Minister for Communications and the Arts Paul Fletcher was quick to allay concerns that the Arts portfolio, which he asked PM Scott Morrison to assign to him, is being downgraded in what the Prime Minister has described as a drive for greater efficiencies.However, the outgoing Secretary of the Departments of Communications and the Arts, Mike Mrdak, sent a different message. The veteran bureaucrat emailed staff day the super-department was announced and he wasn't compliant.
He retains his title, and the annual Cultural Ministers Conferences will continue, providing a focus for state arts ministers, and through them, local councils which increasingly play a significant role in arts funding and administration. That is not the case now, and veteran bureaucrats are concerned a departmental secretary managing the competing demands of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications may never prioritise a Cabinet submission from Arts.
It will be harder for any narrative to gain traction with the government department overseeing $749 million in annual arts funding no longer having a pole to hoist its flag.
2 words: Modern Art The art scene is full of obnoxious progressive activists. They create abstract garbage, add some woke word salad and call it art. The ABC featured an 'artist' who collected her piss FFS.
The Arts community in Australia has a distinctly left wing bias and therefore represents at best only half of the population's voice so they deserve to have 50% of their funding cut until the hypocrites learn the true meaning of the word diversity. Seriously, fuck you hippies.