WeRise · Policy platform
Arts & Culture
Key findings
- 8.5%Cultural and creative activity contributed 8.5% of Australia’s economy in the latest national cultural account estimates. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics · Cultural and Creative Activity Satellite Accounts · latest release []
- 390,000+Hundreds of thousands of Australians work in cultural and creative occupations or industries, but much of that work is insecure or freelance. Source: ABS / Creative Australia sector summaries · latest release []
- Majority participationMost Australians engage with arts and culture each year, whether by attending, creating or consuming cultural content. Source: Creative Australia · National Arts Participation Survey · latest release []
- Chronic precarityProfessional artists’ incomes have long lagged the average workforce, reflecting structural underpayment and unstable career pathways. Source: Creative Australia / sector income studies · latest release []
Part 01
The Case for Change
Why Arts & Culture matters
Culture is civic infrastructure
A serious country funds the stories, spaces and workers that help it understand itself.
Arts and culture are not an afterthought to be defended only when the economy is strong. They are part of how a society becomes legible to itself. Music, theatre, literature, screen, museums, libraries, design, festivals, dance, comedy, gaming, visual art and community practice all shape how people imagine their place in the world. They help form public memory, document injustice, create joy and give people shared reference points across class, generation and geography.
The problem is that Australia often wants the product without supporting the conditions of production. Artists are celebrated once they become visible, but the years of insecure work, low income, secondary jobs, venue scarcity, underfunded development and unpaid creative labour are treated as personal sacrifice rather than policy design. A nation that says culture matters but refuses to fund cultural workers is asking imagination to survive on goodwill.
This insecurity distorts who gets to participate. If stable artistic work is viable only for people with wealth, free time or metropolitan connections, then the nation hears a narrower range of voices than it thinks it does. That is not just an industry problem. It is a democratic one. The stories a country funds influence who feels visible inside it.
A better approach would treat arts funding, local venues, public broadcasters, school arts education, library systems, archives, screen rules and creator protections as connected pieces of one cultural ecosystem. Big institutions matter, but so do rehearsal rooms, regional galleries, music venues, youth arts organisations, disability-led arts, First Nations cultural practice and the practical pathways by which ordinary people become artists or audiences.
The case for reform is therefore twofold. First, culture itself has public value: it enriches life, preserves memory and helps people make sense of one another. Second, the people who create and maintain that culture deserve conditions closer to other workers – fair pay, predictable support, bargaining power, career pathways and institutions that do not collapse every funding cycle. The point is not to insulate art from criticism or market discipline. The point is to stop confusing neglect with artistic authenticity.
Part 02
Evidence and Experience
Arts & Culture: what other countries show
Culture thrives where systems exist
France · Canada · South Korea · United Kingdom
International comparisons show that cultural vitality is not created by talent alone. It depends on institutions, labour settings, education, local infrastructure and deliberate public policy. France demonstrates the value of treating culture as a national public good with strong institutional support. Canada shows how cultural policy can be tied to local-content and public-broadcasting rules in a large English-language market dominated by the United States. South Korea shows the strategic potential of long-term cultural investment linked to education, export and industry development. The United Kingdom shows both the strengths and fragilities of mixed funding, major institutions and local arts ecosystems under austerity.
France · Ongoing modern cultural policy framework
Sustained public support for national cultural institutions, heritage, arts education and cultural decentralisation Nationwide, across multiple art forms and public institutions
- Culture is treated as a core public function rather than a niche subsidy area []
- Strong institutional funding can preserve diversity and heritage []
- Centralised models still need regional equity and accessibility safeguards []
Australia should stop funding culture as though it were elective sentiment and instead treat it as part of national civic infrastructure.
Canada · Ongoing broadcasting and cultural-support model
Public funding, broadcasting rules and support for Canadian cultural production and discoverability National
- Local-content regulation matters in media markets dominated by larger foreign producers []
- Public cultural support can coexist with commercial production []
- Discoverability in digital markets is now a major cultural-policy issue []
WeRise should consider local-content, platform and discoverability settings as core cultural policy, not just industry detail.
South Korea · 1990s–present
Long-term cultural-industry development, export support and education-linked creative policy National, across music, screen and cultural exports
- Strategic cultural investment can generate global reach and soft power []
- Industry policy and cultural policy can reinforce one another []
- Export success should not displace local cultural diversity []
Cultural policy can be economically serious without becoming purely commercial.
United Kingdom · Arts Council / BBC / local-arts mixed model
Mixed public funding, lottery funding, broadcaster support and local arts institutions National with regional delivery
- A mixed model can sustain both flagship and local institutions []
- Austerity and venue loss can hollow out regional access quickly []
- Public broadcasters remain culturally central even in fragmented media systems []
Strong central institutions are not enough if the local and regional cultural base is allowed to fail.
Part 03
Costs and Trade-offs
The cost of Arts & Culture
Funding culture means funding conditions
The real cost question is whether Australia wants a broad cultural base or a fragile prestige economy.
The arts are often discussed as though every dollar spent must be justified by a narrow commercial return. That is too limited. Some arts spending generates tourism, local business activity and export income. Some generates educational, civic, heritage or wellbeing value that cannot be reduced cleanly to ticket sales. A serious cost frame therefore distinguishes between direct economic activity, public-good functions and labour-market sustainability.
