Australia, the Australia Council, and the Erosion of Cultural Rights
This week the Australia Council allocated more annual fund ing to small-to-medium arts organisations than ever before. Yes, you heard right. In announcing $28 million to go to these organisations each year, it invested more, not less, in operational, multi-year funding than it had in recent years. This funding round saw more of a realignment of support than a reduction. Here are the figures: 2009-10 2010–11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 To Key Orgs $21.2m $22.1m $21.4m $21.1m $22.8m $23.1m Total Funding $163.5 $163.8 164.5 174.8 199.2 191.5 It remains unclear, though, what other programs will be available to complement this multi-year funding, if any. In the past, a good variety have been available to organisations both with and without operational funding. It will be important to see how many of these, and indeed others available to individual arti...