Recently, AICSA made a submission to the National Cultural Policy, to ensure the voices of our members are heard. An excerpt is below, and you can read the full submission on our website.
Building a strong cultural future for Australia
Australia’s arts and cultural sector is under pressure from decreasing government funding, critically low income levels for artists, crumbling arts and cultural infrastructure, technological disruption, shifting patterns of participation, and growing pressure on the institutions and labour that sustain public cultural life. Artists and arts organisations are navigating ongoing economic precarity, rising costs of living and making, the impacts of generative AI, as well as significant shifts in audience behaviour. Yet arts and culture remain essential to place, to community wellbeing, democratic participation, social cohesion, education and civic imagination.
Achieving a strong cultural future also requires that the National Cultural Policy actively prioritise, recognise, and nurture independent practitioners, curators, producers, initiatives and the grassroots ecosystem. The value of these initiatives extends far beyond basic funding metrics; independent creators regularly initiate highly inclusive, supportive, and impactful opportunities for the wider sector.
AICSA supports:
- Increasing support for First Nations’ cultural authority and creative practice through self-determination and self-governance
- Ensuring livable incomes for artists through mandated payment for their work, untied grants, fellowships, increased opportunities and other basic income streams
- Prioritising support and accessibility for d/Deaf and disabled artists and audiences
- Expanding investment in regional arts and culture
- Recognising, supporting and nurturing independent and artist-run initiatives as essential cultural infrastructure
- Strengthening the network of small-to-medium organisations across all artforms, including studios, venues, festivals, initiatives and community arts
- Developing a national regulatory framework for addressing generative AI that ensures fair remuneration for artists and strengthens copyright, transparency, consent, attribution, and Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property protections
- Increasing support for artist- and community-led, socially-engaged and participatory arts practices
- Providing equitable opportunities for participation in arts and culture across metropolitan, regional, and remote Australia to ensure artistic participation and experiences are accessible to all Australians
- Embedding arts and artists in national wellbeing, and preventative health strategies
- Working with all levels of government to pay artists, develop new models for evaluating, assessing and communicating the value of arts and culture that recognise social, civic, environmental, and community impact alongside economic contribution
- Protecting and strengthening freedom of artistic expression through long-term support for independent cultural practice, equitable and transparent funding mechanisms, and opportunities for creative experimentation and critical engagement
- Protecting and strengthening the independence of arts and cultural organisations through arms-length peer review, independent governance and freedom from political or government interference
- Supporting Creative Australia to develop a funded youth arts strategy to ensure all young people have access and opportunities to participate in arts experiences as artists and audiences
- Working with partners across the youth arts and education sector, from early years providers to tertiary institutions, to develop and deliver a comprehensive and robust arts in education strategy to be funded through Creative Australia
- Extending the work of Creative Workplaces to represent all forms of labour in the arts, culture and creative industries sectors to better be able to address insecure labour, income precarity, fair remuneration, career sustainability and workforce retention through a national creative workforce strategy