Enabling Australia’s arts and culture system

What should Australian governments be doing now to build an arts and culture system that delivers for all Australians?

The workings of Australia’s arts, culture and creativity system, and the critical role of governments beyond direct funding in making sure this system delivers for all Australians, have been explored in A New Approach’s (ANA) two most recent Insight Reports.

This Policy Action Brief turns these insights into roadmaps for action.

Governments are best placed to act on opportunities when they can identify a clear point of leverage and the right tool or enabling action to create change.

Getting this right matters. Arts and culture positively impact Australians’ creativity, enjoyment of life and sense of belonging, and benefit Australia’s prosperity, cohesion, health, security and sustainability.

Pulling the right levers – what governments should do to enable cultural and creative engagement

ANA has explored 12 levers governments can use to tackle problems, design solutions and create the structures and processes of the future. Governments should prioritise two levers in particular:

Lever 1: Develop a unifying goal and make clear who is accountable for achieving it

This lever is about realising a whole-of-government and systems approach to our arts, culture and creativity system. Aligning work, resources and commitment around a shared goal amplifies effort and drives change.

An example of a shared goal or vision that governments could work together to adopt is outlined in ANA’s Position Paper, Imagine 2035:

“Creative, connected communities enriched by a robust arts and culture system that delivers for all Australians.”

Lever 2: Challenge mindsets about culture and creativity  – with data

Pulling this lever is about making sure governments are flexible and adaptable in their mindset about what culture and creativity are and what they can achieve. To do this, governments need data to make confident decisions, so Australians do not miss out on new and transformative opportunities to build connected, healthy and prosperous communities.

Research shows that ordinary Australians see access to arts and culture as fundamental to thriving communities and essential to being human. They believe it positively impacts their ability to connect, stay healthy, understand others, learn new skills and have new ideas.

These sentiments are backed up by substantial international and Australian evidence. Governments do not always take advantage of this evidence, however, nor have appropriate data to show how arts and culture can contribute to key public policy areas.

Making it easier to do business with government

Our research highlights that the arts and culture system is growing in complexity and connectivity with other systems.

With this in mind, governments should take actions that help key stakeholders understand the roles, responsibilities and reach of governments and how they support an arts and culture system that benefits all Australians.

Acting now to improve cultural and creative engagement without significant expenditure

Governments have opportunities to realise rapid results and create significant change in the arts and culture system.

A broad range of enabling actions, in addition to direct funding, are available to governments to strengthen cultural access and foster robust cultural industries. ANA has found eight types of enabling actions to facilitate financial inflows, facilitate operations and increase engagement opportunities across the arts and culture system – many of which are no- or low-cost.

In making use of these enabling actions, governments should:

• prioritise opportunities and actions where they are uniquely equipped to act and where they will have the greatest beneficial impact
• use systems thinking to look beyond their most-used levers (legislation, funding, tax) and utilise the full suite of powers and enabling actions available to them
• use everyday settings like schools, the home and online as entry points for generating cultural and creative skills across Australia’s population.

Download the PDF of this Policy Action Brief for more detail.