Page 4241 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 21 September 2011
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“(c) notes the Government’s response, dated 18 September 2011, to the Loxton Report on the Review of the Arts in Canberra, entitled Review of the Arts in Canberra: The Implementation of the Loxton Report; and”.
(2) Omit paragraph (2).
(3) In subparagraph (3)(b), after “other stakeholders”, insert “including the Cultural Facilities Corporation and all key arts organisations”.
Just to clarify matters, I did not speak before because after we had dealt with Ms Le Couteur’s amendments I would have had to seek leave to speak so as to move my own amendments. Without reflecting on the vote, I think there is much merit in the suggestions put forward by Ms Le Couteur, but they struck me more as debating points and points for the speech rather than substantive matters. I think there is a great unity of opinion between Ms Le Couteur and me about the fate of the Fitters Workshop. I hope that we can collaborate more in that area. I think that there is much more that can be done.
I thank Dr Bourke for bringing this motion before us today. It is an important one, because it highlights the contribution the arts and the diversity of the arts brings to the social, cultural and economic life of Canberra. It also proposes a number of commitments by the government to the arts sector. To honour and preserve the generally positive spirit of the motion, I am proposing three amendments. I would like to concentrate on the second amendment to some extent, which is the removal of paragraph (2). I want to dispose of this negative element in the motion because I think it is unhelpful and unfounded. No doubt Dr Bourke is referring to the Canberra Liberals’ opposition to the percent-for-art scheme.
Let me say, as I have done on a number of occasions before—perhaps Dr Bourke, as he is new to this place, has not heard it and he might listen carefully—that the Canberra Liberals are not opposed to public art or to art itself. I will repeat that: the Canberra Liberals are not opposed to public art. We have always been opposed to the percent-for-art scheme. We oppose the percent-for-art scheme because it is poorly targeted and non-strategic and it misses opportunities. If Dr Bourke had taken time to read our 2008 election policy he would have picked that up for himself.
Indeed, Mr Speaker, the Loxton report itself supports this view. It reports general public support for public art, just as the Canberra Liberals support public art. It also reports that the percent-for-art scheme suffered from, and I quote from the Loxton report, “an apparent lack of planning, consultation and transparency”. The report talked about the source of public art acquisitions and the role of the Public Art Panel. It also reported, and again I quote:
Many people from the public and the arts sector strongly pressed for the need to retain Public Art and to extend the initiative beyond sculpture.
The report also said something which I think I have said myself:
Public art could incorporate other visual arts, creative landscape, music and even soundscapes.
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