal of barriers to people with a disability engaging in all aspects of the arts and cultural events;
  5. Increased access to arts programs for people with a disability and people with mental ill-health;
  6. The expansion across cities, regional and rural communities of cross-cultural arts programs to promote understanding and respect;
  7. The availability of art for loan or hire through “Artbank” style schemes;
  8. The display/distribution of art in public spaces;
  9. The expansion of touring arts programs;
  10. The expansion of regional and rural art programs; and
  11. Adequate and enhanced transport availability to support access to the arts;

Young people and the arts

17. Increasing the support for young people to develop their interest and capability in the arts by:

  1. Encouraging the educators and supporters of young people, such as youth workers, to develop suitable policies and projects;
  2. Supporting school and community programs for visiting writers, musicians, artists and others to increase the exposure of young people to the arts, to encourage life-long interest in the arts and which will provide some financial support to artists; and
  3. Encouraging projects to support older people to be artistic mentors for young people;

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts

18. Protecting and supporting the cultural heritage and artistic works of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by:

  1. Supporting the retrieval of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestral remains and secret/sacred objects from other states and abroad and their return to the control of indigenous people;
  2. Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to market their art to ensure the long term viability of the Aboriginal art market;
  3. Supporting ethical and community-owned Aboriginal art ventures, including Aboriginal Art Cooperatives and Galleries; and
  4. Expanding the understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and heritage by increased education within the general curriculum;

Arts venues

19. Protecting and encouraging the provision of live entertainment in venues by:

  1. Gradually reducing the total number of poker machines in venues;
  2. Hypothecating a percentage of poker machine licence fees to support live entertainment; and
  3. Encouraging local governments to work with music providers and major stakeholders to facilitate the Development Application process to achieve better venue management that protects the amenity of local and Creative Industries residents while supporting the role of live entertainment venues in contributing to vibrant local communities;

20. Encouraging, including through education and criteria in the granting of funds for artistic endeavours, the reduction of carbon emissions and other environmental impacts in the production and consumption of art, including the impact of:

  1. Transportation of equipment, personnel, audiences;
  2. Production methods, including materials used and ongoing energy consumption;
  3. Venues’ energy and water consumption, materials use and waste production; and
  4. Other matters such as catering, marketing and administration;

Innovation

21. Encouraging innovation, including by digital means, in:

  1. The production of art;
  2. The distribution of art;
  3. Supporting investment in innovative technologies that will assist in production and distribution; and
  4. Ensuring art education programs include the use of emerging technologies;

Promotion of the arts

22. Supporting approaches to the protection and recognition of intellectual property to ensure that:

  1. To the greatest extent possible, artists retain the moral and legal rights to their work; and
  2. Copyright legislation does not hamper the fair use of art and creative works to inspire other artists and to be adapted in the creation of derivative works;

23. Ensuring Australian artists are supported in accessing overseas markets;

24. Encouraging local government and small business collaboration to provide opportunities for artists to create and market their art in commercial settings; and

25. Encouraging the development of ethical sponsorship and philanthropy for the arts.

Last revised 2014.