tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/catalyst-22783/articlesCatalyst – The Conversation2021-10-06T16:30:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1693932021-10-06T16:30:14Z2021-10-06T16:30:14ZNobel Prize for groundbreaking way of building molecules that made chemistry greener<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425006/original/file-20211006-28-1ktklmb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C22%2C1033%2C856&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">List (left) and MacMillan (right) are winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NobelPrize.org</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Benjamin List and David MacMillan, respectively based in Germany and the US, will share the 10 million Swedish kronor (£870,000) Nobel prize in chemistry 2021 for their development of “organocatalysis” – a precise tool for constructing molecules which has boosted pharmaceutical research and made chemistry greener and cheaper.</p>
<p>Their research dates back to 2000, when the chemists independently <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cr078412e">developed the first steps</a> of what today is called “asymmetric organocatalysis”, which is the activation of chemical reactions by small organic molecules.</p>
<p>Many technologies and areas of research rely on molecules that have to be created in chemical reactions. These can, unfortunately, be very slow, which is why chemists often use catalysts – materials that speed up chemical reactions. Before the work of List and MacMillan, there were only two types of catalysts available: metals or enzymes. In my opinion, the duo’s most important achievement was spotting something that nobody believed possible: that small organic molecules such as amino acids could also work as catalysts.</p>
<h2>Huge benefits</h2>
<p>This discovery enabled the pair to create “asymmetric reactions”. In chemical reactions, many molecules are produced in two versions that are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-life-left-handed-the-answer-is-in-the-stars-44862">mirror images</a> of each other (a property called chirality). This is annoying when you only want one of them, which is often the case in the pharmaceutical industry. </p>
<p>In fact, this is what went wrong with <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160208124237.htm">the drug thalidomide</a>, which was developed in the 1960s to reduce morning sickness in pregnant women, but ended up leading to fetus malformations. The drug was an equal mixture of both types of molecule, but it turned out that while one was effective, its mirror image counterpart was toxic. The beauty of organocatalysis is that you can produce a specific molecule without its mirror cousin.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Image of a pack of Thalidomide tablets." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425025/original/file-20211006-22-1kvxtoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425025/original/file-20211006-22-1kvxtoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425025/original/file-20211006-22-1kvxtoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425025/original/file-20211006-22-1kvxtoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425025/original/file-20211006-22-1kvxtoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425025/original/file-20211006-22-1kvxtoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425025/original/file-20211006-22-1kvxtoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Thalidomide tablets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephencdickson/wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The possibility of avoiding using metals as catalysts in chemical reactions has also made it easier for pharmaceutical companies to purify compounds. This is an important final step in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, and involves the removal of dangerous chemicals, including certain metal catalysts.</p>
<p>Another major improvement of organocatalysis compared with other types of catalysis is that it is easy to carry out: you can do it at room temperature under simple conditions. It is also easier to reliably predict and control the outcomes than it is with other types of catalysis. </p>
<p>What’s more, metal catalysts such as palladium or rhodium can be expensive. An extremely beautiful example of a cheaper alternative is <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Proline">proline</a>, a simple amino acid that is often used as an organocatalyst, which is so efficient that it has entirely substituted certain expensive and complex metal catalysts. </p>
<p>Organocatalysis isn’t only a cheaper alternative, it is also more environmentally friendly, typically containing common and abundant elements such as oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur or phosphorus rather than irdium or palladium.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425080/original/file-20211006-23-p20hij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425080/original/file-20211006-23-p20hij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425080/original/file-20211006-23-p20hij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425080/original/file-20211006-23-p20hij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425080/original/file-20211006-23-p20hij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425080/original/file-20211006-23-p20hij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425080/original/file-20211006-23-p20hij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The kind of reaction that the researchers invented. If you take ketone and aldehyde, on the left, and add a proline catalyst (in the middle above the arrow), this generates the aldol (on the right, which is aldehyde and alcohol).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>List and MacMillan soon become the leaders of this pioneering new chemistry, developing more and more reactions and catalysts, and envisioning new ways of expanding the field. One of the most important aspects of this work was how readily it changed the attitudes of so many organic chemists, who turned their attention to organocatalysis and embraced it. This meant that chemists in many different areas of research were able to synthesise complex molecules, which made the field grow exponentially. </p>
<p>I had the incredible honour to work with List at the <a href="https://www.kofo.mpg.de/en">Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung</a> in Mülheim, Germany at the beginning of this new field (2004-06), while I was a post-doctoral researcher. I saw with my own eyes how dramatically the field grew to become very popular among chemists around the world. I also saw how List had a vision that distinguished him from other chemists: he really believed in his work and he pushed the boundaries of catalysis – fundamentally changing it forever. </p>
<p>I can only felicitate List and MacMillan on their well deserved award – they have inspired the career of so many chemists, including me.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169393/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ramon Rios does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The discovery has boosted the pharmaceutical industry and made research greener and cheaper.Ramon Rios, Associate Professor in Organic Chemistry, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1106982019-02-20T03:59:56Z2019-02-20T03:59:56ZWe don’t yet fully understand what mindfulness is, but this is what it’s not<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259659/original/file-20190219-121732-1wjj1wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mindfulness can refer to a specific set of meditation practices, but its precise definition isn't clear.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">From shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last night’s episode of ABC’s Catalyst, “<a href="https://iview.abc.net.au/show/catalyst">The Mindfulness Experiment</a>”, offered a unique glimpse into what happens to people during <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_stress_reduction">Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction</a>, an eight-week structured training program in mindfulness meditation. </p>
<p>The program followed 15 ordinary Australians who were seeking to deal with conditions including chronic pain, stress and anxiety. At the end of the experiment, many of the participants had shown improvement.</p>
<p>But if you’re considering dipping a toe into practising mindfulness, or taking the full plunge, there are several things you should consider first.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-mindfulness-nobody-really-knows-and-thats-a-problem-83295">What is mindfulness? Nobody really knows, and that's a problem</a>
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</p>
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<h1>Clarifying misconceptions</h1>
<p><strong>Mindfulness is not relaxation</strong></p>
<p>The origins of mindfulness can be found in Eastern traditions. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691617709589?journalCode=ppsa">One definition</a> suggests it’s a way of orienting attention and awareness to the present, reminding oneself to stay present when the mind wanders, and carefully discerning those behaviours that are helpful from those that are not.</p>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, mindfulness is not a way to relax or manage emotions. During practice, you will most likely experience unrest, have unpleasant thoughts and feelings, and learn unexpected and unsettling things about yourself. </p>
<p>While relaxation can and does occur, it’s not always as expected and it’s not really the <a href="https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/2011/03/want-to-relax-mindfulness-may-not-be-for-you/">goal</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Mindfulness is not a quick fix</strong></p>
<p>Problems that have developed over weeks, months, or years cannot be fixed overnight. Behaviour change is <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-motivated-brain/201803/why-is-behavior-change-so-hard">hard</a>. The patterns we most want to change (such as addictive behaviours, dysfunctional relationships, anxious thinking) require the investment of serious time and effort.</p>
<p>Instructor <a href="https://www.mtia.org.au/our-people-1/timothea-goddard-1">Timothea Goddard</a> championed the practice of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction in Australia and facilitated the Catalyst participants’ mindfulness journey. She acknowledges doing up to an hour of practice a day can seem demanding. But if the challenges a person is dealing with are significant, this may be what’s required. </p>
<p>She adds that just like physical fitness, courses offering sustained daily practice may be more likely to offer greater transformation experiences.</p>
<p>While we have <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19309694">little data</a> on the frequency or length of practice necessary, <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-45474-001">decades of research in psychotherapy</a> and <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/diabetes/maintaining_weight_loss_85,p07862">behaviour change</a> suggest there is no such thing as a quick fix.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259648/original/file-20190219-121738-1gumi01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259648/original/file-20190219-121738-1gumi01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259648/original/file-20190219-121738-1gumi01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259648/original/file-20190219-121738-1gumi01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259648/original/file-20190219-121738-1gumi01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259648/original/file-20190219-121738-1gumi01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259648/original/file-20190219-121738-1gumi01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Participants in the Catalyst episode took part in eight weeks of mindfulness training.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><strong>Mindfulness is not an escape</strong></p>
<p>You may imagine mindfulness to be like a beach holiday where you leave all the stress, pressure, and deadlines behind. It’s not. </p>
<p>Mindfulness practice creates awareness around the issues that most need our attention. Often we’re drawn to emotional and physical pain we’ve been avoiding. </p>
<p>One participant in The Mindfulness Experiment, Sam, found this difficult. “I want to forget about the areas that are painful, not concentrate on them,” she said.</p>
<p>Mindfulness provides a <a href="https://www.mindful.org/suffering-is-optional/">method</a>, not to escape, but to explore pain or hardship with acceptance, curiosity, and emotional balance. </p>
<p><strong>Mindfulness is not a panacea</strong></p>
<p>Despite suggestions it will fix everything, there are many circumstances and conditions for which mindfulness is simply <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691617709589?journalCode=ppsa">not effective or appropriate</a>. </p>
<p>If your main reason for seeking out mindfulness is for mental illness or another medical condition, speak first to a medical professional. Meditation is not meant as a <a href="https://www.lionsroar.com/what-meditation-cant-cure/">replacement</a> for traditional medicine.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mindfulness-can-improve-living-with-a-disability-51990">Mindfulness can improve living with a disability</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h1>Questions to ask before you start</h1>
<p><strong>Is mindfulness for you?</strong></p>
<p>An individual session with a skilled instructor can help you work out whether mindfulness is going to be right for you generally, and which approach specifically might help you. </p>
<p>Mindfulness is not one size fits all. Personal attention before and during practice can make a huge difference, especially in a group. We know from <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-02805-000">psychotherapy research</a> individual adjustments must be made.</p>
<p><strong>Who created the program?</strong></p>
<p>Perhaps this seems like a strange question; few therapy clients or surgery patients know who created the method being used and they often get better. But unlike therapy or medical procedures, meditation is not overseen by any regulatory agency. </p>
<p>Consider what you want to get from the program and whether there is evidence the program and instructor can help you to achieve those goals. </p>
<p>This advice is especially important when considering apps. Few have been <a href="https://www.mindful.org/trouble-mindfulness-apps/">examined scientifically</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-an-app-help-us-find-mindfulness-in-todays-busy-high-tech-world-65341">Can an app help us find mindfulness in today's busy high-tech world?</a>
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<p><strong>Does the instructor have a personal practice?</strong></p>
<p>Those who do not have a regular mindfulness practice themselves may struggle to <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780387094830">teach others</a> to cultivate a practice effectively. </p>
<p>Programs that train people to provide structured meditation programs (such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28031068">require</a> professional training, supervision, and extensive personal practice. While we don’t know if personal practice is necessary, it seems likely it is helpful in guiding others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110698/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas T. Van Dam has received research funding from the Mind & Life Institute and the University of Melbourne. He is affiliated with Confluence (an alliance sponsored by the University of Divinity). </span></em></p>There can be many benefits in practising mindfulness. But it’s not a way to relax or escape from your problems.Nicholas T. Van Dam, Senior Lecturer in Psychological Sciences, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/759282017-04-11T04:19:22Z2017-04-11T04:19:22ZThe end of Catalyst: four ironies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164764/original/image-20170411-31890-cv2qvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George Brandis in 2014: instigator of the Catalyst mess.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An oft-occurring phrase in Peter Temple’s award-willing crime novel, Truth, is “moving on”. Characters say it when they want to change the subject, or there doesn’t seem much more to say about a subject, or when they can’t bear to talk about a subject any longer. In the book, the truth is a thing to be avoided at all costs. Moving on is a synonym for looking away.</p>
