New research shows that Australian arts and culture will need a ‘total reboot’ after COVID

New research from the Australia Institute warns that the ongoing effects of the Coronavirus pandemic will see some “big casualties” in the cultural sector and that a “total public-led reboot” will be required to the ways that governments back the arts.

Published today, the new research from the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, by Senior Economist Alison Pennington and Monash University’s Ben Eltham, reveals the ongoing and devastating impact of COVID-19 on Australia’s arts and entertainment sector and provides a series of recommendations to governments to reboot the creative sector after the crisis.

Advising that the sector needs a reconstruction program of substantial, coordinated and sustained public investment if it is to survive let alone “snap back” after the COVID shutdown, Eltham of Monash University’s school of media, film and journalism, explained “it was urgent last year, (but) now it’s beyond urgent.

“We’ve already seen a wave of small company insolvencies across the sector over the past year.

“One of the tragedies the sector faces now is that the government has dismantled so many of what were already late policy responses, JobKeeper, for example. Without it, a lot of major companies are in trouble.”

Worse still, he said, the loss of jobs and the exodus of skilled live performance workers into other areas would blight Australia’s culture sector for years.

The picture captured in the report, Creativity in Crisis: Rebooting Australia’s Arts & Entertainment Sector, which was commissioned by the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA), is grim.

Eltham and co-author Pennington estimate the arts and culture sector employs (at its broadest measure) more than 350,000 people but that this employment, even prior to the current pandemic in February 2021, was characterised by about 45% of employees being in casual roles without access to basic entitlements including holiday and sick leave and superannuation.

Advising that casual employment has since increased and job insecurity was “endemic”, the report noted that, even with JobKeeper, wages in the sector declined sharply last year, dropping from an average $1,525 a week in November 2019 to $1,464 in November 2020.

Those working casually or part-time had their weekly wage fall by an average $50 with the authors calculating that there had been a 46% drop in employment in libraries, a 32% fall in the creative and performing arts, and 38% in motion picture and sound recording.

With the pandemic exacerbating problems that were already endemic in these sectors, the report says that the Federal Government had not adequately responded to the scale and severity of the crisis, despite its $250 million relief package announced in June 2020, the JobKeeper wage subsidy, and a $285 million package in the 2021/22 budget.

Here it advised “during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Government has implemented increasingly hostile policies in the arts and cultural sector, including weakening local production quotas and increasing the cost of studying creative fields, adding that while the relief packages were welcome, the “design and delivery ... fell far short of its glossy announcement” because of its slow rollout and patchy distribution.

It also noted “it is not clear that the group of recipients funded through RISE (the Federal Cultural Relief Fund) corresponds to the areas of greatest need”, with little emergency funding reaching small and medium arts enterprises that generate most arts sector activity.

Many venues and organisations, slammed by a loss of jobs and audiences over the year-and a half of lockdowns and restrictions, “will not be in a position to reboot”, the report said, predicting a “permanent drop in output” from those that survive, and an exodus of workers who opt not to return to this low-wage, insecure sector.

It also advised “ongoing instability from the failed vaccination rollout, combined with the absence of widespread, long-term government supports, prevent the arts sector from rebooting to anything resembling pre-pandemic conditions for the foreseeable future.”

And this could result in wider economic damage, as the sector helps drive demand for hospitality, retail and tourism.

Here, Pennington stated “destructive market-first policies eroded the richness and diversity of arts and culture in Australia long-before COVID-19 hit. Endless short-term grant cycles and philanthropic dependency is not a place the arts and culture sector should ‘snap back’ to.

“Australia’s arts and cultural sector needs an ambitious public investment program to provide reliable funding for arts organisations from the grassroots-up, provide arts education to all children, and rebuild cultural labour markets to ensure that artists and cultural workers earn decent, living incomes.”

Years of declining investment
The report highlighted that over many years Federal Government funding for the arts and culture had lagged that of state governments, which in turn was below the level of support offered by local government, which now contributes more than half of all financial support to the sector.

Among the report’s most dramatic figures were those that Federal Government spending on the cultural sector per capita had declined by 18.9%s since 2007, stating “these stark funding divergences reflect the ongoing failure of policy makers to create a more coherent and balanced arts and entertainment sector policy across all levels of government.”

The ’total reboot’
The report said “Australia needs a complete reboot of the arts and entertainment sector” with ambitious, sustained public investment to rebuild skills, jobs and incomes proposing a return to 1970s levels of support for the arts, with a big increase to the number of “creative fellowships”, a new focus on arts education to help raise a generation better able to appreciate and contribute and a “whole of Australia public streaming platform” to bring culture out of the institutions to the masses funded by a ‘digital platforms levy’ from the giant technology platforms.

Explaining this, Eltham advised “old arguments about government spending have been turned on their head. For many artists, JobKeeper was the first time they had been able to draw a steady, liveable income from their craft. The massive cash injection shows that Australians can afford a better society and culture if we want.”

The call for a new public streaming platform and the introduction of Australian content quotas on all streaming services runs counter to a recent Federal Government green paper on Australian content quotas, which would, for example, allow Foxtel to halve its local production budget while seeking to “harmonise” Australian content levels across all platforms at just 5%.

Explaining the expansion of funding to community arts organisations and artists, Pennington noted “it helps to think of investment in the arts as an investment in the public good, something like the healthcare system.

“You make major investments in hospitals for mass treatment. You invest in face-to-face community health.

“But what we’ve found is that less funding for the whole arts and culture sector has coincided with funding that flows mostly to the largest organisations. Over decades that has led to an erosion of access, participation and lack of skill-building.”

Other recommendations include introducing a Commonwealth creative fellowships program and improving coordination of cultural policy between federal, state and local government.

With the report aiming to articulate just how severe the crisis is at the moment and catalyse discussion, Pennington went on to say “it’s a call to arms.

“The only way to build a policy to reinstate the critical role of government in the arts is going to require not just the advocacy of the sector but of everyone. We all have to demand a better world on the other side of this pandemic.”

Eltham concluded “one thing I hope the report can do is show the metrics of just how bad things are.”

Key findings:

• More people work in broad cultural industries (over 350,000) than many other areas of the economy that are receiving greater policy supports, including aviation (40,500) and coal mining (48,900).

• Despite years of significant funding pressures and policy neglect, the arts and entertainment sector contributed $17 billion in GDP to the Australian economy in 2018-19.

• By international standards, Australia ranks low in its funding support for the arts and culture. The OECD average for government expenditure on the cultural sector is 1.2% of annual GDP. Australia contributes just 0.9%.

• Due to their disproportionately insecure labour market conditions, arts and entertainment sector workers are experiencing significant ruptures in their employment arrangements due to COVID-19.

• The federal government has not adequately responded to the scale and severity of the crisis in the arts & entertainment sector. Worse still, it has implemented increasingly hostile policies, including weakening local production quotas and increasing the cost of studying creative fields.

• Unpredictable health restrictions due to vaccination program failures mean the viability of the arts & cultural sector will likely be hampered for years to come.

• Australia needs a public-led reboot of the arts & cultural sector that lays the groundwork for a sustainable, vibrant future for the arts and culture, built through ambitious public investment and planning across many sectors of our cultural economy.

Click here to view the full report, Creativity in Crisis: Rebooting Australia's Arts & Entertainment Sector After COVID, by Alison Pennington and Ben Eltham.

Lower image: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and singer Guy Sebastian announcing the Federal Government's $250 million arts rescue package in June last year.