ANALYSIS: Arts has become a dirty word — and now a billion-dollar industry is spooked
Minister for Communications and the Arts Paul Fletcher was quick to allay concerns that the Arts portfolio, which he asked PM Scott Morrison to assign to him, is being downgraded in what the Prime Minister has described as a drive for greater efficiencies.However, the outgoing Secretary of the Departments of Communications and the Arts, Mike Mrdak, sent a different message. The veteran bureaucrat emailed staff day the super-department was announced and he wasn't compliant.
He retains his title, and the annual Cultural Ministers Conferences will continue, providing a focus for state arts ministers, and through them, local councils which increasingly play a significant role in arts funding and administration. That is not the case now, and veteran bureaucrats are concerned a departmental secretary managing the competing demands of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications may never prioritise a Cabinet submission from Arts.
It will be harder for any narrative to gain traction with the government department overseeing $749 million in annual arts funding no longer having a pole to hoist its flag.
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