<p>Now that Catalyst is, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-new-australia-council-board-has-a-chance-to-be-better-than-the-last-66979">as I predicted last October</a>, officially cactus, there is pressure on the one hand to bury the whole George Brandis-instigated mess, and on the other to see heads roll.</p>
<p>The Australia Council, understandably, wants to get on with the job: to absorb back the Catalyst budget and shore up its own programs and priorities; to go about the business of funding art and artists in Australia.</p>
<p>The Australian, however, has reported <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/call-to-clear-out-australia-council-leaders-after-funding-cuts-restored/news-story/13b54e209d83c35f13abd47e5c171c7d">philanthropist Neil Balnaves’ call for the resignations</a> of Rupert Myer, the Council’s Chair, and Tony Grybowski, its CEO, saying they should have done more to protect artists from the depredations of the Arts Minister when he made his budget snatch back in 2015. </p>
<p>The situation is replete with ironies. But a symbolic act of punishment now would be unhelpful and unwise - it is worth reflecting instead on the deeper issues that allowed Catalyst to happen in the first place.</p>
<p>Irony No. 1.</p>
<p>Given that The Australian seemed <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national...national-programme-for-excellence-in-%20the-arts.../b460206e1744de45f93fba6c0846e50c">supportive of Senator Brandis’s actions at the time</a>, passing on Balnaves’ call for scalps might be construed as a bit rich. That newspaper only sounded <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/...brandis.../fb08a9d07a53d3d2b7dfb31730a13c50">a sceptical note</a> when it became clear what a cock-up Catalyst was, that the arts sector was being up-ended in response to little more than Ministerial whim. The lesson here is that just because an Arts Minister wants to do a thing, doesn’t make it the right thing to do. </p>
<p>Irony No. 2. </p>
<p>But some in the sector have been censorious too. Michael Lynch, ex-General Manager of the Council, has also <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/michael-lynch-slams-corporate-titans-for-their-silence-on-arts-cuts-20160309-gnedxv">criticized those at the top</a>. While his words don’t smack of the revisionism of The Australian, Lynch was responsible for stream-lining the Council’s administration in the 1990s, thus making it more responsive to executive command from above.</p>
<p>Which takes us to Irony No. 3. Well, more like a home truth. The present tendency to see every policy outcome in terms of winners and losers shapes how the Catalyst U-turn is now discussed. Who’s in, who’s out. Who’s up, who’s down: the language of individual competitive advantage with which we bedeck all government decisions like wilted lettuce.</p>
<p>Yet the truth is that in arts funding there are <em>always</em> winners and losers. The public allocation of scarce resources between different cultural activities, many of them incommensurate (no bench marking, no league tables), means that some artists deserving of support will not get it.</p>
<p>If we start with that reality, rather than pretending it’s a falling off from some imagined point of perfect supply, we can reflect on the long-term forces that allowed Senator Brandis to do his worst. For Catalyst was a symptom, not a cause, of the underlying problems it brought into vivid relief. It’s these that need our attention. </p>
<h2>The underlying problems</h2>
<p>There are three main problems. First, there is the issue of the Council’s arm’s length independence from government, which in the past has found far too few supporters. </p>
<p>Many who defended the agency from Ministerial interference in 2015-16 were lukewarm or negative about the Council earlier, some even calling for an arts ministry to replace it. When that arts ministry turned out to be headed by George Brandis, the folly of this position was revealed.</p>
<p>The second problem relates to the Major Performing Arts (MPA) framework, the legal agreements that lock-in Council funding for the major performing arts companies at a given level. This meant that Catalyst money had to be extracted from the agency’s small to medium organisations budget. That was indisputably unfair, and it caused significant grassroots pushback. </p>
<p>But while the framework remains in place, <em>any</em> change in the distribution of Council funds must be visited on small to medium companies, however “innovative” or “excellent” or [insert modish policy word here] those companies happen to be. How to unlock the MPA framework without irreparably damaging the major cultural organisations is the main challenge here.</p>
<p>Which takes us to the third and biggest problem: the unwillingness of the government to invest in culture, to grow the sector’s budget and up the level of public support. In one sense, this is understandable. It needs the revenue for high-income earner tax cuts and pork barrelling in marginal Liberal seats (of which there are an increasing number).</p>
<p>But why not treat culture as a suitable target for government outlay? Why not give more money to the Council rather than wasting oxygen, patience and digi-bytes haggling over the miniscule allocations we currently bestow?</p>
<p>In 2004-5 the Council’s annual budget was $152m. Now it’s around $180m. Allowing for CPI, that’s a small increase in 12 years. Yet how completely the country and the cultural sector have changed – and grown – in that time.</p>
<p>Enter Irony No. 4. </p>
<p>The establishment of Catalyst at the expense of the Council was a bad idea. But we would be having a different conversation, and George Brandis would be the hero of the hour, if his new body had been endowed with new money.</p>
<p>Diversifying the funding mix, beefing up the role and budget of the Arts Ministry, having an Arts Minister who knows something about art – these are all good, good things, and would indicate that the government is at last beginning to grasp the potential of culture to define our nation artistically, socially and economically, into the future.</p>
<p>Catalyst wasn’t the change the arts sector wanted. But that doesn’t mean change isn’t required. So let’s not move on and let’s not look for scapegoats. Let’s reflect on what the last two years have shown us. There are some long-standing problems that won’t go away. </p>
<p>Yet there are also points of collective agreement and some important opportunities, if we take the time now to identify what these are. </p>
<p>No looking away just yet.</p>
<p><em>This column was co-authored with Dr. Tully Barnett.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
An oft-occurring phrase in Peter Temple’s award-willing crime novel, Truth, is “moving on”. Characters say it when they want to change the subject, or there doesn’t seem much more to say about a subject…Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/748482017-03-21T03:42:47Z2017-03-21T03:42:47ZAfter the Catalyst arts funding mess, many questions remain<p>The federal government quietly announced last Saturday that it would effectively <a href="http://www.mitchfifield.com/Media/MediaReleases/tabid/70/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1330/New-portfolio-arrangements-for-the-Arts.aspx">axe the Catalyst</a> fund set up by former arts minister, George Brandis, with money drawn from the Australia Council’s budget. </p>
<p>The fund had been widely condemned by the arts industry. Brandis established the fund, initially called the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/jun/01/arts-groups-call-for-examination-of-brandis-105m-cuts-to-australia-council">National Program for Excellence in the Arts</a>, in May 2015 with A$104 million from the Australia Council. It was later renamed <a href="https://theconversation.com/out-with-the-npea-in-with-catalyst-expert-response-51026">Catalyst</a>, which the ALP branded a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jun/03/arts-funding-labor-vows-to-scrap-ministerial-slush-fund">ministerial slush fund</a>”.</p>
<p>The arts sector lobbied long and hard against this decision. In many ways it was a remarkable campaign, as artists as a group are disenfranchised and poor. Standing up to the government is very hard when there is the threat of losing any remaining funding. Australian politicians from all parties are also not generally that interested in the arts, but the arts sector made them take notice. </p>
<p>Still, how much of a victory is this?</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.mitchfifield.com/Media/MediaReleases/tabid/70/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1330/New-portfolio-arrangements-for-the-Arts.aspx">a press release</a>, Arts Minister Mitch Fifield said the decision meant that $61 million of “uncommitted” funding would be returned to the Australia Council over four years. However, this transfer includes the $32 million that was returned to the council in late 2015. By my calculation this means just another $29 million has been returned. </p>
<p>The government says $80.2 million in all will be returned to the Australia Council over four years from 2017-18. But the total taken from the council in May 2015 was $103.8 million, so the shortfall is at least $24 million. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161705/original/image-20170321-9117-1gol2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161705/original/image-20170321-9117-1gol2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161705/original/image-20170321-9117-1gol2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161705/original/image-20170321-9117-1gol2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161705/original/image-20170321-9117-1gol2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161705/original/image-20170321-9117-1gol2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161705/original/image-20170321-9117-1gol2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161705/original/image-20170321-9117-1gol2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arts Minister Mitch Fifield attending cartoonist Bill Leak’s funeral last Friday.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The press release notes, though, that <a href="https://www.arts.gov.au/funding-and-support/visions-australia">Visions of Australia</a> (a regional exhibition touring program) and <a href="https://www.arts.gov.au/funding-and-support/festivals-australia">Festivals Australia</a> – also transferred from the Australia Council – will stay with the department. (These receive about $2.9 million per year in funding.)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.creativepartnershipsaustralia.org.au/">Creative Partnerships Australia</a> will keep the additional funding it gained in 2015 from the money taken from the Australia Council
($5.2 million). The department also intends to keep $2 million for funding projects that it (or the minister) will determine. </p>
<p>This does not all add up to $24 million – at most it is likely to total around $10 million. Does this mean the government has effectively cut arts funding from 2015 levels by at least $14 million?</p>
<p>The government notes that this return of funding: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“…will allow the Australia Council to continue to focus on supporting small to medium arts organisations. It also provides scope for the Australia Council to address specific recommendations from the Opera Review related to Victorian Opera and Opera Queensland, as well as address funding sustainability for Queensland Ballet and the Brandenburg Orchestra.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thus, while individual artists and the small to medium sector have felt the major impact of the original cuts, the minister is specifically directing the Australia Council that the money being returned to it should also assist the opera sector, as well as the Brandenburg Orchestra and Queensland Ballet.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161709/original/image-20170321-9144-9kmwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161709/original/image-20170321-9144-9kmwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161709/original/image-20170321-9144-9kmwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161709/original/image-20170321-9144-9kmwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161709/original/image-20170321-9144-9kmwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161709/original/image-20170321-9144-9kmwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161709/original/image-20170321-9144-9kmwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161709/original/image-20170321-9144-9kmwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queensland Ballet artistic director Li Cunxin poses with dancers in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Peled</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Opera Queensland, Queensland Ballet and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra are all members of Australia’s major performing arts companies that sit under the major performing arts board at the Australia Council. Brandis specifically excluded these members from any cuts in May 2015. According to the <a href="http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/about/annual-report-2015-16/#sticky-search">Australia Council</a>, this sector already receives at least 62% of the council’s funding.</p>
<p>The government’s <a href="https://www.arts.gov.au/sites/g/files/net1761/f/national_opera_review_final_report.pdf">Opera Review</a>,
released in October 2016, noted that Opera Queensland has been in breach of its funding obligations under the board’s criteria for a considerable time. The review further notes that overall,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… audience numbers for mainstage opera have declined and employment opportunities for artists have significantly decreased.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nevertheless, the review recommends more funding overall for opera, and that Opera Queensland be given three years to sort out its finances or lose its membership of the board. But it recommended that any additional funding provided to the opera sector come <em>from new funding</em> and not current arts grants. </p>
<p>So while 65 other arts organisations around the country were <a href="https://theconversation.com/carnage-in-the-arts-experts-respond-to-the-australia-council-cuts-59368">defunded in May 2016</a> – as a result of the cuts to the Australia Council – the government is offering a lifeline to Opera Queensland, despite it being in breach of funding regulations.</p>
<h2>Key questions to ask</h2>
<p>In 2015-16, 13% of Australia Council funds went to opera and 32% to symphony orchestras nationally. Just 2% of funds went to literature and 9.7% to the visual arts and crafts – art forms that traditionally include more individual artists.</p>
<p>When Catalyst announced its first successful funding applicants in May 2016, several were major performing arts companies, including Musica Viva Sydney ($397,550) and the Australian Ballet ($200,000) - plus the Australian Ballet Centre ($1,000,000). </p>
<p>Groups not funded by the Australia Council in 2016 included <a href="https://theconversation.com/carnage-in-the-arts-experts-respond-to-the-australia-council-cuts-59368">national organisations</a> such as the National Association for the Visual Arts, Asialink and Meanjin, an important Australian literary journal. Many contemporary art galleries were defunded as well as many excellent <a href="https://theconversation.com/small-is-beautiful-artist-run-collectives-count-but-theyre-facing-death-by-a-thousand-cuts-52684">small to medium</a> theatre companies, music groups and community cultural development organisations. </p>
<p>The important questions to ask then, are these: will the funds returned to the Australia Council be used to refund organisations that were defunded in 2016?