For this first dossier, WeRise should avoid inventing a total-cost figure without a specified package. The immediate fiscal approach should be modular: institutional funding, local venue support, creator income supports, school and regional access, public-broadcasting protection, archival investment and fair-pay mechanisms. The right costing exercise is a later policy paper with phased options and state/federal responsibilities.
| Item | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-year federal arts funding uplift | Cost to be modelled | Stable operating support for institutions, independents and local ecosystems |
| Regional and suburban venue rescue and renewal fund | Cost to be modelled | Focus on access, local participation and live-performance infrastructure |
| Artist income, minimum-fee and career-pathway package | Cost to be modelled | Combine direct support with industrial and commissioning reforms |
| Public broadcasting and discoverability protections | Cost / regulatory design to be modelled | Includes platform and local-content implications |
| Net cost estimate | Not yet publishable | Requires a defined package and staged funding model |
The strongest objections to Arts & Culture
One objection is that the arts should survive on market demand.
There is some truth here: audience interest matters, and not every project warrants public subsidy. But pure market logic systematically disfavors experimental work, regional access, children’s culture, heritage preservation, local journalism, minority languages and many forms of community practice that have real public value.
A second objection is that public arts funding becomes ideological patronage.
This risk exists in any grant system, which is why transparency, peer review, geographic spread and diversity of form matter. The answer is better governance, not abandonment of public support.
A third objection is that culture funding is a low priority during fiscal pressure.
That concern is politically powerful because arts spending is visible and often comparatively small. But the false choice between “real services” and culture ignores the role culture plays in education, wellbeing, local economies, identity and democratic life. A country can fund hospitals and still fund meaning.
A fourth objection is that digital platforms already democratise creation.
They do lower some barriers, but they also intensify discoverability problems, monetisation pressure and dependence on private intermediaries. Wide publication is not the same thing as sustainable cultural production.
A final limitation is evidentiary.
The cultural sector’s data is often fragmented across agencies, occupations and industries, which can make workforce measurement and productivity claims difficult. That is a reason to improve the evidence base, not to delay reform indefinitely.
Part 04
The Australian Design
How Arts & Culture would work in Australia
Build the base, not just the brand
A national cultural policy should support institutions, workers, audiences and access together.
An Australian arts-and-culture model should start from the premise that culture is public infrastructure. That means major institutions matter, but they sit inside a wider ecology of schools, local venues, libraries, broadcasters, archives, festivals, digital platforms, youth arts, regional access and working artists. Policy should be designed for the whole ecology rather than the visible tip.
The Commonwealth should lead a multi-year cultural framework in partnership with states, territories and local governments. It should align public funding, education, live-performance infrastructure, creator rights, regional access, disability access, First Nations cultural leadership and public broadcasting. This framework should publish goals around participation, workforce sustainability, geographic access and cultural diversity rather than relying only on output or attendance metrics.
A WeRise design would likely include: stable multi-year operating support; stronger public and community media; local venue and rehearsal-space support; minimum-fee expectations in publicly funded work; school arts access; regional touring and local production; archival and library investment; and measures to improve digital discoverability of Australian content. The point is to make cultural life easier to sustain and easier to access.
A realistic timeline would begin with an audit of workforce precarity, venue loss and funding fragmentation in year one, followed by a multi-year cultural package and new access targets in years one to two. Detailed industrial reforms and platform policy would likely follow as second-stage work.
Part 05
People and Transition
Who Arts & Culture affects
Who gets to make the culture?
The current system rewards visibility at the top and insecurity underneath.
The people most directly affected are artists, performers, writers, musicians, technicians, producers, curators, librarians, designers, teachers, venue workers and the many hybrid workers who move between several of those roles. When the system is insecure, talented people leave, communities lose cultural capacity and the range of stories told narrows.
Case study
A regional young musician can write, record and perform, but there is no affordable rehearsal space nearby, local venues are shutting, and grants are sporadic and highly competitive. The result is not lack of talent. It is infrastructure failure.
Case study
A mid-career visual artist pieces together commissions, casual teaching and short-term project grants while also doing unpaid proposal work just to stay visible. They may appear “successful” from the outside, yet remain one illness or rent increase away from leaving the sector.
Audiences are also affected. If cultural life becomes concentrated in wealthy inner-city areas, major festivals or algorithm-driven global platforms, then large parts of the country lose access to local artistic life. Opposition may come from fiscal conservatives, anti-“elite arts” campaigners, commercial incumbents or governments uncomfortable funding critical or dissenting work. The answer is not to deny public scrutiny, but to define clearly what culture is for and whom it serves.
Part 06
Related policies
Arts & Culture sits within a wider set of WeRise policies.
- Country & Culture: more WeRise policies in this pillar
- WeRise: all 29 policies across seven pillars
Notes
Sources and Supporting Documents
- Australian Bureau of Statistics. Cultural and Creative Activity Satellite Accounts. ABS. latest release. abs.gov.au
- Creative Australia. National Arts Participation Survey. Creative Australia. latest release. creative.gov.au
- Australian Government. Revive: Australia’s Cultural Policy. 2023. arts.gov.au
- Creative Australia. Artists as Workers research and income summaries. latest release. creative.gov.au
- Arts Council England / UK cultural participation datasets. artscouncil.org.uk
- Government of Canada / Canadian Heritage cultural policy materials. canada.ca
- BAM / French Ministry of Culture materials. culture.gouv.fr
- South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. mcst.go.kr
- Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance. sector materials. meaa.org
- APRA AMCOS / Live Performance Australia materials. apraamcos.com.au
Record