This was published 7 years ago
Australia Council, Waleed Aly accused of failing to stand up for arts funding
Prominent media personality and academic Waleed Aly has been accused of failing to stand up for artists or arts funding in a provocative essay attacking Australia Council.
In When the Goal Posts Move, academic and writer Ben Eltham says that Aly, a board member of Australia Council, has stayed silent on the dramatic budget cuts inflicted by the federal government on its arts funding agency.
Waleed Aly has failed to publicly defend the Australia Council against savage budget cuts, according to academic and writer Ben Eltham.Credit: Penny Stephens
Eltham argues in the essay published by Currency House that "Aly's public record on Australia Council funding is plain enough: there is none".
"The Gold Logie winner could have been the arts sector's most eloquent spokesperson: after all, he has his own television show," he says. "But at the time of writing, he had so far declined to publicly defend the agency."
Academic and writer Ben Eltham says Australia Council board members have failed to defend the federal government's arts funding agency.
Aly is one of 12 board members of Australia Council, which Eltham says has failed to discharge its duties to promote freedom of expression and appreciation of the arts in the face of savage budget cuts.
He is also critical of respected performer and director Robyn Archer, the deputy chairwoman of Australia Council, "whose statements about the funding cuts have been equivocal, to say the least".
In response, Aly says it is not his job to publicly defend the agency.
"I've not been given a public-facing role and it's not for me to usurp the chairman or the CEO's function just because I happen to work in the media," he says.
Artists protest outside Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's Edgecliff office, in Sydney last September. Credit: Janie Barrett
Aly also says he is not free to comment on the federal government's handling of the arts portfolio while he sits on the Australia Council board.
"We have an advisory role - and there has certainly been plenty of advice given," he says. "We can also outline the impact policy will have on the Council - which, we do regularly, and which was evidenced in, for example, the collapse of six-year funding. Beyond that, we have to do the best we can with the resources we're assigned."
Eltham says the independence of Australia Council is in "smoking ruins".
"A different membership might have acted differently in response to the unprecedented attack; it's difficult to imagine Donald Horne, when he was chair, staying silent if this had happened on his watch," Eltham says. "But nothing has come to pass. In response to the wholesale assault on the organisation's statutory independence, the Australia Council rolled over."
It's not for me to usurp the chairman or the CEO's function just because I happen to work in the media.
Waleed Aly, Australia Council board member
Australia Council spokeswoman Kate Clark offered a lengthy defence of the agency: "As a Commonwealth agency we are required to work with the policy of the government."
She said Australia Council had continued to advocate on behalf of the arts over the past 12 months: "That advocacy take many forms, particularly as a Commonwealth agency, and it is a one dimensional view that sees the media as the only avenue for that critical work," she said.
Eltham's essay traces the development of arts policy in Australia and what he calls the "excellence raid" in 2015.
Former arts minister George Brandis diverted $105 million from the Australia Council in the 2015 budget to a new fund, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts, administered by his office.
Senator Brandis' successor, Arts Minister Mitch Fifield, later restored $32 million to the Australia Council.
Brandis' removal as arts minister may have been due to the backroom lobbying of Australia Council chairman Rupert Myer.
"Some attribute the removal of Brandis as arts minister to Myer's superb connections amongst Australia's ruling elite," Eltham says.
Eltham also takes aim at the board members of the 28 major performing arts institutions – many Liberal Party donors – such as the Sydney Theatre Company, Opera Australia and Australian Ballet.
"Given that they had been quarantined from the funding cuts, they arguably had nothing to lose," he says.
Eltham says artistic leaders such as the Australian Chamber Orchestra's director Richard Tognetti and Opera Australia's Lyndon Terracini are public figures whose advocacy would attract attention.
"But in the climate of fear (or was it indifference?) that Brandis' funding raid induced, the major performing arts companies largely stayed silent," he says.
New Sydney Festival director Wesley Enoch was among the few leaders who spoke out, Eltham says. "In contrast, Opera Australia callously welcomed the changes, and other artistic directors said nothing."
Eltham says Australia Council's future is precarious
"In the run-up to the 2016 election, the Australia Council now finds itself in a dangerous place," he says. "There is little love on the Coalition backbench for the organisation, and the election of a second-term Turnbull government could well signal the beginning of the end for the agency."
A spokeswoman for Senator Fifield said: "The government is not proposing any changes to the Australia Council."
Eltham likens the attacks on the Australia Council to what he labels as assaults on areas like climate science and the universities: "The target is those remnant sections of Australian society that still support or endorse non-market values."
He says there is an increasingly inhospitable intellectual climate for the public support of culture.
Eltham also echoes earlier complaints about the increasing presence of businesspeople on arts boards at the expense of artists.
"For instance, no-one seems to think it a problem that the chairman of the Sydney Theatre Company is Ian Narev, the CEO of a major bank," he says. "What does a banker know about theatre?
"In a neo-liberal world, business know-how is transferable to any cultural endeavour. But would an actor ever be appointed chair of the Commonwealth Bank?"
He says it is improbable that an artist or festival director would be asked by government to lead an inquiry into the banking sector.