Private Lives

# 607

NSW bureaucrats lay plans for more vibrant cultural experiences

It’s remarkable how consistently the NSW government provides subject matter for these indignant essays. When it comes to his administration of the arts in this state, the arts in this state, Minister, John Graham, should give himself some sort of award. Perhaps the Kim Jong-un Prize for ‘Acute Sensitivity to What the Masses Really Want, Even if They Don’t Know it.’

After the Night of the Long Knives known as Project Funding Round 1, comes the cheerful news of Round 2. Get the champagne and streamers ready, because:

Create NSW’s inaugural 2-Year Multi-year Funding [sic] will support 62 organisations, with a total annual investment of more than $7.7 million. Half (31) the funded organisations are in regional NSW, and 22 organisations across the state are receiving multi-year funding for the first time.

That sounds fabulous, until we see the list of institutions that are receiving 2-Year Multi-year funding (2 years = “multi”), when they had every reason to expect 4-year funding. Of the ones knocked back in the first round who had to go through the application rigmarole again, many of them received significantly less than requested. Of those lucky ones receiving funding for the first time (Gasp! Pant!), we are unable to identify most of them because the government has elected to keep everything secret.

Reading further, we learn:

The new 2-year Multi-year funding supports NSW’s creative ecosystem with core operational funding, replacing the previous Annual Funding for Organisations. It provides greater stability and enables funded organisations to plan for the future, develop creative programs, engage thousands of artists and arts workers and deliver vibrant arts and cultural experiences across NSW.

Minister Graham, as we know, is keen on these “creative ecosystems”. The only quirk is that most people might see an ecosystem as something that sustains life rather than shuts it down. By taking away annual funding for organisations, Create NSW has thrown a giant bucket of weedkiller into an ecosystem that was previously in good health. It’s not quite clear how removing two years’ worth of funding, handing over far less than a fully budgeted request, or removing funding altogether, “provides greater stability and enables funded organisations to plan for the future.” Perhaps an explanatory footnote has gone missing.

Neither is it exactly transparent how taking away funding helps organisations “develop creative programs, engage thousands of artists and arts workers and deliver vibrant arts and cultural experiences across NSW.”

Unsophisticated thinkers might imagine it’s rather more difficult to do all this with less money, or no money. Some might even see it as a bare-faced Orwellian inversion of the truth that defies commonsense (although today one might say: “Trumpian”). Nevertheless, I’m willing to put aside any suggestion of staggering dishonesty and explore the possibility there is some kind of logic involved.

When it comes to engaging “thousands of artists and art workers”, we’re obviously talking about a lively volunteer program. Those “vibrant arts and cultural experiences” will be more vibrant because they have been accomplished with no funding by workers who receive no payment. It represents a philosophical belief by the NSW government that handing over filthy lucre doesn’t bring out the best in the average worker. Or perhaps we’re just talking about “artists and art workers”, who as we all know, are happy to do everything for love rather than money, and can all shack up together. Besides, there are so many better ways of spending taxpayers’ cash – for instance, a $16 million incentive for American cage-fighting contests. Allow me to quote Premier, Chris Minns, speaking on 18 May:

Today the NSW Government has delivered on another election commitment… We are bringing 3 major UFC events to Sydney for the first time in more than a decade, which is a major coup for the people of NSW.

John Graham agreed, telling us: “…today’s announcement is a reminder of the importance of investing in world-class events and yet another incredible addition to Sydney’s unrivalled events calendar.”

Cage-fighting! It’s a “world-class event”, not at all like a major travelling exhibition at the AGNSW. It’s bound to bring in the school groups.

I need hardly mention that blinding white, ever-expanding elephant we call the Powerhouse Museum, which is consuming millions of dollars as fast as Mr. Graham can shovel them down its throat. As an introduced species in NSW’s creative ecosystem, this beast is laying to waste everything in sight, trampling nests and hutches, snuffling up resources and regurgitating them in the form of rave parties, “literary” publishing programs, restaurant tours, fashion shows, celebrity choice exhibitions, and other morsels.

In this Round 2 announcement, Create NSW has done little to allay suspicions that a good deal of grant money has been devoted to funding Powerhouse-related projects by stealth. The reason we can’t say yes, and we can’t say no, is that the bulk of successful applications have been declared “private”. You may recall this was a source of controversy with Round 1, but in typical fashion, Mr. Graham has simply doubled down and increased the level of secrecy.

Lest we forget, here's the official explanation:

By keeping recipients’ personally identifying information private, we meet legal requirements set out in the New South Wales Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998.

This is because published information could be used in combination with other details to identify an individual. For example, in a location with a small population, a single recipient may be able to be identified based on their name, their location and the amount of funding received.

