Risky business in challenging times - Page 2
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 23: Essentially Creative
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Ryan Heath
THE CASES OF ALL MY FRIENDS ARE LEAVING BRISBANE AND VIBEWIRE show that government money is not the answer. All the movie's producers needed was connections and a bit of advocacy. For Vibewire, mentoring and business skills would have helped. For countless other creative micro-businesses, it's already too late. That these things have not been supplied is not the fault of any one arts body or policy, but society still gets stuck with the bill. And that means we need to be more honest about what it will take to boost the arts and creative economy. I believe that means going beyond the grants processing model. The priority must be quality art from many sources, not comfy creative cartels. This diversification can only happen if we take more risks. Paul Hogan liked to say that ‘the secret to my success is that I bit off more than I could chew and chewed as fast as I could'. That neatly summarises what needs to be done. Australia must take more risks than larger nations to achieve the same creative and economic impacts. Australia cannot simply announce its influence as a China or India; it is stuck in the middle, so we need more than a middling arts policy approach to haul ourselves up.
This is where government and risk can intersect. Government is still society's greatest force for risk. As a lender and spender of last resort, with the perpetual right to tax, democratic government excels at taking risks – it is also getting plenty of practice. Unlike the bankruptcy and catastrophe an individual can face from a wrong turn or a terrible accident, few risks can sink government (as opposed to a political party). Indeed, government has so much risk-taking power that damage is only done when it fails to act, rather than when it acts sub-optimally. But whereas funding universal health care and university students are risks that transform lives and can be justified – arts grants are a harder sell.
This is why the intellectual and spiritual value of art is not reason enough to explain government funding of art. We have to win the argument about the economic contribution of creativity. Half a million jobs in Australia is a good evidence base, but if there is doubt about how these jobs contribute to prosperity, one needs only to look at recent experiences in Britain to deal with those concerns.
The Blair Government took a significant risk by becoming the first to properly recognise the contribution of the creative industries to the economy and national brand. From wonky research to making entry to all galleries and museums free, a new culture of creativity was born in a country where the arts had been seen through class-coloured lenses. At a time when Australia was lopping ABC funding as though it were an overgrown weed, Britain was cementing the BBC at the nation's heart and reinforcing that investment with international cultural diplomacy via the British Council and the BBC World Service. At a time when it could simply have hunkered down and focused on repairing the social and infrastructure legacies of Thatcher, it understood the need for a wider investment and a sweeter balm. A decade later, these efforts have changed the way the world sees Britain and how Britons see themselves. These policies have paid for themselves many times over, an excellent insurance against the demise of some financial services.
Britain officially rejects the idea that creative careers depend on ‘who you know, how far from home you're prepared to travel and how little you are prepared to work for'. The culture secretary is not the equal of the foreign secretary in cabinet, but the new culture has permeated many layers of life. It says: we are open to you and your ideas. We want your crazy buildings; we want youthful music; we're prepared to put our money where our mouth is and please visit our world capital to see it at close range. That is what modern Britain says to the modern creative and that is how Britain has become one of the world's creative hubs.
THIS IS NOT THE MESSAGE THAT AUSTRALIA SENDS TO THE WORLD. At best it has corralled the once-in-a-decade Baz Luhrmann production into a tourism campaign. Our artists and their economy could be so much more. They can be both the bread and the circuses of these challenging times if Australia is willing to go out on that limb. Entertainment is part of all our lives and there are only so many times one can watch a television repeat or even listen to the same piece of classical music. The only way out is to take risk. Who will fund that risk? It does not need to be government, but government must be part of it. Is the current system capable of that contribution? The Australia Council serves multiple purposes and can be proud of many achievements, but even it knows of the rigidity and red tape that bind it, and it is time to talk about other models that may supplement it.
Take the example of the pseudo-organisation Festivals Australia – in reality a couple of desks at the Australia Council. Ministerial approval is still required for grants as little as $2,300 for minor festivals – when such requests have already been examined by a six-person committee. Applicants are required to provide eleven paper copies of their application – in a world when a PDF would do. They had better make sure they are also a ‘regular festival' that has existed for at least twelve months – or their application will not be considered.