And is the Australia Council able to admit that some of its own decision-making may need to be reviewed? </p>
<p>When it comes to arts funding, conservative governments tend to favour the interests of the major institutions. But the arts sector fought hard through 2015 and 2016 to communicate that the arts sector was not just the “high arts”. </p>
<p>In the face of the most historically significant political assault on its integrity and role, the Australia Council – despite its official advocacy role for the arts – sadly <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/australia-council-waleed-aly-accused-of-failing-to-stand-up-for-arts-funding-20160727-gqekrm.html">did not show public leadership</a> in advocating for the needs of the sector to the federal government. Instead, it appears to have relied on the arts sector to take that role.</p>
<p>A lesson learnt from the messy events of the past two years is that the arts sector must rely on itself to lobby for the arts in difficult times. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Jo Caust will be talking about public funding of the arts on ABC Radio National tomorrow with Scott Stephens and Waleed Aly in The Minefield at 11.30am.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74848/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Caust has previously received funding from the Australia Council and the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Arts Industry Council and NAVA. </span></em></p>The arts sector lobbied hard against the Catalyst funding model, which the ALP had labelled ‘a ministerial slush fund’. But will the money returned to the Australia Council go to those who need it?Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/673032016-10-19T00:53:42Z2016-10-19T00:53:42ZArts training is an essential part of an innovative nation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142274/original/image-20161019-20336-3ok6c5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than 50 arts training programs across the nation, including circus, may no longer be supported by the federal government. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julian Smith/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The past two years have not been happy ones for the arts sector in Australia. It all began in early 2014 with federal Ministers Brandis and Turnbull telling artists at the Sydney Biennale that they were ungrateful and selfish to protest about the role of Transfield in Nauru. </p>
<p>It then emerged that the Federal Minister for the Arts, George Brandis, believed he could do everything better in arts funding than the existing structures. He began his campaign by taking away a large portion of literature funding from the Australia Council in December 2014. </p>
<p>He then “trumped” this move by taking a third of the Council’s ongoing arts funding in May 2015 to set up his own ministerial fund for the arts naming it the National Program for Excellence in the Arts. Brandis’s concept of “excellence” though was tainted by a limited and élitist perspective of what constitutes the arts and by demonstrating overt favouritism and protectionism towards large arts organisations.</p>
<p>The arts sector protested and a Senate Inquiry was instituted. More than 3000 submissions were received by the Inquiry. The Coalition Government did not participate in the process and appeared to be ignoring the furore in the arts sector. However, with a new Prime Minister in place in late 2015, it was not long before a new Minster for the Arts emerged, Mitch Fifield. </p>
<p>In November 2015, Fifield announced he would give back a portion of the money taken from the Australia Council. However, he kept the rest and changed the name from Program of Excellence to Catalyst. Then there was an election in May 2016 and Minister Fifield’s Catalyst Fund played an interesting electoral role in allocating arts funding to some unusual recipients. </p>
<p>Further, with its reduced funding, the Australia Council cancelled project funding rounds for small groups and individuals in 2015 and then cut funding to over 60 arts organisations across the country in May 2016. There have been <a href="https://dailyreview.com.au/fifield-set-restore-raided-arts-funds-australia-council/50036/">recent rumours</a> that more of the Ministerial funds might be returned to the Australia Council but as yet there is no evidence of this.</p>
<p>But sadly this is not the only action that will harm and continue to damage the arts sector. The Federal Government is now considering cutting funding to students who wish to undertake creative arts training. Education Minister Simon Birmingham has said he believes <a href="http://www.senatorbirmingham.com.au/Media-Centre/Media-Releases/ID/3238/New-VET-Student-Loans-course-list-focussed-on-employment-outcomes">training in the creative arts is a ‘lifestyle’ choice</a> and cannot lead to a satisfactory career or any economic outcome. He says,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>VET Student Loans will only support legitimate students to undertake worthwhile and value-for-money courses at quality training providers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As the government’s priorities are related to demonstrating economic outcomes, they say that their preference is for technology programs and agricultural science courses related to the STEM educational model.</p>
<p>In this context creative arts training is perceived as irrelevant and Minister Birmingham intends to cut loan support for students to undertake this form of education and training. If this occurs, more than 50 arts training programs across the country will no longer be supported. These include programs in ceramics, photography, dance, acting, animation, all forms of design, circus, music, film, fashion and journalism.</p>
<p>To describe creative arts training as a “lifestyle” choice in my view demonstrates a lack of knowledge of what is involved and what is produced. There seems to be no understanding or recognition that artists/arts workers are trained professionals who are highly skilled, knowledgeable and adept. They are also highly employable in many industry sectors – not just the arts.</p>
<p>Australia talks constantly about supporting innovation and wanting to be seen as a “smart” country. Training people in the creative arts is a sure way of doing this. Confining education only to technology and the sciences does not create a nation that is necessarily clever or innovative.</p>
<p>Arts training provides the capacity to problem solve, think outside the square, be divergent and come up with new and untried solutions. These are skills that are essential for innovation and change. The arts are a basic foundation of the culture of this country. </p>
<p>Australia is presented internationally by its artists, by its films, by its literature - it is the soul of the country. If the arts training sectors are not funded by this Federal Government, there is a clear message that the government does not think that the arts matter in Australia and, ipso facto, Australian arts and culture does not matter to the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67303/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Caust has previously received funding from the Australia Council and the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Arts Industry Council (SA) and NAVA.
</span></em></p>The past two years have not been happy ones for the arts sector in Australia. It all began in early 2014 with federal Ministers Brandis and Turnbull telling artists at the Sydney Biennale that they were…Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/669792016-10-13T03:59:25Z2016-10-13T03:59:25ZThe new Australia Council Board has a chance to be better than the last<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141560/original/image-20161013-16246-1ge3jo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A changing of the guard...will it make a difference?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The organisation Senator George Brandis described as having an “iron wall” around it, is refreshing its sentinels. This week’s announcement of <a href="http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/news/media-centre/media-releases/australia-council-board-appointments/">four new appointments</a> to the Australia Council Board represents a change of focus from last year when, you may recall, the agency had other things on its mind.</p>
<p>I once confided to a friend that I could tell the level of political pressure the Council was under by how closely the brow of Rupert Myer, its long-suffering Chair, matched the colour of his shirts. These days, I’m glad to say, it’s returned to its normal shade. </p>
<p>What happened with <a href="https://theconversation.com/out-with-the-npea-in-with-catalyst-expert-response-51026">Catalyst</a>, <em>nee</em> the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/national-programme-for-excellence-in-the-arts-17421">National Programme for Excellence in the Arts</a>, was neither rational nor right, but a misjudgement by an ill-informed Minister who did a deal of damage and made no lasting positive contribution to his portfolio.</p>
<p>With Senator Brandis now displaying as Attorney-General the same pachydermic egotism and semantic chicanery as he did with the arts, the cultural sector can be confirmed in its view that he is a Bad Egg.</p>
<p>What next for the Council? The new appointments come at a time when it confronts a flinty task of redefinition. While the changes that began with the <a href="http://creativeaustralia.arts.gov.au/assets/australia-council-review-report-survey-outcomes-20130419.pdf">2012 James and Trainor Review</a> and led to the abolition of its art form boards, have been rung through, the events of last year shook the perception and the self-perception of the sector. In brief: there’s not a lot of trust out there.</p>
<p>The Council plays piggy-in-the-middle between three sets of unforgiving forces. On the one hand, it represents the arts to the government. On the other, it represents the arts to the public. And on a third, perpetually smarting hand, it represents the government to the arts.</p>
<p>Making sense of these varied stakeholder needs is like a cultural version of the chicken/fox/sack-of-corn conundrum. It is the job of the Council to riddle the challenge. What happened last year must be inwardly digested and turned into lasting cognitive capital. The Council must grow a policy memory and the Board must be its best expression. Put simply, what happened under Senator Brandis must never happen again.</p>
<p>The Board is a round dozen of culture types from all over the country. Like most arts boards these days there is an abundance of “suits”. With the departure of Robin Archer as Deputy Chair, it leaves just one senior practising artist. Is that enough? No. You wouldn’t run a hospital board without working doctors on it, or a school board without full-time teachers.</p>
<p>No one would argue that such artists have superior insight into the cultural policy process, but presumably they shouldn’t be left out of it. It would be a good recruiting move, too, for a Council that has to regain the sector’s confidence.</p>
<p>With the old art form boards gone, the Council’s moral and intellectual leadership now lies with its Board. In the 1980s, with <a href="http://www.jamesmccaughey.com/bio/james/">James McCaughey</a> as chair of the Theatre Board, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/gary-foley-8251">Gary Foley</a> as chair of the Aboriginal Arts Board and <a href="http://musicinaustralia.org.au/index.php?title=Letts,_Richard">Dick Letts</a> as chair of the Music Board, there was formidable policy activism at that level.</p>
<p>Today this is seen as a problem. It was seen that way then too – by the government. The art form boards were often autonomous in their opinions and actions, and if they could be erratic, they were also pugnacious. They were difficult for governments to intimidate. If the arm’s length independence of the Council had a hard edge to it, it was to be found in the attitude of these art form boards.</p>
<p>Responsibility for maintaining the arm’s length relationship is now the Board’s, and that means more than Friday night drinks with Liberal staffers and birthday cards to Senator Mitch Fifield (who is 50 next year, the same age as the Council).</p>
<p>It means a genuine vision for the sector – thoughtful, inclusive and operationally valid. It means addressing the locked-in funding problem around the <a href="http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/symphony/extension/richtext_redactor/getfile/?name=c2da6fb09dc09b1bff708a93fa8e0a82.pdf">Major Performing Arts Framework</a> that Senator Brandis neither understood nor cared to. It is this Framework that ensured cuts from two successive federal budgets fell <a href="https://theconversation.com/carnage-in-the-arts-experts-respond-to-the-australia-council-cuts-59368">solely on smaller arts organisations</a>. It is this Framework the James and Trainor Review was supposed to open up.</p>
<p>Instead, after the election of a Liberal government in 2014, the opposite happened. The resentment and distrust this bred will continue to have a deleterious effect on relations in the sector until an effort is made to understand the problem on its own terms and not through witless buzz words, be they today’s “innovation” or yesterday’s “excellence”.</p>
<p>The Council has no Harry Potter spell to double its cash in the bank. Nor can it walk away from long-standing commitments to major institutions and programs. What it can do is display meaningful understanding of the systemic issues affecting cultural subsidy, and respond with a polite “—– off” if the government comes touting its own “priorities” and treating the agency like a doormat.</p>
<p>Not on. There’s no point in having an expert body unless you allow it to exercise its expert judgement.</p>
<p>As the Board decide how to react to the news that must come eventually that Catalyst funding is being handed back to them (weary resignation or subdued glee?), it should ponder the examples of past Council heads like <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/arts-patron-who-fought-bureaucracy-20090303-8nca.html">Jean Battersby</a>, <a href="http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/coombs-herbert-cole-nugget-246">Nugget Coombs</a>, <a href="http://www.vectorleadership.com/pages/bio">Timothy Pascoe</a> and <a href="http://www.australianbiography.gov.au/subjects/horne/">Donald Horne</a>.</p>
<p>One, possibly two of these people, were conservatives, so it’s not a question of Labor bias. It’s about getting the government out of the Council’s face, so it can pick up where it left off in 2014 and deal with the difficult job that awaits.</p>
<p>Money’s tight, tempers are frayed, and the future is gloomy, but stiff cheddar: when were they not?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The organisation Senator George Brandis described as having an “iron wall” around it, is refreshing its sentinels. This week’s announcement of four new appointments to the Australia Council Board represents…Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/633852016-08-31T03:17:32Z2016-08-31T03:17:32ZDon’t give up your day job … little has changed for individual artists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135848/original/image-20160830-17872-vaqm42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Individual artists continue to experience the brunt of arts funding cuts.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the casualties of the ill-starred reorganisation of arts funding proposed last year by the then Minister for the Arts, Senator George Brandis, was support for individual artists. If his plan had gone ahead, it would have resulted in a further consolidation of funding for the major performing companies at the expense of the lone creative practitioner. </p>
<p>But in its replacement – the <a href="https://theconversation.com/out-with-the-npea-in-with-catalyst-expert-response-51026">Catalyst fund</a> put in place by the new Minister Senator Mitch Fifield – the support prospects for individual artists have not improved much. Catalyst does not fund individuals directly.</p>
<p>Policy conflicts between the funding demands of large performing companies and the needs of the individual creative artist are by no means new. In Australia, they can be traced back as far as the years immediately following the establishment of the Australia Council. </p>
<p>An early vision of the Council’s inaugural chair, <a href="http://www.australianbiography.gov.au/subjects/coombs/">Nugget Coombs</a>, was the setting up of well-funded performing companies of international standard in theatre, music and ballet. A consequence of this policy was that during the late 1970s, support for these organisations was absorbing what was seen as a disproportionate share of the available money.</p>
<p>To counteract this trend, a proposal was put to the Council in 1980 by the Literature Board, supported by the Visual Arts and Crafts Boards, for a study into the circumstances of the individual creative artist, in the expectation that such a study would highlight the disadvantage suffered by these boards’ clientele, and would propose remedies. The proposal led to the establishment in 1981 of the Individual Artists Inquiry.</p>
