Victorian Inquiry into Local Government Funding and Services

A New Approach (ANA) welcomes this opportunity to make a submission to this Inquiry.

ANA’s national focus group research shows that middle Australians think arts and culture are the building blocks of community, connection and place, and that they believe cultural and creative engagement creates specific benefits for themselves and their families.

While Melbourne has a reputation for being a cultural capital, international and Australian research confirms the wide range of benefits that arts and cultural participation can bring to all Victorians, including mental health, wellbeing and social cohesion.Melbourne was ranked the highest among Australian cities for ‘culture and environment’ in a recent global index. Economist Intelligence, “The Global Liveability Index,” 2023, 2, https://www.newmoney.gr/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ΕΔΩ-2.pdf. Kate Fielding, Iva Glisic, and Jodie-Lee Trembath, “Transformative: Impacts of Culture and Creativity,” Insight Series (Canberra: A New Approach and The Australian Academy of Humanities, November 2019). 

In this submission, we provide information to assist the Inquiry:

• Cultural and creative engagement are the building blocks of community, connection and place.
• Goods and service sales form the lion’s share of revenue in both the broad cultural and creative industries and for not-for-profits with a cultural purpose. Government investment and philanthropic support play important enabling and stabilising roles.
• Government investment in arts and culture is not keeping pace with population growth.
• Australia-wide, local governments’ contribution to total cultural funding by government has decreased in recent years to 24%, but ‘recreation and culture’ remains an important part of Victorian local government recurrent expenditure.

For the full submission text, download the PDF.