So much for having a bright new idea or an urgent need for action. This is not uncommon. In the literature section of the Australia Council, which already excludes much non-fiction from its remit, the ‘Breaking New Ground' grant is not available to emerging writers, nor targeted at subjects that get scant treatment. Instead, it is for established writers who wish to change focus – that is, writers most able to handle such a change without the assistance to which they alone have access.
The Australia Council cannot be all things to all people, but the best response to that reality is surely not to go on ignoring the ignored people and issues. Challenging times are not an excuse to gloss over these problems; they are the imperative for dealing with them. This is a precarious time for creative small businesses, one of the last in line for private credit and the first to have the credit taps turned off. A funding monoculture that springs to life twice a year is not much help to a micro-business that can go bust in a month. A wider, more flexible tax approach is needed in addition to a more open funding process not run by single bodies on terms that favour established organisations and individuals. What is the alternative? How about one or more schemes that facilitate risk capital for artists and other creative innovators? A ‘HECS-for-innovation' scheme from the public purse. Why not build a scheme that matches private investors with those creative companies needing capital at reasonable interest rates, just as the micro-credit movement assisted entrepreneurs in the developing world? Any public contributions are a safe bet given that small businesses have always been the home of successful innovation and through their number are a way to spread risk.
A further step would be to establish more funding organisations so that the sector is better able to take small risks and serve cultural niches. Having funding organisations in friendly competition with each other – they could still share standardised architecture for funding applications, for example – we would further spread the opportunities and the diversity of output, and guard against the group-think and self-preserving instincts that any monopoly generates. In increasingly volatile, fragmented and consumer – rather than producer-driven markets – it is hard to see monolithic funding bodies as the key to our creative future.
How can that message be spread in a cautious public sector – from the minister down and from stakeholders up? The first key ingredient for reform is a rational public debate. Risky ideas need to feel familiar if they are to enjoy support – a so-called priming effect – and nothing breeds familiarity like discussion and tangibility. Most famously, we can see that the successful introduction of the GST was assisted by the priming effect of John Hewson's failed campaign in 1993.
Instead of headlines denouncing ‘art for the dole' when creativity is discussed as a labour market issue, artistic endeavour must be viewed as a vital part of our economy and democracy. Without a rational public debate about these matters, we leave ourselves at the mercy of the prevailing culture of fear. A lack of debate inherently favours the status quo. How can a public servant or minister take the second option when there is no second option? Without debate, no evidence or mood for change can exist, producing only closed minds and complacency.
This is why the second ingredient for reform is political leadership – the need for open minds at the top. No public servant will ever take the sort of day-to-day risks needed in a creative culture if they must ask for permission first. This is at odds with the controlling tendencies of the Rudd inner circle, but we cannot afford a public service culture where the servants fear not a lack of national success but the loss of their own jobs. If we want a truly creative culture risk has to be worth the effort for public servants, and for that to be the case a culture of trust and encouragement is needed.
Change is possible. Constitutionally, the public service is best placed via its independence and long-term remit to recommend good risks. By statute, the separation of functions of organisations, like the Australia Council, from ministers should give them breathing space to build courage. And if there were more voices than the Australia Council, there would also be more voices of courage.
We not only need more arts organisations to flexibly serve the needs of all creatives, we need more of them to put their necks on the line. The time for that courage – both outside and inside the inner circles of policy – is now. Tony Blair understood about legacy, speaking often of how his greatest pride was reserved for mandating free entrance to all museums and galleries and legalising gay civil unions. They were the things that ordinary people thanked him for in person.
Prime Minister Rudd too wants a legacy – saying he wants to ‘build a modern Australia capable of meeting the challenges of the future' always with a careful eye on the world stage. Indeed, he condemns the former government's ‘culture of economic policy laziness'. Common sense should therefore open the door to the arguments that deliver better support to creative endeavour. Imagine if the government not only reformed arts organisations, but provided the sort of help to the creative economy that it gives to first home-buyers. One is no more market-distorting than the other, so why not have first business-starter grants? This is not a crazy idea. People, not bricks and mortar, are the best economic engine. Imagining such things is a start, but it is not enough.
Supporting creative endeavours is about backing ourselves, about building more than a sandcastle economy that washes away when the mining or financial tide goes out. Like all risks, the stumping up of cash and fostering of new ideas are a leap of faith. Such leaps are not unfamiliar to our Christian prime minister; any person of faith knows risk can be its own reward. ♦