<p>I was invited to chair the Inquiry. Its committee comprised senior artists and arts industry personnel with a wide range of experience and expertise representing writers, visual artists, craftspeople, actors, dancers, musicians, composers, directors and community artists. </p>
<p>Given the lack of data about artists’ economic circumstances, we began by designing and commissioning the first ever national survey of Australian artists to gather the essential information to guide our deliberations. The Inquiry completed its work in August 1983 and its report, entitled The Artist in Australia Today, was published later that year. </p>
<p>What can we learn looking back on the findings and recommendations of this Inquiry from a vantage point 33 years later? The first observation is how little has changed. </p>
<p>The survey documented the relatively low incomes earned from creative work, the extent to which artists were obliged by economic necessity to seek other jobs to support their creative practice, and the difficulties artists faced in establishing their right to recognition in a world where being an artist was not looked upon as a professional occupation. All remain serious issues affecting art practice today.</p>
<p>The Inquiry’s wide-ranging recommendations dealt with the status of the artist, issues relating to artists’ employment and working conditions, and the various means for providing assistance to support their work. Not surprisingly the 1983 Committee recommended an increase in funding for “initial creative artists”, an outcome argued as being achievable without disadvantaging the big performing companies. </p>
<p>Many of the Inquiry’s observations have some continuing resonance: the importance of supporting emerging artists; the need for more effective copyright protection; the role of artists’ residencies; dealing with obstacles in the way of a full recognition of artists’ rights; and so on. </p>
<p>To its credit, the Australia Council acted on many of the Inquiry’s recommendations, elevating a concern for the professional welfare of the individual artist in its policy priorities, a position the Council still holds to today, even when government intentions point in another direction.</p>
<p>All committees of inquiry end with proposals for further research and this one was no exception. In particular the report stressed the need to keep the data about practising professional artists up to date. </p>
<p>Accordingly, successive Australia Councils have commissioned new surveys every few years since the 1980s, all of which have been undertaken by me and my colleagues at Macquarie University, and all of which have continued to paint a bleak picture of artists’ circumstances. </p>
<p>Their incomes have remained relatively low; full-time work as a creative artist continues to be out of reach for most practitioners; economic factors are still the major impediment to artists’ opportunities to expand their work profile; and ongoing shortcomings persist in the public and administrative recognition of artists’ professional status. </p>
<p>The last-mentioned problem is reflected in the ironic titles of the survey reports we have published over the years: When are you going to get a real job? (1989); But what do you do for a living? (1994); Don’t give up your day job! (2003); Do you really expect to get paid? (2010). </p>
<p>At present we are in the midst of conducting a new edition of the survey, again funded by a grant from the Australia Council. The hunt is on for a title for the report from the survey, to be published early next year. Suggestions please!</p>
<p><em>This is the second article in our Making Art Pay series. You can read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-pay-their-taxes-in-art-57669">first one here</a>. Tomorrow’s article will look at the state of arts philanthropy in Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Throsby receives occasional project-related research funding from the Australia Council.</span></em></p>In 1983, a groundbreaking inquiry into the economic circumstances of artists released a report containing a string of recommendations. Thirty three years on, the inquiry’s chair asks, what has changed?David Throsby, Distinguished Professor of Economics, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/625922016-08-30T03:04:53Z2016-08-30T03:04:53ZFinding better ways to get hydrogen fuel from water<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134337/original/image-20160816-13037-117nl1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hydrogen fueling stations like this could become more common if materials scientists and other researchers keep pushing for new breakthroughs.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-7965856/stock-photo-hydrogen-fueling-station-for-vehicles.html">fueling station photo via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/build-california-invests-millions-hydrogen-fueling-stations/story?id=24962830">hydrogen power stations in California</a>, a <a href="https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html">new Japanese consumer car</a> and <a href="http://www.fchea.org/portable/">portable hydrogen fuel cells</a> for electronics, hydrogen as a zero emission fuel source is now finally becoming a reality for the average consumer. When combined with oxygen in the presence of a <a href="http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/northwestern/winter1999/winter99coverstoryside1.htm">catalyst</a>, hydrogen releases energy and bonds with the oxygen to form water.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/hydrogen.pdf">two main difficulties</a> preventing us from having hydrogen power everything we have are <a href="http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_storage.html">storage</a> and production. At the moment, hydrogen production is energy-intensive and expensive. Normally, industrial production of hydrogen requires high temperatures, large facilities and an enormous amount of energy. In fact, it usually comes from fossil fuels like natural gas – and therefore isn’t actually a zero-emission fuel source. Making the process cheaper, efficient and sustainable would go a long way toward making hydrogen a more commonly used fuel.</p>
<p>An excellent – and abundant – source of hydrogen is water. But chemically, that requires reversing the reaction in which hydrogen releases energy when combining with other chemicals. That means we have to put energy into a compound, to get the hydrogen out. Maximizing the efficiency of this process would be significant progress toward a clean-energy future.</p>
<p>One method involves mixing water with a helpful chemical, a catalyst, to reduce the amount of energy needed to break the connections between hydrogen and oxygen atoms. There are several promising catalysts for hydrogen generation, including <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C4RA11852A">molybdenum sulfide</a>, graphene and cadmium sulfate. My research focuses on modifying the molecular properties of molybdenum sulfide to make the reaction even more effective and more efficient.</p>
<h2>Making hydrogen</h2>
<p>Hydrogen is the <a href="http://education.jlab.org/glossary/abund_uni.html">most abundant element in the universe</a>, but it’s rarely available as pure hydrogen. Rather, it combines with other elements to form a great many chemicals and compounds, such as organic solvents like methanol, and proteins in the human body. Its pure form, H₂, can used as a transportable and efficient fuel.</p>
<p>There are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/er.3549">several ways to produce hydrogen</a> to be usable as fuel. Electrolysis uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. <a href="http://energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-natural-gas-reforming">Steam methane reforming</a> starts with methane (four hydrogen atoms bound to a carbon atom) and heats it, separating the hydrogen from the carbon. This energy-intensive method is usually how industries produce hydrogen that is used in things like producing ammonia or the refining of oil. </p>
<p>The method I’m focusing on is <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114009265">photocatalytic water splitting</a>. With a catalyst’s help, the amount of energy needed to “split” water into hydrogen and oxygen can be provided by another abundant resource – light. When exposed to light, a proper mixture of water and a catalyst produces both oxygen and hydrogen. This is very attractive to industry because it then allows us to use water as the source of hydrogen instead of dirty fossil fuels.</p>
<h2>Understanding catalysts</h2>
<p>Just as not every two people start up a conversation if they’re in the same elevator, some chemical interactions don’t occur just because the two materials are introduced. Water molecules can be split into hydrogen and oxygen with the addition of energy, but the amount of energy needed would be more than would be generated as a result of the reaction.</p>
<p>Sometimes it takes a third party to get things going. In chemistry, that’s called a catalyst. Chemically speaking, a catalyst lowers the amount of energy needed for two compounds to react. Some catalysts function only when exposed to light. These compounds, like titanium dioxide, are <a href="http://www.greenearthnanoscience.com/what-is-photocatalyst.php">called photocatalysts</a>.</p>
<p>With a photocatalyst in the mix, the energy needed to split water drops significantly, so that the effort nets an energy gain at the end of the process. We can make the splitting even more efficient by adding another substance, in a role called co-catalyst. Co-catalysts in hydrogen generation alter the electronic structure of the reaction, making it more effective at producing hydrogen.</p>
<p>So far, there aren’t any commercialized systems for producing hydrogen this way. This is in part because of cost. The best catalysts and co-catalysts we’ve found are efficient at helping with the chemical reaction, but are very expensive. For example, the first promising combination, titanium dioxide and platinum, was discovered in 1972. Platinum, however, is a very expensive metal (<a href="http://www.jmbullion.com/charts/platinum-price/">well over US$1,000 per ounce</a>). Even rhenium, another useful catalyst, <a href="https://www.metalprices.com/metal/rhenium/rhenium-metal-99-9-na">costs around $70 an ounce</a>. Metals like these are so rare in the Earth’s crust that this makes them <a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160219/ncomms10771/pdf/ncomms10771.pdf">not suitable for large-scale applications</a> even though there are processes being developed to <a href="https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/progress05/vii_e_1_grot.pdf">recycle these materials</a>.</p>
<h2>Finding a new catalyst</h2>
<p>There are many requirements for a good catalyst, such as being able to be recycled and being able to withstand the heat and pressure involved in the reaction. But just as crucial is how common the material is, because the most abundant catalysts are the cheapest.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134385/original/image-20160817-13720-myswal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134385/original/image-20160817-13720-myswal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134385/original/image-20160817-13720-myswal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134385/original/image-20160817-13720-myswal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134385/original/image-20160817-13720-myswal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134385/original/image-20160817-13720-myswal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134385/original/image-20160817-13720-myswal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Properties of a good photocatalyst.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Byrley</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the newest and most promising materials is molybdenum sulfide, MoS₂. Because it is made up of the elements molybdenum and sulfur – both relatively common on Earth – it is far cheaper than more traditional catalysts, <a href="https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Molybdenum-Disulfide_60481067845.html?spm=a2700.7724857.0.0.zyIg0g">well under a dollar per ounce</a>. It also has the correct electronic properties and other attributes.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134336/original/image-20160816-13037-6wibr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134336/original/image-20160816-13037-6wibr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134336/original/image-20160816-13037-6wibr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134336/original/image-20160816-13037-6wibr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134336/original/image-20160816-13037-6wibr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134336/original/image-20160816-13037-6wibr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134336/original/image-20160816-13037-6wibr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chips of molybdenum sulfide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMoS2chips.jpg">Materialscientist</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135089/original/image-20160823-18690-djb0f4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135089/original/image-20160823-18690-djb0f4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135089/original/image-20160823-18690-djb0f4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135089/original/image-20160823-18690-djb0f4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135089/original/image-20160823-18690-djb0f4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135089/original/image-20160823-18690-djb0f4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135089/original/image-20160823-18690-djb0f4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Single layers of molybdenum sulfide (MoS₂) on glass (SiO₂). Scale bar is 10 micrometers (μm).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Byrley</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02824960">Before the late 1990s</a>, researchers had found that molybdenum sulfide was not particularly effective at turning water into hydrogen. But that was because researchers were using thick chunks of the mineral, essentially the form it’s in when mined from the ground. Today, however, we can use processes like <a href="http://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1552">chemical vapor deposition</a> or <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C5NR01486G">solution-based processes</a> to create much thinner crystals of MoS₂ – even down to the thickness of a single molecule – which are vastly more efficient at extracting hydrogen from water.</p>
<h2>Making the process even better</h2>
<p>Molybdenum sulfide can be made even more effective by manipulating its physical and electrical properties. A process known as “phase change” makes more of the substance available to participate in the hydrogen-producing reaction.</p>
<p>When molybdenum sulfide forms crystals, the atoms and molecules on the outside of the solid mass are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1141483">ready to accept or donate electrons to water</a> when excited by light to drive the creation of hydrogen. Normally, the MoS₂ molecules on the inside of the structure will not donate or accept electrons <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmat4465">as efficiently as the edge sites</a>, and so can’t help as much with the reaction. </p>
<p>But adding energy to the MoS₂ by <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.64">bombarding it with electrons</a>, or <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4731">increasing the surrounding pressure</a>, causes what is called “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5214">phase change</a>” to occur. This phase change is not what you learn in basic chemistry (involving one substance taking forms of gas, liquid or solid) but rather a slight structural change in the molecular arrangement that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C5CS00151J">changes the MoS₂ from a semiconductor to a metal</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, the electrical properties of the molecules on the inside become available to the reaction as well. This makes the same amount of catalyst potentially <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b00986">600 times more effective</a> in the hydrogen evolution reaction. </p>
<p>If the methods behind this sort of breakthrough can be perfected, then we may be a big step closer to making hydrogen production cheaper and more efficient, which in turn will move us toward a future powered by truly clean, renewable energy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Education</span></em></p>Modifying chemicals’ molecular properties can make ‘splitting’ hydrogen from water more efficient.Peter Byrley, Ph.D. Candidate in Chemical Engineering, University of California, RiversideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/629632016-07-25T03:20:31Z2016-07-25T03:20:31ZGlobal journalism needs global ethics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131704/original/image-20160725-31202-v1xb03.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sean Davis</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s an old saying in journalism: “All news is local”. It means that news, wherever it comes from, needs to engage the interest of its local audience if it is to succeed. But read today’s paper, or turn to the nightly television news broadcast, or just check your phone right now, and it’s clear that things have changed. All news now has the potential to reach a global audience.</p>