It's odd that until this year nobody in the Ministry of Arts felt the need to invoke the Privacy Act of 1988 to conceal the identities of grant recipients. It’s equally unclear why a person in a small town needs to be protected in this way. In such communities it’s axiomatic that everybody knows everyone else’s business. The only way a grant recipient could conceal their good fortune would be by not spending the money.

OK, let’s get serious. This “privacy” requirement is outrageous. I’ve never heard of anyone being harassed for receiving an arts grant, and even if this were so, it should not overrule the principle that unsuccessful applicants have a right to know where grant money went, so as to assist them with future applications. There’s also the small matter of it being taxpayers’ money, so the citizens of NSW have a legitimate interest.

This policy puts an extreme sensitivity for the rights of the anonymous individual over the clear, more pressing rights of the community, but it’s difficult to understand what is gained in terms of “privacy” that is not lost in opening the government to suspicions of nepotism and corruption. When we don’t know a recipient’s identity, we are unable to discern possible connections between them and members of the committee who awarded the grant. As we have already seen with The Australian’s investigations into the selection processes at Creative Australia, there is every reason to be concerned. When members of an artist collective are in a position to award grants to fellow members of that collective, the phrase “conflict of interest” flutters through the mind.

One of my correspondents tells me that Mr. Graham has gone even further in demonstrating his commitment to the new privacy ethic: “Names of all previous recipients, all historic data, scrubbed from their website too.”

This conjures up another famous Orwellian maxim: “He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future.” It’s also highly Trumpian, echoing the way his regime has gone out of its way to delete government research programs and databases. One wonders why a department should delete information that has been in the public domain for some time, to impose a retrospective “privacy”? It may be an attempt to make the present policy look more defensible, or it may denote a controlling, authoritarian impulse that has no place in a liberal democracy. Put this alongside this week’s ABC story about how Federal Labor has worked to render the Freedom of Information process effectively useless, after fiercely criticising the Morrison government on that score, and it’s clear that the basis of trust on which the party came to power is being systematically betrayed.

Politically, there’s little that can be done when the Opposition is an in-fighting rabble who hold most of the same views as Labor. This is one way that democracies die – not in fierce confrontation, but in sly consensus.

Meanwhile, as if to prove that he’s willing to waste money on projects other than the Powerhouse, last week Mr. Graham announced another bright idea. The new scheme, as outlined in an SMH story by Megan Gorrey, is to spend $27 million ‘reinventing’ the forecourt of the State Library on Shakespeare Place.

If you’ve never seen any pressing need for a massive forecourt in front of the Library, you’ve never considered how much Sydney needs yet another boost to its “night-time economy”.

The central lawn is designed for use as a plaza for library events and community activities for as many as 1500 people, with new seats, lighting and a potential kiosk…. Plans submitted to the council’s local planning panel, which greenlit the project on Wednesday, proposed up to 52 events a year operating between 7am and 10pm, and six special events allowed to run to midnight.

Just what we always wanted – a place in front of the State Library where 1,500 people can have a party every week of the year. Imagine strolling up to the boring old library, past a colourful backdrop of discarded beer cans, food wrappers and portaloos. And all for only $27 million! This is almost four times the amount spent on Round 2 Arts Funding, and four times the sum cut from the AGNSW’s budget that is costing 51 people their jobs.

Sydney has cavernous spaces such as the Cutaway at Barangaroo, Carriageworks, and White Bay Power Station that are mainly empty, so why do we need another Party Central in front of the Library? And what about the AGNSW, which is desperate to use its capacious new building for functions and events? Competition from the Library forecourt will make it even harder to raise revenue.

As the Herald reminded us last week, reading and writing are rather old-fashioned ideas, so it makes perfect sense to find a good use for the Library forecourt. The only surprise is that Mr. Graham should want to stop there. He was happy enough to allow rave parties around the Catalina Flying Boat at the Powerhouse Ultimo. After all, the damage was only minimal. Why not simply extend those parties into the Mitchell Reading Room? It would be a great way to get young people to visit the Library. Imagine the stats!

This week’s art column looks at the latest Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, which is a work-in-progress as I write. After spending an exhausting day at the Fair I realised the extent to which I’ve become a part of what John Graham might call the creative ecosystem of art in Sydney. Old antagonists now seem like old friends. I’m sincerely hopeful the dealers do well, although looking dispassionately one suspects sales will be slow.

The movie being reviewed is The Roses, which is not a slavish remake of the savage comedy of 1989, in which Katheleen Turner and Michael Douglas pioneered the art of domestic cage fighting. In Jay Roach’s new version, Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch are not quite so violent but they have their moments. As black comedies go it’s more fun than Create NSW’s Round 2 of Multi-year funding, but not nearly as brutal.