The Australia Council should be abolished.

The federal funding body for the arts in this country is a largess redistribution scheme for mates in the club. It keeps art nice and clean and safe, it keeps a lot of arts bureaucrats in the big money (the head makes more money than the Prime Minister), helps employ thousands of arts administrators and makes sure the only artists the public are exposed to are those who can talk the talk of american business non-english talk and make work that is meticulously mediocre.

Like many fields in Australia the hey day was late seventies and early eighties. Same with the music biz – the hip post punk rockers are now the holders of the purse strings and the keepers of the jobs and they sure as hell aint going to let go. OzCo (The Australia Council) was probably a good idea back then, as for now it is utterly irrelevant and is a jobs for mates organisation, an organisation that has an incredible disrespect for artists, (go on, artists out there, phone them and time how long it is before they hang up one you!).

This wouldn’t be such a suckful state of affairs if it wasn’t for the governments welfare policies. You see the only way for a non-state sanctioned artist to survive was to be on unemployment benefits. All those bureaucrats and record company execs actually gained their initial fame in the 80’s by practicing their art whilst on the dole (or as is more aptly known in these parts – the rock ‘n roll).

Sadly no longer an option, as being unemployed is almost a criminal offence in this country. For older artists, those not in the funding game and those who can’t compete for cafe jobs against professional hipsters the situation is dire.

Ex-prime minister Keating was on the right track in that to help the arts in Australia more was needed than throwing bucks at the usual suspects. For European readers you must get your head around the fact that if you are an artist, particularly a non-state funded artist, in this country you are at the absolute bottom of the social heirachy, along with native people and single mums. It is almost a shameful occupation, saying you are an artist amongst most Australians is akin to saying you are pimp.

Yet on another level Australians do value their artists as long as it is explained clearly to them what it is we actually do. For example, someone in a band would say they play in pubs for drunk people to listen to, so a publican can get richer, bar staff have jobs and newspapers can have entertainment sections.

Therein illustrates the two problems that artists face: to be valid in this society you must demonstrate your monetry worth BUT it is a society where money can never ever be mentioned. Although it is not the case ,Australians like to see themselves as a fair people and this is the (bogus) trait which national arts organisations should be focussing on to raise the profile of the artist in this society. They’ll never do it though.

A campaign that unashamadely tells the average Bruce and Sheila exactly how much an artist earns is paramount. The average Bruce and Sheila would actually be shocked. In fact I am shocked whenever I meet someone who I thought has ‘made it’ and they are still no where near the poverty line.

It needn’t be us ultra poor and esoteric electro-cabaret artists – even comparing the wage of the director of the Sydney Theatre Company with any other professional at the top of their field would be enough. How about just the wages of dancers in Chunky Move? Then the real shocker would be to tell the nation the wages of high profile but unfunded artists, any big name band would do.

There will be a lot of pissed folks out there, who would say ‘we had no idea’, of course we had no idea because no one mentions money at all in this country. The problem worsens as you go lower down the arts foodchain, if you are at say, my level where you are lucky to ever earn a taxi fare back home, then to mention money is an absolute no go zone. If an artist is literally homeless and can barely afford food but refuses to pay their own way to non paying gigs they are obviously a tight fisted breadhead. I have seen this attitude at work many times.

Solutions are hard to find for non-funded unpopular artists, what you do is never seen as real, even if it has taken years of training and decades of long long days honing your practice. Your work could be critically acclaimed but you are still ‘a dole bludger indulging in a passion’ (unquote). I guess first things must come first and the popular artists must gain the respect of society before the non-popular can dream of it.

While we’re at it perhaps it’s time to tell the public that some of the biggest arts festivals they know and love actually CHARGE the artists to be a part of, for example: Melbourne Fringe, Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne Comedy Festival. Something the fringe theatre going public is utterly unaware of, and would certainly alter their perception of the arts *cringe* industry.

Indeed that is a number one directive that should come from the top organisations – stop referring to what we do as an ‘industry’ – what we do is defined by the fact we are NOT an industry.

Whilst I am dismantling the Australia Council another thing I would like to change to help create a culture that appreciates culture is to shift funding away from festivals and to individual artists. Australia likes to have it’s culture in self contained units of time and space called ‘festivals’. In the city of Melbourne there seems to be a festival every bloody week. Festivals can become destructive things for the arts – demarcating in so many ways what is acceptable art, when it is seen and how it is seen. They make getting an audience a competition with the myriad of other things on at the festival.

What artists really need, regardless of artform, is this: a venue for the work, an audience for the work, a subsistance wage.

Yep a subsistance wage – I think this is vital because when one crosses the boundary into being a funded artist the wage increase is extreme. A natural outcome of this is turf wars and unsavoury practices to get THAT grant and to KEEP getting those grants, always at the expense of making good work. Whilst I’m on this track another BIG problem with funded arts is that it is project based. I find this absurd, throughout history art making has been an evolving exploration by individuals or groups – to deem the only things worthy of funding are things that can be completely explored and wrapped up in even a six month period is absurd. I think this is why a lot of funded work is crud, no one has actually spent any time on the damn idea in the first place.

So a subsistance wage instead of project based funding is essential. Sure, you are saying, our artists deserve more than a mere subsistance wage. To that I say: it is not about money. It IS about money up to the point that the artist can do what they do but beyond that we are entering into the world of capitalism, commodities and human resources. A subsistance wage for artists would also have the effect of, dare I say, sort out those who are serious about it.

Of course it’s never going to happen. The Australia Council has no guts, the government has no guts, the arts community has no guts. Good luck to all those out there struggling to stay alive and to make good work, I applaud and thank you. For all those fatuous cats who are playing the games designed by bureaucrats then the rock n roll world has lent a term that is just as apt for you scum at the top: SELL OUTS!