<p>The Canadian media ethicist Stephen JA Ward, currently visiting Australia, says it’s time our journalism developed a global ethic to match its global reach. With the power to impact and influence, he argues, comes a global sense of responsibility.</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that Canadians have punched above their weight when it comes to understanding the transformative power of media in the modern and postmodern worlds. Ward’s countryman, the late Marshall McLuhan, gave us the concept of “The Global Village”. In 1964, with stunning prescience, the Edmonton-born communications scholar <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/126274.Understanding_Media">wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fast forward to Australia’s federal election this month. From the cliffhanger emerges Pauline Hanson, newly empowered by electoral success. If there’s a hot button issue, Pauline has an opinion about it. Pretty soon quotable quotes – some deeply offensive to ethnically diverse Australians – are pouring forth, and getting noticed by international media like The Times, The Financial Times and The Telegraph.</p>
<p>The world is reading, watching and listening. Asia remembers that although Hanson 2 has turned her ire upon Muslims, she began her career by warning that Australia was in danger of being “swamped” by Asians. In the case of international education, as swamps go, it’s quite a lucrative one. Educating students from around the world is Australia’s third largest export income earner, and the overwhelming majority of those students come from – you guessed it – Asia.</p>
<p>So, not surprisingly, Singapore’s The Straits Times <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/australianz/hansons-return-may-turn-off-asian-investors">recently noted of Hanson</a>, “In this election, she has focused her attacks on Muslims, but she has not renounced her claims that Australia needs to limit Asian migration.” The subtext, delivered with subtle restraint, is that billions of dollars are at stake.</p>
<h2>What is globally-minded journalism?</h2>
<p>As I tell my students ad nauseum, journalism matters. Without it, nobody knows what is happening elsewhere. By its very nature, journalism speaks to that part of the human psyche that craves connections with, and knowledge of, the world around us.</p>
<p>It’s partly for these reasons that I find Ward’s work in such books as <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23219014-radical-media-ethics">Radical Media Ethics: A global approach</a> (2015) persuasive. He argues that, in a global, media-linked world where stories cross borders and can inspire positive change – but also incite massive violence – we need globally-minded journalism.</p>
<p>Like all big ideas, there is a lot to unpack. The concept of global values is itself a hornet’s nest of post-colonial anxieties and discontents. But Ward sensibly builds his argument about the need to transcend parochialism in journalism on a solid philosophical and political foundation, as embodied in the existing, internationally binding Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948. If journalism is to recalibrate its moral compass this might not be a bad place to start.</p>
<p>Journalists are, by inclination and occupation, sceptical. One can imagine eyes rolling in newsrooms around the world at the idea of journalists becoming “global communicators promoting humanity”. But Ward’s injunction that, when a global issue is at stake, journalists should approach it with a broader global view that includes multiple perspectives, and inconvenient counter-facts is, in fact, an enlargement of existing journalistic values.</p>
<h2>Digital disruption and demanding audiences</h2>
<p>Yet, in other ways, the digital revolution that has made global journalism possible also challenges traditional journalistic values, or at least the way they have come to be practised. The disastrous 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a kind of media “Waterloo” in this respect. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/816158.When_the_Press_Fails">When the Press Fails: Political power and the news media from Iraq to Katrina</a> (2007), the American communications scholar Steven Livingston (another recent visitor to this part of the world) and his co-authors show how news journalism’s concept of “balance”, and journalists’ desire to maintain access to politicians, blunted what should have been strident, sceptical journalism in the public interest. </p>
<p>Digital disruption calls into question the value of journalism that’s based on a narrow range of sources, when social media and big data potentially offer deeper insights than the “usual suspects” approach.</p>
<p>The good news is that digital journalism has given us more vocal, more demanding audiences. The roar of a public slighted stings much more than an adverse Press Council ruling, and the clamour on social media when journalists get things wrong can be deafening. </p>
<p>Media criticism – already a spectator sport, thanks to ABC offerings like Media Watch and The Media Report – is a publishing phenomenon as well, a recent example being Sonya Voumard’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29233969-the-media-and-the-massacre-port-arthur-1996-2016">The Media and the Massacre</a> (2016), reviewed in this column <a href="https://theconversation.com/whose-line-is-it-anyway-the-murderer-his-mother-and-the-ghost-writers-58412">earlier in the year</a>.</p>
<p>Journalism ethics must, therefore, do more than highlight wrongs and point out the tensions between old and new media. It needs to re-invent itself for a new media age. It must decide which principles can and should be preserved, and whether some longstanding ideas are no longer tenable. Ethics are not etched on tablets of stone. If the purposes of our work, and how it is funded, and the methods we use to perform it change, ethical principles can and do evolve to meet the changed realities.</p>
<p>2016 has been a big year for news media ethics in Australia – big in all the wrong ways. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-60-minutes-shambles-is-unlikely-to-be-a-one-off-incident-58151">60 Minutes bungled child abduction case</a>, ABC program Catalyst’s reporting on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lessons-to-be-learned-now-the-abcs-pulled-its-inaccurate-wi-fried-program-62097">alleged health impacts of wi-fi</a>, and The Sydney Morning Herald’s misinformed commentary about an <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4416012.htm">alleged outbreak of pack rape in Sydney’s west</a> got blanket coverage. However, as Ward points out, when citizens complain about their news, they mention bias, inaccuracies, and sensationalism, but they rarely mention parochialism.</p>
<p>Localism, of course, has its merits. Many publications, including suburban freebies, community newsletters or regionally-focused blogs, survive and prosper by speaking to local issues and concerns. A furore over changes to zoning regulations in, say, Bathurst, New South Wales, is unlikely to interest citizens of Bangladesh, but in Bathurst it cuts through.</p>
<p>There is, then, a sumptuous irony in the fact that the battle for globalism, if it is to be won, must be fought locally. This debate takes us into notions of what is sometimes referred to as “glocalism”. But that’s another story.</p>
<p>From the perspective of non-fiction writing as a whole, the prospect of having a greater diversity of voices, a wider evidentiary base, and the chance to engage the largest possible audience, is hard not to like. Certainly, if Stephen Ward’s ideas were to be widely embraced, reporting of such issues as terrorism, finance, Islam and climate change would be very different from what we have today. </p>
<p>If globalisation continues, and our McLuhan-esque world continues to shrink, then media ethics will evolve towards the globalism of which Ward dreams; that is, towards a world in which global values trump parochial values when they conflict.</p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Stephen JA Ward will deliver a free public lecture at the University of New South Wales in Sydney on <a href="https://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/about-us/community-engagement/so-what-lecture-series/">Tuesday 26th July at 6.00 for 6.30 pm</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Kremmer is Senior Lecturer in Media at the University of New South Wales </span></em></p>There’s an old saying in journalism: “All news is local”. It means that news, wherever it comes from, needs to engage the interest of its local audience if it is to succeed. But read today’s paper, or…Christopher Kremmer, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, School of the Arts & Media, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/593682016-05-13T03:29:36Z2016-05-13T03:29:36ZCarnage in the arts: experts respond to the Australia Council cuts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122418/original/image-20160513-5088-1jr5xof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Deep funding cuts will affect Australia's entire arts ecology. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ekke</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><h2>A little soupçon of beauty?</h2>
<p><strong>Joanna Mendelssohn, Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia</strong></p>
<p>There comes a time in the ancient Chinese lingering execution, lingchi or Death by a Thousand Cuts, when the prisoner begs for the final stroke to end the torture – and life. </p>
<p>The good news is that the latest round of Australia Council four year funding grants shows that it is not there yet. Some essential visual arts publications have had their four year funding renewed, as have some exhibition spaces with a fair national spread. </p>
<p>From looking at what has been funded (and from hearing the start of news of those who have been eliminated) there is a sense that the meeting of the board that signed off on these grants must have been a grim one indeed. The <a href="https://online.australiacouncil.gov.au/ords/f?p=113:1:0::NO:RP::">full list of grants</a> as announced by the Australia Council also gives access to the names of the assessors. Unlike the Ministry’s Catalyst program, decisions by the Australia Council are open and transparent.</p>
<p>There are some decisions that seem utterly inexplicable. Neither the Australian Centre for Photography (Sydney) nor the Centre for Contemporary Photography (Melbourne) have had funding renewed. Is there a bias against organisations concerned with one particular medium? </p>
<p>With two exceptions, exhibition spaces devoted to the broad spectrum of contemporary art have their funding continued, so Artpsace (Sydney), ACCA (Melbourne), the Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane), Perth’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hobart’s Salamanca Arts Centre are all safe. </p>
<p>The exceptions are both in Adelaide: the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia and Australian Experimental Art Foundation. CACSA is the publisher of Broadsheet which is often the first place young art writers are published. Another outlet for young writers, Express Media, has also lost its funding.</p>
<p>It is not a good look that the national arts advocacy organisation, NAVA, which is also a significant source of information on artists’ rights, has lost its funding. The Australian Design Centre has also lost funding.</p>
<p>The Australia Council’s careful management of severely limited funding has meant that some of the essential engines that enable art to be exhibited, performed and published may well just die anyway. Those that survive will be increasingly dependent on private philanthropy. </p>
<p>This may well be in sympathy with a government that likes its arts to be delightfully subservient, existing only to add a little soupçon of beauty to an otherwise dull and corporate life. </p>
<p>However those who understand that the creative arts are at their essence intertwined with creating knowledge and understanding see this as a further degradation of Australia’s intellectual capital. </p>
<p>It’s hardly “the most exciting time” to be in an Australia run by a government that is deliberately dumbing down its people.</p>
<h2>What is the rationale behind these cuts?</h2>
<p><strong>Jo Caust, associate professor of cultural policy and arts leadership, University of Melbourne</strong></p>
<p>The arts sector in Australia is in turmoil and confusion. Early last week it was announced that 75 arts groups had received funding from <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-is-the-balance-and-credibility-in-our-federal-governments-arts-policy-58485">the new Catalyst fund</a>. Later, another 45 grants were announced. Some of the earlier recipients received two lots of funding for different projects.</p>
<p>Several recipients received more than the stated upper limit for grants (A$500,000), including Circa Contemporary Circus (A$840,000), The Australian Ballet (A$1,000,000), the National Library of Australia (A$660,000), and the Heysen House (A$1,000,000). </p>
<p>Companies such as Kage Theatre (A$130,000) in Victoria and Brink in South Australia (A$160,000) received money through the Catalyst Fund but have been defunded by the Australia Council. There are also Catalyst recipients who would not normally be included under this kind of funding – e.g. The Australian Ballet Centre. There is even the odd possibility that these groups received more than they actually applied for. </p>
<p>Early this week, the Australia Council released the results of a larger than normal project grant round. Several small to medium companies received project grants. There was, apparently, around a one in four chance of a company being funded. </p>
<p>But at the end of the week, the Australia Council informed numerous companies and organisations that they would no longer receive ongoing annual or triennial funding. It is amazing how quickly life can change. Eighteen months ago, these groups were being asked to apply for six year grants. </p>
<p>Some of those defunded organisations are of serious concern in terms of the intent of the cuts. For instance, funding was cut to both <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/national-association-for-the-visual-arts-misses-out-on-four-year-funding-from-the-australia-council-20160513-gotzkg.html">the National Association for the Visual Arts</a> and the journal <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/12/literary-magazine-meanjin-may-close-after-losing-australia-council-funding">Meanjin</a> – both places where alternative points of view to government policies have been expressed. <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/a/31520868/arts-groups-sounds-funds-alarm/">NAVA</a> has played a national leadership role in organising protests against the Australia Council changes. What does this say about democracy?</p>
<p>The South Australian theatre scene in particular has received a mortal blow. Three theatre companies that have been at the forefront of artistic innovation have been defunded: <a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/arts/sa-theatre-companies-reeling-from-federal-australia-council-funding-chop/news-story/18bc5f86d92cb77aa4096ecd9f75801b">Brink, Slingsby and Vitalstatistix</a>. The latter is a women’s theatre company that promotes the work of female playwrights, actors, writers and directors. </p>
<p>Victoria’s Next Wave festival has lost its organisational funding. And even Polyglot Theatre, which has secured core funding from both the Australia Council and Catalyst, expressed “deep concern” for the long-term viability and diversity of the Australian arts sector, saying many peer companies that lost funding would be forced to close.</p>
<p>While some arts organisations are winning the arts funding lottery through the Catalyst Fund, others have been defunded by the Australia Council, as a result of the establishment of Catalyst. </p>
<p>Is the Australia Council using the Catalyst Fund as an excuse to offload some of its less popular clients? More importantly, has the Council taken the wisest course of action in the circumstances? There is a sense of shock in the arts sector. </p>
