Victorian Government’s Creative State consultation

This next strategy is Victoria’s opportunity to help ensure all Victorians, whoever they are and wherever they live, can participate in and contribute to our shared cultural and creative life.

Acknowledging the current cost of living pressures, this strategy can strengthen access and participation opportunities across our population. In light of productivity challenges, this strategy can also harness the specific contributions creative and cultural engagement can make to the identified drivers of improved productivity, both within the creative industries themselves and in our broader population.

This strategy is also Victoria’s opportunity to collaborate on arts, culture and creativity – including on a long-term national cultural plan and the cultural program for the Brisbane 2032 Olympics and Paralympics – within Victoria and with other Australian jurisdictions. This strategy will reach the four-year Cultural Olympiad planned to run from 2028 to Brisbane 2032. As Melbourne 1956 and Sydney 2000 showed, these events are once-in-a-generation opportunities to unlock the benefits of arts and culture for the nation. Through this strategy, Victoria could harness the opportunity of Brisbane 2032 and help Australia secure its place as a global cultural powerhouse.

ANA welcomes Victoria’s legislated obligation to prepare a ‘strategy for the arts and creative industries’ every four years. Drawing on our published research with middle Australians aged 18 to 75, we welcome the Discussion Paper’s use of the phrase ‘arts and culture’ as an inclusive and accessible phrasing and inclusion of creative industries to form a connected, contemporary policy approach.

We confirm that this submission can be made public. In our role as a philanthropically funded, independent think tank, ANA is ready to provide further information about the response in this submission and would welcome the opportunity to discuss.

ANA resources to assist Victoria

• A transcript of our Chair, Rupert Myer AO’s recent Address to the National Press Club where he shared his vision for Australia to become a global cultural powerhouse. He urged the members of National Cabinet to commit to closer collaboration on arts, culture and creativity. Specifically, he called for the elevation of the existing meeting of Cultural Ministers to a formalised Ministerial Council reporting annually to National Cabinet.
• ANA’s submission to the federal National Cultural Policy consultation, which highlights ways for Australia to reach its potential as a cultural powerhouse.
• ANA’s middle Australia research which draws on a three-year focus-group study across the country exploring attitudes towards arts, culture and creativity amongst middle Australia.
• ANA’s Insight Report ‘Accelerate: Reframing culture’s role in productivity’. Productivity is critical to our quality of life but Australia’s measured productivity is growing at its lowest rate in 60 years. This Insight Report shows how arts, culture and creativity can contribute towards solving this problem.
• ANA’s Insight Report ‘Transformative: Impacts of Culture and Creativity’. This provides a snapshot of research and findings about the positive impacts of artistic, creative and cultural activity on seven different parts of our lives: society and place; economy; innovation; health and wellbeing, education and learning; international engagement; and culture. ANA will release a further Insight Report in this space later this year, providing an overview of updated evidence.
• ANA’s recent Analysis Paper ‘Pathways to Becoming a Cultural Powerhouse’, which sets out what Australia can learn from other nations – South Korea, France and Brazil – to secure our place as a cultural powerhouse, and how the Brisbane 2032 Games can help.
• ANA’s Insight Report ‘To Scale: Mapping financial inflows in Australian arts, culture and creativity’. This report dispels the myth that Australian cultural and creative industries are predominantly financed through government assistance. In fact, the largest proportion of income in the broad cultural and creative industries was from ‘sales and services’, accounting for 87% in 2020-21. However, it shows the significant impact of the COVID-19 on the revenue mix for some parts of the industry, including culture-focused not-for-profit organisations. It also explores new ways to assess and articulate return on investment (ROI) across short, medium and long-term time horizons, and highlights the unique role of governments.
• ANA’s Insight Report ‘Thriving through Thick and Thin: Partnerships for our Cultural Life’. This report shows that the cultural life of the nation exists, and thrives, through strong partnerships, and highlights tools available to help cultural and creative entities to work together and to work with others.