Ausdance National news — August 2010

by Julie Dyson

17 August 2010

The ALP Arts Policy announcements

• Investing in a Creative Australia fact sheet
• Policy Statement—Valuing our Arts, Culture and Heritage

The Coalition Arts Policy

• Policy Statement—Real Action to Support the Arts

The Australian Greens Arts Policy

• Policy Statement— Australian Greens

13 August 2010

Federal election

Ausdance National has been very active during this election campaign, trying to source candidates’ arts policies, developing statements for the media through ArtsPeak and keeping members informed via our Facebook page. Here are some of the ways in which we’ve been keeping you up to date.

Requesting arts policies

We contacted both major parties—the ALP and the Coalition—asking for their arts policies. The Greens—already have one, so we focused on the others. Here’s what happened:

ALP

The ALP Policy team responded to our request with a list of achievements, so we asked whether the 2007 policy was still current and if not, when could we expect a 2010 version? Here’s the statement we received, and our response, which includes a list of dance priorities.

Coalition

The Coalition’s Shadow Arts Minister, Stephen Ciabo, through his adviser, provided us with a list of policy commitments made by the Coalition in the arts portfolio. We responded by saying that we looked forward to offering any information that may be needed to produce one before the election.

ArtsPeak

As Ausdance National co-chairs ArtsPeak with the National Association for the Visual Arts, we have managed to get agreement from more than 20 major peak bodies in the arts, and have produced statements that cover a range of their concerns.

Where are the arts in this campaign?

ArtsPeak called for all political parties to develop and, if elected, implement policies that will accelerate the contribution being made by Australia’s cultural creators to productivity, innovation, social cohesion and the economy. Here is the ArtsPeak statement.

Efficiency dividend and its impact on the Australia Council

ArtsPeak called on the Government to remove the efficiency dividend from cultural institutions, especially the Australia Council, where it will impact on grants to the small to medium performing arts sector and individual artists.