<p>What does all this say about the government’s approach to national arts policy? It appears there is no overall plan, vision, communication, transparency or fairness.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122420/original/image-20160513-16438-dytz6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122420/original/image-20160513-16438-dytz6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122420/original/image-20160513-16438-dytz6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122420/original/image-20160513-16438-dytz6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122420/original/image-20160513-16438-dytz6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122420/original/image-20160513-16438-dytz6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122420/original/image-20160513-16438-dytz6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122420/original/image-20160513-16438-dytz6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Blondinrikard Fröberg</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>Policy confusion is destroying trust</h2>
<p><strong>Julian Meyrick, professor of creative arts, and Tully Barnett, research fellow, Flinders University</strong></p>
<p>This is not about money it’s about trust. The money is important, but in cultural policy, funding is first and foremost an expression of trust. </p>
<p>Because the arts don’t stand apart from society but are an integral part of it, they aren’t exempt from the political fluctuations that determine the allocation of public resources. Put brutally, sometimes companies lose their funding. Sometimes that has to be accepted.</p>
<p>But last year, the senate inquiry into the federal arts budget made it plain that the arts sector is an interdependent ecology. What we are seeing today goes far beyond the usual ups and downs of individual companies.</p>
<p>According to the Australia Council, <a href="https://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/news/media-centre/media-releases/australia-council-announces-112m-investment-over-four-years-in-small-to-medium-arts-organisations/">128 arts organisations have been notified of success</a> in the recent grant round. They will share $28 million through a four-year funding program. Thirty three per cent of those are new companies. We do not yet know the total number who applied. ArtsHub estimates <a href="http://www.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/grants-and-funding/deborah-stone/62-arts-organisations-lose-funding-from-australia-council-251271">62 companies have lost funding</a>. The Age <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/arts-organisations-meanjin-and-centre-for-contemporary-photography-assess-their-future-as-australia-council-cuts-hit-home-20160512-gotxid.html">says up to 50</a>.</p>
<p>The Australia Council have stretched their dollars as far as they can go. And they have listened to the sector’s call to allow new arts companies into the funding pool.</p>
<p>But no amount of clearing out the spare change jar and reducing their own workforce can make up for the federal government’s indifference to culture. </p>
<p>And while the Council seem to have instituted the cuts evenly across the nation, some of the decisions are truly dismaying: Meanjin, RedStitch, NAVA, Vitalstatistix, Brink, Arena Theatre, Slingsby … These are important names in the arts ecology and their demise will have a profound and long-lasting effect.</p>
<p>In his recent Platform Paper, Monash University academic Justin O’Connor, using a beautiful metaphor by the composer Brian Eno, <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/collections/may-2016-non-fiction/currency-press/">likened culture to a dance</a>. Regardless of who leads and who follows, the relationship between the arts sector and the government is one of hope and expectation, not rules and intimidation. It’s one of trust.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122421/original/image-20160513-16438-hbxwf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122421/original/image-20160513-16438-hbxwf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122421/original/image-20160513-16438-hbxwf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122421/original/image-20160513-16438-hbxwf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122421/original/image-20160513-16438-hbxwf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122421/original/image-20160513-16438-hbxwf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122421/original/image-20160513-16438-hbxwf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122421/original/image-20160513-16438-hbxwf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luciana Ruivo</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Senator Brandis’s evisceration of the Australia Council disturbed the agency’s two-step with its clients. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/out-with-the-npea-in-with-catalyst-expert-response-51026">A$90-plus million gouged out</a> was an egregious smash-and-grab. But the real damage was done by the policy confusion that accompanied it and the manner in which the aftermath unfolded.</p>
<p>The Australia Council is the federal government’s regiment of foot soldiers, used to mop up spills and disasters. Anyone who sheets the present cuts home to the agency needs to look at what’s happening in the nation as a whole.</p>
<p>This is a government that right from the start has behaved like an opposition anomalously in power. Cultural policy is revealing in this respect. Expenditure-wise what’s being saved is chump change. The amounts the Council doles out wouldn’t buy a set of titanium-shafted golf clubs for the bonus-fat banking executives so loved by Liberal party stalwarts (or who are Liberal party stalwarts).</p>
<p>But cultural policy is where governments must show consideration and mindfulness. It’s a tricky area. How you do things, not just what things you do, matters. Cut, cut, cut away, but if you have no end in view, then you’re not instituting meaningful change. You’re just a nutter with a knife.</p>
<p>Though it is hard to believe, the arts/government funding dance has stumbled along now for nearly 50 years, <a href="http://blogs.flinders.edu.au/laboratory-adelaide/2016/05/13/think-before-you-move/">despite real problems which we’ve talked about before</a>. In all that time, governments have sometimes acted unwisely, and sometimes not acted when they should.</p>
<p>But never have they acted as tactlessly, pointlessly and irresponsibly.<br>
It took years to build arts companies such as Red Stitch, Slingsby and Arena. Cultural subsidy made them possible but was far from the whole story. Now the money’s gone, but so has a sense that government and artists want the same thing. The trust has gone.</p>
<p>That’s the first rule of dancing: don’t break your partner’s toes.</p>
<h2>Restating the obvious: the arts matter</h2>
<p><strong>Maria Miranda, DECRA research fellow, University of Melbourne</strong></p>
<p>The impact of the Australia Council funding cuts will be felt throughout the arts ecology in direct and indirect ways. In addition to those companies that have lost direct support – and the few that have gained it – there’ll be hidden impacts on the small, artist-run organisations that support and produce <a href="https://theconversation.com/small-is-beautiful-artist-run-collectives-count-but-theyre-facing-death-by-a-thousand-cuts-52684">some of Australia’s most interesting art and artists</a>.</p>
<p>Whether it’s a gallery, interactive art or <a href="https://marrickvillegarage.com/2015/03/23/march-projects-second-comings/">turning a whole street into an exhibition space</a>, these small groups are often run without direct funding, through the efforts of volunteers. They provide a space for artists, especially – but not exclusively – for young people, to practise their craft, take risks, and build a community. </p>
<p>They won’t disappear entirely, but the cuts will have negative impacts on the organisations’ ability to mount specific projects. The volunteers who run these spaces are themselves working artists, who depend on funding (and, often, part-time jobs within the arts sector) to survive.</p>
<p>It’s particularly disappointing because this is not expensive art, yet it provides so much. Small and medium arts organisations are outward looking and connected to their communities. They don’t require expensive infrastructure and – to use the appropriate economic term – they’re cost-effective. Small amounts of money make a huge difference.</p>
<p>It’s sadly ironic that in 2014 the Australia Council itself released a report called <a href="https://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/workspace/uploads/files/research/arts-in-daily-life-australian-5432524d0f2f0.pdf">Arts in Daily Life</a> finding that 95% of Australians engaged with the arts in some way in the year before, and nearly half of Australians created art in some way themselves. </p>
<p>Australians understand that art is an important part of their lives and doesn’t just happen in a museum. It’s actually quite strange to have to be arguing the importance of the arts still, in 2016. Didn’t we already have this conversation?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59368/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Caust was employed by the Australia Council as a consultant in 2014.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has received funding from the ARC through a Linkage Project on the History of Exhibitions of Australian Art and has been a recipient of an ARC LIEF grant for Design and Art of Australia Online.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the project Laboratory Adelaide: the Value of Culture. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Miranda receives funding from The Australian Research Council to research artist run initiatives.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tully Barnett receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the project Laboratory Adelaide: The Value of Culture</span></em></p>A ‘mortal blow’ to the South Australian theatre scene. ‘Inexplicable’ cuts to centres for photography in two states. The Australia Council’s latest funding decisions have left the arts sector reeling and are evidence of a government indifferent to culture.Jo Caust, Associate Professor, Cultural Policy and Arts Leadership, The University of MelbourneJoanna Mendelssohn, Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW SydneyJulian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Flinders UniversityMaria Miranda, DECRA Research Fellow, The University of MelbourneTully Barnett, Research Fellow, School of Humanities, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/588502016-05-04T01:25:48Z2016-05-04T01:25:48ZFederal budget 2016: arts experts react<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121088/original/image-20160503-11494-ka9hfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Banksy, photography by Chris Devers</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last night’s federal budget had little to say about the arts. The Arts Party <a href="http://www.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/grants-and-funding/richard-watts/arts-budget-2016-doesnt-hurt-much-but-doesnt-heal-251192">described</a> it as a “nothing” budget for the arts, while Live Performance Australia said it “fails to deliver any major new policy initiatives or programs” for the industry. The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, meanwhile, highlighted the fact that while the ABC’s base funding has been maintained, funding for specialist news services will be <a href="https://www.meaa.org/mediaroom/budget-2016-arts-and-public-broadcasting-funding-crisis-continues-as-government-maintains-damaging-course/">cut by A$18.6 million over the next three years</a>.</p>
<p>So, what does all this mean for Australian arts and culture? Our academic experts offer their insights.</p>
<hr>
<h2>What happened Malcolm?</h2>
<p><strong>Joanna Mendelssohn, associate professor of art and design, University of NSW</strong></p>
<p>We had such hopes for Malcolm: a Prime Minister who revelled in an excellent art collection, a cultured and witty man, who understood that the country needs to be intellectually nimble as it creatively innovates with the latest IT and scientific discoveries on the information superhighway. </p>
<p>Furthermore, here was someone who could address Q&A in his <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/turnbull-to-auction-off-q-a-leather-jacket/story-e6frfkvr-1226187817171">snappy leather jacket</a>. As a graduate of Sydney Grammar and then the University of Sydney, he surely knew that an excellent education is a pathway to success, and to the country’s future prosperity.</p>
<p>Well this budget shows how wrong we were. Scott Morrison’s stern warning to those who keep the wheels of government turning is that the government is “continuing to keep government spending under control”. So nothing for the National Library, National Gallery, National Museum, Australian War Memorial or the Australia Council – which is <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-silver-tongued-turnbull-fails-to-woo-the-arts-vote-55132">already on life support</a>.</p>
<p>The only infrastructure mentioned in his government speech is “roads, rail, dams, and public transport” – it gives a mental image of men in hard hats and high viz vests standing in front of earnest television interviewers for the tabloid news. The only difference between the Turnbull and the Abbott era is the addition of trains and public transport.</p>
<p>National arts institutions, along with the rest of the Australian Public Service, will suffer from an expansion of the so-called “efficiency dividend” from which “net savings of $1.4 billion will be achieved over three years”.</p>
<p>Probably the best thing arts organisations can do is to line up to give internships for “young jobless” as for the first time in living memory young job seekers are not being harassed but subsidised for their first chance of work. So while there are no regular jobs, it might be possible for embattled arts organisations to give a break to a school leaver. </p>
<p>And that is it for the arts – not very much at all.</p>
<hr>
<h2>What rhymes with ‘submarine’?</h2>
<p><strong>Jason Potts, professor of economics, RMIT University</strong></p>
<p>The main thing that happened with the arts in the 2016 budget is that nothing happened with the arts in the 2016 budget. The arts and culture are obviously not to be part of this coming election campaign.</p>
<p>“This is not a time to be splashing money around” said ScoMo, and then didn’t, except on dams and trains and submarines. So much money splashed on so many submarines.</p>
<p>On the face of it, that’s good. It means that the new and existing models (e.g. Catalyst, carved out from the Australia Council) are being bedded down. Whatever you think of the new model, which has moved A$15 or so million into a centrally allocated program, this is now the model. So there is value in being ignored, in being made neither a priority, nor a target.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121087/original/image-20160503-5832-1xcrey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121087/original/image-20160503-5832-1xcrey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121087/original/image-20160503-5832-1xcrey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121087/original/image-20160503-5832-1xcrey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121087/original/image-20160503-5832-1xcrey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121087/original/image-20160503-5832-1xcrey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121087/original/image-20160503-5832-1xcrey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121087/original/image-20160503-5832-1xcrey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ms Premise-Conclusion</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>The main benefit, as I see it, came from the corporate tax cuts, small, but a good start. A healthy arts economy ultimately comes from private spending, corporate sponsorship and philanthropy, not from government handouts.</p>
<p>Anyway, someone’s got to paint all those submarines. Write songs about them. Make the movies and stories and evocative dances that show us as a great, nay proud and unrivalled, submarining nation.</p>
<hr>
<h2>A black and unhappy farce</h2>
<p><strong>Julian Meyrick, professor of creative arts, Flinders University</strong></p>
<p>Beckett plays are full of nothing. Narratively, not much goes on. Spiritually, audiences lurch into free fall at the absurdity of human existence. There’s time to consider what you should be doing with your life. </p>
<p>A bit like this year’s federal arts budget, with Scott Morrison playing the part of Winnie, buried up to her neck in sand, or Nag, who has to spend his time in a box.</p>
<p>No doubt the sector will breath a sigh of relief no major cuts have been unveiled. There’s still the thumbscrew of the efficiency dividend (“4.9% in real terms from 2015-16 to 2016-17, and 9.5% in real terms over the period 2016-17 to 2019-20”) and a resulting stream of job losses undermining arts organisations large and small. </p>
<p>But at least the Australia Council has survived with its change purse un-raided and its arm’s length relationship intact. With decisions about four-year funding only days away, that will mean better sleep for arts practitioners across the country. </p>
<p>Still, let’s be honest, what was there to cut? One more slice from the “arts and cultural heritage sub-function” and there wouldn’t be much sub-function left to slice. As it is, the lack of investment in the sector is the culmination of two and half years of mistreatment, misunderstanding, and neglect. </p>
