Arts and Creative Industries

Arts and creative endeavours are fundamental to our wellbeing, identity, storytelling, understanding of our cultures, and educational growth.

We understand creative arts and creative work to be a broad field that manifests a unique message, an aesthetic appeal and a powerful impact.

Principles

The NSW Greens believe:

  1. The arts are fundamental to the wellbeing and identity of all Australians and should be valued as integral to Australia’s cultural heritage and our understanding of it.
  2. Artistic endeavours in all aspects of NSW public and private life must be supported.
  3. Arts and creative endeavours are fundamental to our wellbeing, identity, storytelling, understanding of our cultures and educational growth.
  4. The unique and diverse character of First Nations peoples’ culture and heritage must be respected, protected, preserved and promoted.
  5. All individuals have a right to reasonable and affordable access to the arts as audiences and participants, and there should be sufficient funding to support this.
  6. Art education is an important component of a comprehensive education, from early childhood onwards.
  7. Adequate funding should be provided to enable affordable and accessible artistic education and expression.
  8. Longer-term provision of funding and resources should be used to improve the security and planning capacities of artists and arts organisations.
  9. All artists contributing to a creative work should retain ownership over their work and receive a share of the revenue generated by their work.
  10. Art education provides an important foundation for employment and for the economic contribution of the arts and creative industries.
  11. The arts are an important contributor to the NSW economy and also attract tourists and visitors.
  12. The carbon emissions resulting from the arts and creative industries should be minimised.
  13. Innovation in the arts and creative industries should be encouraged, including advances in digital communication and the provision of new opportunities on a global scale.
  14. 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 and how we understand ourselves, our history and our place in society.
  15. Freedom of expression is fundamental to a just and democratic society.
  16. Artists should be free to comment on the nature of our society including through their artistic works or creations.
  17. Corporations and special interest lobby groups who engage in activities that increase carbon emissions or have negative environmental, social or political impacts should not be greenwashing those impacts by sponsoring arts organisations.

Aims

The Greens NSW will work towards:

Funding and Resourcing

18. Increasing the funding of arts grants to the NSW community, including to organisations at the local and regional levels.
19. Increasing support for arts programs for disadvantaged, marginalised and vulnerable groups.
20. Supporting and facilitating live performances being held in NSW.
21.All levels of government employing the services of artists in the production of educational and consultation materials.
22. 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.
23. Increasing funding for education about First Nations arts.
24. Accessible and affordable tertiary level art education, including in the regions.
25. Increasing the funding allocated to local governments for public libraries.
26. Continued financial and cultural support for existing arts organisations and programs, while supporting new and emerging artists.
27. A livable income consistent with a Universal Wellbeing Payment for artists and creatives with job security and acceptable working conditions.
28. Simplifying application processes for grants and funding.
29. Ensuring open and transparent processes for funding decisions.
30. Ensuring support for artist-run ventures such as galleries and performance ventures, empty spaces and renew projects.
31. Encouraging artists by ensuring prizes are available to emerging and established artists and include emerging technologies.
32. Securing appropriate attribution and the protection of copyright.

Artistic and Creative Education

33. Publicly funding arts education at all levels of education.
34. School and community programs for visiting artists and cultural creators to increase the exposure of students to the arts and to encourage life-long interest in the arts.
35. Artists and cultural creators to be mentors for students. 

Freedom of Expression

36. Preventing any legislative or administrative action that limits, on political grounds, the freedom of expression by artists and cultural creators.

37. Providing support to advocacy agencies:
37.1 To represent artists and to inform debate at state and local level by consultation, policy and decision making.
37.2 That represent people with disability as artists, arts workers, participants and audiences.

Access to the Arts

38. Ensuring that community development and access are essential parts of the activities of all government-funded arts, cultural and educational institutions
39. Free entry to all public cultural institutions such as libraries and galleries
40. The inclusion of cultural infrastructure as part of greenfield urban settlement developments.
41. The removal of barriers to people with disability engaging in all aspects of arts and culture.
42. Equitable access to arts and culture for all people with disability.
43. Opportunities for marginalised groups to engage in art and creative activity led by people with shared experience.
44. Expanding access to cross-cultural arts programs to promote understanding and respect.
45. The availability of art for loan or hire through “Artbank” style schemes.
46. The display and distribution of art in public spaces.
47. The increased frequency, funding and reach of touring arts programs.
48. The expansion of regional and rural art programs.
49. Adequate and enhanced transport availability to support access to the arts.
50. The increased frequency and funding for programs that assist those from non-urban areas to experience arts and creative work in urban or metropolitan settings.

First Nations Arts

51. Supporting First Nations people to market their art to ensure the long term viability of that market.
52. Supporting ethical and community owned First Nations arts and cultural ventures including First Nations Cooperatives.
53. Supporting the development of a well-resourced dedicated First Nations arts and cultural centre for NSW.

Promotion

54. Ensuring that 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.
55. Encouraging artists and cultural event coordinators to access international markets.
56. Encouraging local governments and small enterprises to collaborate with artists and cultural event coordinators to create art.
57. Establishing a jointly-owned recording label and music publisher between artists and the government to ensure that artists and cultural creators can get better deals for the distribution and use of their art, with a long-term goal of converting the enterprise into an artist's cooperative.
58. Establishing a publicly-owned event ticketing company to reduce the fees paid by customers and ensure artists receive a fair share of the revenue.
59. Ending the usage of anti-competitive practices by monopolists in the ticketing industry.
60. Ensuring the film production and exhibition industries are not engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.

Arts and Cultural Venues

61. Eliminating poker machines from pubs and clubs and help transition the industry towards providing more live entertainment.
62. Encouraging the reduction of carbon emissions and other environmental impacts in the creation and use of art, including through arts and cultural endeavours via education and grant applications.

The Arts at Night

63. Strengthen development provisions to protect live performance, performance spaces, and increase safety in consultation with stakeholders.
64. Creating roles, such as Night Ambassadors, that work with a broad range of stakeholders to create a vibrant nightlife.
65.Improving safety for public and entertainment venue staff through increased implementation of pill testing and drink-spiking awareness and prevention.
66. Improving licensing legislation and conditions to favour arts and public safety.

Last Revised February 2024.