2022-23 Pre-Budget Submission

Strategic investment in Australian creativity and culture to drive social recovery and economic growth

This submission outlines costed recommendations for updating Australia’s policy and investment settings to be more effective in ensuring Australians continue to have access to arts and cultural experiences wherever they live.

The Issue: The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced opportunities for Australians to create, consume and participate in cultural experiences, with many cultural and creative industries disproportionately disrupted.

• Attitudinal research confirms Australians expect that governments at all levels will invest in these industries for the benefit of individuals and communities and to ensure Australian stories are told to a global audience.
• Both middle-aged and young “middle Australians” report needing arts and culture more than ever in times of crisis, stating that arts and culture build community connection, reduce social isolation, and improve health outcomes – especially mental health.
• Australia’s arts and cultural industries have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as most business models rely on both the gathering and free movement of consumers.
• The impacts of COVID-19 on Arts and Recreation industry payroll jobs between March 2020-March 2021 is categorised as ‘High’ by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) noting that Arts and Recreation is one of only two industries to be classed at this top-level category; the other is Accommodation and Food Services.
• The ABS analysis identifies that the two industries in the ‘High Impact’ category are both the hardest hit and the slowest to recover these lost payroll jobs.
• Data from the first four months of the pandemic shows arts, cultural and creative industries accessed significant COVID-19 related support from governments.

A National Solution: Develop a National Cultural Plan to support industry participation, employment, recovery and innovation for the benefit of all Australians, and take action to  ensure contemporary national data can inform this.

COVID-19 has necessitated the beginning of significant reform within Australia’s cultural industries. There is an opportunity to shape this change through strategic leadership and investment to embolden our cultural landscape, with the view to better serving and reflecting our contemporary public and helping accelerate Australia’s social and economic recovery as it rebuilds from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent natural disasters.

A National Cultural Plan would provide a scaffold for effective collaboration between the three levels of government as commercial and philanthropic investors, and support for a sector that relies on the long-term development of skills and products.

This need for a National Cultural Plan has been recognised with bipartisan support in the 2021 report of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Cultural and Creative Industries and Institutions.