<p>No mention of the arts in the Overview at all (unless you include “support [for] a culture of ideas and innovation to encourage commercialisation, reward enterprise and facilitate investment”).</p>
<p>Modern economics is a bit like modern drama. The jokes are black and the endings rarely happy. It works on a slenderising principle of “more for less” that can sometimes transmogrify into “everything for nothing”. </p>
<p>That’s certainly the kind of economic thinking the federal government favours. Rating: one and a half stars.</p>
<hr>
<h2>So much for the budget – what about Catalyst?</h2>
<p><strong>Jo Caust, associate professor of cultural policy and arts leadership, University of Melbourne</strong></p>
<p>In light of the the 2016 Budget, which generally ignores the arts sector, the announcement of the Catalyst recipients a day earlier was clearly a strategic move by the federal Arts Minister. </p>
<p>Firstly the notion that the Catalyst Fund would be supporting “Innovative Ideas” is not demonstrated. Much of the allocation is going to projects that are likely to have happened anyway. </p>
<p>Nevertheless there is a generosity of funding for particular projects that is unusual in the arts sector. Forty projects are receiving more than A$100,000; the Heysen House in the Adelaide Hills is getting A$1 million and the Back to Back Theatre Company in Victoria will receive A$800,000 (an extraordinary windfall for them). In addition 14 recipients are receiving between A$200,000 and A$500,000. This must be like winning the lottery for several of these organisations.</p>
<p>However several major arts organisations that are already comparatively generously funded have done well from the new Fund. These include Musica Viva in Sydney (A$397,550), the Adelaide Festival Centre (A$400,000), the Arts Centre in Melbourne (A$285,000), the Australian Ballet (A$200,000), and the National Museum in Canberra (A$389,000).</p>
<p>There has been a strong regional focus in the distribution of grants. These include the <a href="http://wiredlab.org/site/wired-lab-farm/">Wired Lab</a> in the Riverina District near Cootamundra in New South Wales, which is receiving A$340,000 and Artback Northern Territory receiving A$442,536 across two grants. </p>
<p>There a few odd recipients such as the <a href="http://www.architecture.com.au/">Royal Australian Institute of Architects</a> receiving A$120,000 for the Venice Biennale, the <a href="http://www.jewishmuseum.com.au/">Jewish Museum of Australia</a> $75,500 for a Amy Whinehouse exhibition and the <a href="http://history.sa.gov.au/">History Trust</a> in South Australia receiving A$125,000 for an exhibition about video games and motor vehicles. </p>
<p>Overall Brandis’s original contention of having another pool of money for arts funding with different selection criteria, may have some merit. However the manner in which this occurred – defunding the Australia Council – will leave a bad taste for some time to come. </p>
<p>A major challenge is that there are several arts organisations which may lose their funding to enable this other one to exist. We will all know in a few days what the impact of the Australia Council cuts are likely to be, but it seems that the Coalition Government has not seen fit to remedy the problem by returning the money taken in 2015, back to the Australia Council in 2016. It is a trivial amount in terms of the budget overall, but a huge issue in terms of the beleaguered and vulnerable arts community.</p>
<hr>
<h2>How much do we value ourselves?</h2>
<p><strong>Peter Tregear, teaching fellow, Royal Holloway</strong></p>
<p>As expected, this year’s federal budget delivered no respite from - but also no dramatic furtherance of - the cuts to arts funding bodies and cultural institutions of recent years. </p>
<p>The devil, however, is not in this detail but in the failure, once again, to offer a compelling overall policy framework and vision for the arts in Australia. It is no surprise, therefore, to find no significant new arts programs or reforms in this year’s budget either.</p>
<p>While the Australia Council has, for instance, only had to cop an additional A$2 million cut (or around 1%) in its total outlay, overall this budget only confirms its fate to be no longer an arms-length policy and advocacy body for artists but rather a funding delivery mechanism for Government initiatives.</p>
<p>With no relief from their obligations to deliver multi-year “efficiency dividends”, our national cultural institutions, similarly, must now operate within severally limited imaginative horizons. </p>
<p>And yet, as Julianne Schultz <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-must-act-now-to-preserve-its-culture-in-the-face-of-global-tech-giants-58724">argued recently in The Conversation</a>, the fact that so much of Australian public life is now in the sway of forces beyond our immediate control only makes the civic role of these institutions “more important than ever”, lest our own imaginative horizons become circumscribed by images, shapes, and sounds chosen for us by global media companies with a product to sell, not a civil society to nourish. </p>
<p>Sure, the budget also outlines a growing expectation from the government that these organisations can raise more and more funds from corporate and private philanthropy. </p>
<p>But will those companies and individuals among us who have particularly benefited from this age of unprecedented creation, and concentration, of wealth be prepared to assist? </p>
<p>If government is increasingly unable to express much enthusiasm for the role of the arts in Australian life, why should they? Well, to quote Schultz again, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is the cultural richness, the democratic, inclusive, pragmatic, egalitarian, highly skilled, educated and creative elements of Australia that make us attractive and distinctive. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Or, to put it another way, how much do we value ourselves?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58850/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has received funding from the ARC through a Linkage Project on the History of Exhibitions of Australian Art and has been a recipient of an ARC LIEF grant for Design and Art of Australia Online.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Potts is affiliated with the Institute of Public Affairs.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Caust has received funding as a consultant from the Australia Council and the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Arts Industry Council of South Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Tregear has acted as a Peer Assessor for the Australia Council in the past.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Last night’s budget failed to offer a compelling overall policy framework and vision for the arts in Australia. Like a Beckett play, narratively not much is going on.Joanna Mendelssohn, Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW SydneyJason Potts, Professor of Economics, RMIT UniversityJo Caust, Associate Professor, Cultural Policy and Arts Leadership, The University of MelbourneJulian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Flinders UniversityPeter Tregear, Teaching Fellow, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/584852016-04-27T04:04:55Z2016-04-27T04:04:55ZWhere is the balance and credibility in our federal government’s arts policy?<p>With the demise of the National Program for Excellence and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/out-with-the-npea-in-with-catalyst-expert-response-51026">invention of the Catalyst Fund</a> by the federal government in November 2015, the arts community is still at a loss around the real intent of this pool of funding. Information on the fund’s <a href="http://arts.gov.au/sites/default/files/cultural-diversity/catalyst-guidelines.pdf">website</a> says that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Catalyst aims to fund innovative ideas from arts and cultural organisations that may find it difficult to access funding for such projects from other sources …Catalyst will fund high quality projects irrespective of scale in all art forms, including screen-based art work and cross art form projects … individual projects will not receive more than A$500,000 in one year.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So far there has been limited information about the fund’s successful recipients. In February 2016, <a href="http://www.minister.communications.gov.au/mitch_fifield/news/first_catalyst_recipients_announced#.Vx75fs5OLLk">three</a> were announced. </p>
<p>The major winner was the Suzanne O'Connell Gallery, a commercial art gallery from Brisbane (George Brandis’ home state) with A$485,450 to cover the costs of sending an indigenous art exhibition to the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco in 2016. Immediately, though, the antenna was raised. </p>
<p>Why fund a commercial gallery? Don’t they sell the work they show and make a profit? Is the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco at the forefront of arts and cultural practices internationally? While it may be interesting to send an indigenous exhibition overseas, would Monaco be the first choice destination?</p>
<p>In the past month there have been several press releases from Western Australia announcing successful Catalyst recipients in that state. These include an amount of A$400,000 to the arts organisation <a href="http://www.form.net.au/">FORM</a>, to fund the transformation of a shed into a new cultural space. </p>
<p>Another recipient, the West Australian Ballet was given A$114,400 to tour work to Jakarta, and the West Australian Music Industry Association received A$45,925 for support towards touring Western Australian bands overseas. In addition, another WA youth theatre group, The Last Great Hunt Inc., received A$14,840 in March to tour a production to Montreal.</p>
<p>Then last week, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-22/sir-hans-heysen-home-gets-federal-funding/7349920">Minister Fifield announced that</a> Catalyst was awarding A$1 million to the Heysen house and studio in the Adelaide Hills to help with the upkeep of “the family home of one of Australia’s greatest landscape painters”.</p>
<p>In his announcement, Fifield bizarrely suggested that the Heysen “centre” could become the MONA of South Australia. Has he visited either place to draw this comparison? This announcement occurred only days after <a href="http://indaily.com.au/arts-and-culture/2016/04/18/sa-artists-rally-to-highlight-wretched-situation/">a rally in South Australia</a> to protest national and state cuts to South Australian arts funding organizations and artists. </p>
<p>It is also understood that a Catalyst grant <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2016/04/18/arts-sectors-worst-nightmare-comes-true-with-catalyst-a-smokescreen-for-pork/">has been awarded to Kaldor Public Art Projects</a> (a private arts foundation in Sydney) but they are keeping quiet about how much. In the February announcement, the Hush Foundation in Victoria, which works in hospitals and health care settings, was also granted A$50,000.</p>
<p>In its preamble, Catalyst says it aims to fund innovative ideas from arts and cultural organisations. Can it be said that sending an arts exhibition to Monaco or providing more upkeep to the Heysen home reflects innovative ideas? </p>
<p>Isn’t the million dollars awarded to the Heysen home well above the A$500,000 limit as noted on the Catalyst website? Why is there no formal announcement by the Ministry about the grants and the recipients?</p>
<p>A major reason for the establishment of bodies such as the Australia Council was the principle of <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-silver-tongued-turnbull-fails-to-woo-the-arts-vote-55132">arm’s length funding</a>, i.e. arts funding decisions being seen to be at a distance from the political processes of the day and there being a sense of transparency about the decision making process. </p>
<p>With the Catalyst Fund we are seeing the opposite; a lack of transparency in terms of decision making, invisible successful recipients, and in some cases, a close relationship with the government of the day. </p>
<p>Soon, the Australia Council will announce it decisions about which arts organisations they are cutting as a result of the hijacking of their funds last year by former Arts Minister Brandis. Already the youth theatre sector has been decimated by cuts. There is a sense of unreality about all of this. </p>
<p>On the one hand there is a Minister for the Arts and his government going around giving money to unusual (and some currently unknown) recipients, and on the other hand many artists and arts organisations are about to “be disappeared” by the national arts funding body because of a lack of funds. </p>
<p>Let’s hope that the Federal budget announcement next week restores much needed funding to the Australia Council, and brings back some balance and credibility to the present Federal Government’s arts policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Caust has received funding as a consultant from the Australia Council and the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Arts Industry Council of South Australia.</span></em></p>Decisions made by the federal government’s Catalyst arts fund are shrouded in secrecy and mystery. How are they reached and where is the transparency in deciding who receives money?Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/526842016-03-29T19:06:26Z2016-03-29T19:06:26ZSmall is beautiful: artist-run collectives count, but they’re facing death by a thousand cuts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116566/original/image-20160329-17844-1x1fj4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Artist-run initiatives are a major creative driver in Australia's art environment.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://articulate497.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Lesley%20Giovanelli">Lesley Giovanelli 'Continental Drift' Articulate project space 2015/Silversalt photography</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For those in the arts, Malcolm Turnbull’s honeymoon period is <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-silver-tongued-turnbull-fails-to-woo-the-arts-vote-55132">well and truly over</a>. In an open letter to the PM, the federation of national peak arts organisations ArtsPeak has asked him to <a href="http://www.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/grants-and-funding/performing-arts-writer/an-open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-250844">turn back the tide of relentless funding cuts</a> to arts groups. It reads, in part:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have witnessed sector budget cuts, funding administration changes and destabilising implementation … These changes were made without clearly articulated priorities or a framework which would make evident the government’s cultural vision and rationale.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>ArtsPeak has argued that further budget cuts in May will hit small to medium organisations particularly hard, with the funding pool reduced by A$12 million a year. </p>
<h2>The plight of the artist-run initiative</h2>
<p>One of the hidden casualties of these cuts will be artist-run initiatives. These are some of the most significant small organisations in Australia’s arts landscape. </p>
<p>First known as “alternative spaces”, they emerged around 40 years ago. One of the first was Sydney’s <a href="http://scanlines.net/group/inhibodress">Inhibodress</a>, founded by Mike Parr, Tim Johnson and Peter Kennedy. </p>
<p>Artist-run, self-organised art spaces and organisations are, of course, a global phenomenon. There are currently over a hundred operating here, although the numbers shift constantly. This is a very fluid and dynamic <a href="http://www.vividsydney.com/event/ideas/we-run-conversation-australias-independent-art-sector">sector</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116564/original/image-20160329-17840-43tfwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116564/original/image-20160329-17840-43tfwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116564/original/image-20160329-17840-43tfwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116564/original/image-20160329-17840-43tfwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116564/original/image-20160329-17840-43tfwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116564/original/image-20160329-17840-43tfwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116564/original/image-20160329-17840-43tfwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116564/original/image-20160329-17840-43tfwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">tarpspace will travel more than 20,000 km around Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">tarpspace: a mobile artist run initiative facilitated by Henry Walker, Jessie Lumb and Brad Lay</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For instance, <a href="http://www.freerange.org.au">Free Range</a> in Perth has been operating for over 15 years, <a href="http://wts.org.au">Watch This Space</a> in Alice Springs for 22 years and <a href="http://www.trocaderoartspace.com.au">Trocadero Art Space</a> in Melbourne’s Footscray has just celebrated its ten year anniversary. </p>
<p>On the other end of the spectrum, the one-year mobile project, <a href="http://www.pozible.com/project/19352">tarpspace</a>, used a blue tarpaulin as a “physical and conceptual framework” for an artspace. Launched in Adelaide in 2013, it travelled across Australia inviting artists to make projects on, in or with the tarp. </p>
<h2>No hierarchy</h2>
<p>Many people still imagine these initiatives as no more than an entry point for emerging artists. If their career becomes successful, they imagine artists will leave such groups far behind. But there are many exciting projects that simply don’t fit this perspective. </p>
<p>In Sydney, I found <a href="http://marrickvillegarage.com">Marrickville Garage</a> – a suburban garage lovingly converted into a gallery space in the backyard of artists Jane Polkinghorne and Sarah Newall. </p>
<p>They work with local councils on projects like Art Month Sydney, where they have organised an inspired range of work using their entire yard as exhibition space. On one occasion they invited their neighbours to give their front yards to exhibiting artists, turning the whole street into a public space of exhibition. </p>
<p>We can also look at the legendary <a href="http://www.boomalli.com.au">Boomalli Aboriginal Artist Cooperative</a>, initiated nearly thirty years ago by a group of urban-based indigenous artists. Boomalli emphasises curation by indigenous artists, with a broad range of practices.</p>
<p>For artists they aren’t simply spaces of exhibition, but rather a point of connection for artists, audiences, ideas and projects. They hold the promise of community.</p>
<p>If these are spaces of connection and relations, it follows that they are significant places for artists to create, beyond official art institutions. As the Senate inquiry into the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-senate-inquiry-into-arts-funding-a-new-live-performance-work-46751">impact of 2014 and 2015 budget decisions on arts funding</a> noted, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…not all artists aspired to work in major companies; small…organizations had inherent value in themselves, and even advantages over large organizations for both artist and audiences, and warranted support in their own right.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Just what is it that makes today’s artist-run initiatives so different, so appealing?</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116562/original/image-20160329-17824-fni53b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116562/original/image-20160329-17824-fni53b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116562/original/image-20160329-17824-fni53b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116562/original/image-20160329-17824-fni53b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116562/original/image-20160329-17824-fni53b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116562/original/image-20160329-17824-fni53b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116562/original/image-20160329-17824-fni53b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116562/original/image-20160329-17824-fni53b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nuha Saad: Landscapes of Gallantry (Zig Zag Ducks). Mark Titmarsh: Chromophiliac 2.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marrickville Garage Yard Installation for Marrickville Open Studio Trail.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Well, imagine a world without them. This thought sends me straight back to 1969, before the Whitlam government and the emergence of a strong Australia Council for the Arts. </p>
<p>It is a world consisting of only State galleries and museums with shows featuring a tiny number of artists – necessarily leaving out the very large and very “<a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/national-programme-for-excellence-in-the-arts">excellent</a>” growing numbers of artists that currently practice in Australia. </p>
<p>Of course there’s the smallish commercial galleries; again, not enough, and well, not the same thing. Once the product of radical ideologies about art, and its site of exhibition, <a href="http://runway.org.au">artist-run initiatives</a> have evolved into something else. </p>
<p>These initiatives are now significant public institutions. They underline the fact that art is not something that only happens in large galleries and museums: <a href="http://arcpost.ca/conference">it is primarily</a> “a field of relations among artists living and working in the world.” </p>
<p>Yet their existence is precarious and depends, on the whole, on volunteer labour and the belief and passion of the arts community. </p>
<p>Funding is often limited and various and most initiatives have to scramble for money to survive. The lack of proper public funding for these small energetic spaces is already a scandal. </p>
<p>The funding pool available to small-to-medium arts organisations was seriously depleted by former arts minister George Brandis’ focus on “peak” art bodies. </p>
<p>ArtsPeak co-convenors Tamara Winikoff and Nicole Beyer have warned that when the government allocates grants in May, more than 140 small enterprises will face cut backs, or potentially closure. </p>
<p>All the initiatives I’ve mentioned – and many, many more – lie outside the oft-cited model of such places as spaces, within an arts hierarchy, for young and emerging artists. But one thing they all have in common is that they enrich our art’s ecosystem immensely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Miranda receives funding from The Australian Research Council to research artist run initiatives</span></em></p>Small arts organisations are facing savage cuts in May. These vibrant collectives are a vital part of the Australian art ecology, and deserve better than slow strangulation.Maria Miranda, DECRA research fellow, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/557062016-03-16T02:50:18Z2016-03-16T02:50:18ZWeekly Dose: Lipitor, the highest-selling drug of all time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114775/original/image-20160311-11285-eg7zhe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lipitor is widely prescribed for cholesterol, but incorrect negative reports have seen its use decline slightly in Australia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com.au</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is the first article in our new ongoing series Weekly Dose, running every Wednesday. Articles will profile a different drug each week: how it works, what it’s used for, and other interesting facts.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p>Lipitor is the main drug from a family of medicines called statins, which are used to lower blood cholesterol levels. Other drugs in this class include: fluvastatin, pravastatin, rosuvastatin and simvastatin. </p>
<p>Generic versions of the drug are available and are sold under the name atorvastatin. Lipitor and atorvastatin contain the exact same active pharmaceutical ingredient (drug molecule) and are equally effective.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115062/original/image-20160315-17751-1bf30mo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115062/original/image-20160315-17751-1bf30mo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115062/original/image-20160315-17751-1bf30mo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115062/original/image-20160315-17751-1bf30mo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115062/original/image-20160315-17751-1bf30mo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115062/original/image-20160315-17751-1bf30mo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115062/original/image-20160315-17751-1bf30mo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>History</h2>
<p>Lipitor was first synthesised in 1985 by <a href="http://www.chemheritage.org/about/news-and-press/press-releases/2013-05-30-bruce-roth-to-receive-2013-sci-perkin-medal.aspx">Dr Bruce Roth</a>, a chemist working for the pharmaceutical company Warner-Lambert. </p>
<p>While under development, and before the company could get government approval for Lipitor, three other statin-based drugs beat it to the market. As such, the Warner-Lambert executives didn’t think there would be much of a market for Lipitor and the company almost stopped its development. </p>
<p>All that changed when the first human trials of Lipitor showed that not only did it work, but it worked much better than the other statins. In fact, it worked so well it was given the nickname Turbostatin.</p>
<p>Lipitor was first approved in 1997. While under patent protection it was the highest-selling drug of all time, with <a href="http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v16/n2/pdf/nm0210-150.pdf">worldwide sales at one stage of more than US$12 billion a year</a>.</p>
<h2>How it works</h2>
<p>The human body requires a constant supply of a fat called <a href="https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/cholesterol">cholesterol</a>, which it uses to make hormones, bile and vitamin D. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, when someone has a diet high in cholesterol, the body has too much and it ends up getting deposited in their arteries by low-density lipoprotein (LDL), a type of cholesterol transport vehicle in the body known as “bad cholesterol”. </p>
<p>Deposition of cholesterol in the arteries increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke. </p>
<p>Lipitor acts in the liver to stop the production of cholesterol, which has the flow-on effect of lowering the amount of LDL in the bloodstream. A daily dose of 40mg can be enough to reduce LDL levels by almost 50%.</p>
<p>Lipitor is supplied in packs of 30 as round, white tablets with the letters ATV stamped on one side and the dose (10mg to 80mg) stamped on the other side.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114797/original/image-20160311-11302-n6besz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114797/original/image-20160311-11302-n6besz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114797/original/image-20160311-11302-n6besz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114797/original/image-20160311-11302-n6besz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114797/original/image-20160311-11302-n6besz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114797/original/image-20160311-11302-n6besz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114797/original/image-20160311-11302-n6besz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114797/original/image-20160311-11302-n6besz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who should be taking Lipitor?</h2>
<p>A doctor may prescribe Lipitor for her patient if they are in any one or more of the following high-risk categories with:</p>
<p>• a significant family history of heart disease</p>
<p>• diabetes, and the patient is over 60 years of age</p>
<p>• diabetes, and the patient is of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent</p>
<p>• diabetes and microalbuminuria (when the kidney leaks albumin – a protein in the blood – into the urine) </p>
<p>• if they have suffered from coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease (such as stroke), or peripheral vascular disease (circulation disorders in the vessels outside the heart and brain).</p>
<p>Other indications a doctor will take into consideration is whether her patient has high levels of blood cholesterol or high blood pressure.</p>
<h2>Controversy</h2>
<p>In October 2013, the ABC science program Catalyst ran a two-part episode called <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/heartofthematter/">Heart of the Matter</a>, which looked at the cause of heart disease and the effectiveness of statins. This included Lipitor. </p>
<p>The episode was largely criticised by the scientific community for the program’s use of unqualified experts and the amount of airtime given to controversial theories. The ABC later admitted <a href="http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Catalyst-Heart-of-the-Matter-ACA-Investigation-Report.pdf">the episode was flawed</a> and pulled it from further view on its website, but the damage was done.</p>
<p>Since then, researchers at the University of Sydney have found that as many as <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=15115">60,000 patients stopped taking statins</a> as a result of the show. From this, they predicted there would potentially be up to 3,000 otherwise preventable heart attacks and strokes in the following years.</p>
<h2>Side effects</h2>
<p>Like all medicines, patients can experience side effects from the use of Lipitor. Common side effects include headache, sleep disturbance, dizziness and muscle pain. Rare side effects can include memory loss, allergic reaction, liver failure and nerve damage.</p>
<p>The use of statins, including Lipitor, is associated with an increased risk of <a href="http://www.wisegeekhealth.com/what-is-new-onset-diabetes.htm">new-onset diabetes</a>. The drug is not recommended for children, or for women who are breastfeeding or planning on becoming pregnant.</p>
<p><strong>Interesting fact:</strong> Patients taking Lipitor are advised not to drink grapefruit juice as it can increase the amount of the drug in their bloodstream, and therefore increase their chance of experiencing side effects.</p>
<h2>Cost</h2>
<p>Lipitor is covered by the <a href="http://www.pbs.gov.au/pbs/home">Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme</a>. This means the federal government covers most of the cost. The price a patient pays in the pharmacy will depend on the dose their doctor has prescribed. The maximum price for the lowest dose (10mg) is A$18.91 for 30 tablets, while the price for 80mg tablets is A$24.79.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Clinical information provided in this article is based primarily on the <a href="https://shop.amh.net.au/products/books/2016">Australian Medicines Handbook 2016</a>. If you would like more information, the consumer medicine information sheet on Lipitor is available <a href="https://www.ebs.tga.gov.au/ebs/picmi/picmirepository.nsf/pdf?OpenAgent&id=CP-2010-CMI-04866-3&d=2016030316114622412">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Wheate in the past has received funding from the ACT Cancer Council, Tenovus Scotland, Medical Research Scotland, Scottish Crucible and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance for research into chemotherapy and drug delivery. Dr Wheate is a named inventor on two international patents dealing with drug delivery.</span></em></p>Lipitor was approved by the government in 1997, and while under patent protection it was the highest-selling drug of all time with worldwide sales of more than US$12 billion a year.Nial Wheate, Senior Lecturer in Pharmaceutics, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/548812016-02-17T03:30:49Z2016-02-17T03:30:49ZDo Wi-Fi and mobile phones really cause cancer? Experts respond<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111722/original/image-20160217-19241-rnmi4p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is no firm evidence that mobile phone radiation causes us harm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>On 16th February, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/catalyst/">Catalyst</a> aired an episode on the ABC titled “<a href="http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/catalyst/SC1502H003S00">Wi-Fried</a>”, hosted by Dr Maryanne Demasi, claiming that radiation from mobile phones and Wi-Fi may constitute a brain cancer risk.</em></p>
<p><em>We invited experts who have conducted research into this area to respond to the claims made in the programme.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Rodney Croft, University of Wollongong</h2>
<p>Instead of science journalism, Catalyst aired a misleading program, which followed the views of a few individuals in arguing that radiofrequency emissions from wireless devices were harmful. </p>
<p>Although the program failed to disclose this, such views are not supported by science and should be taken merely as the personal views of some fringe scientists. </p>
<p>In fact, the scientific consensus is strong, and is that there is no substantiated evidence that the low levels of radiofrequency emissions encountered by mobile telecommunications can cause any harm. </p>
<p>For more details about the international scientific consensus on this issue you may find the website of the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (<a href="http://www.icnirp.org/">ICNIRP</a>) of interest, or closer to home, that of the <a href="http://acebr.uow.edu.au/index.html">Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research</a>.</p>
<p><em>Professor Rodney Croft is Director of the National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia’s Centre for Research Excellence in Electromagnetic Energy, he is a current ICNIRP Commissioner, and Professor of Health Psychology at University of Wollongong.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Darren Saunders, University of NSW</h2>
<p>It’s really disappointing to see the bastion of TV science in Australia approach a story in this way. </p>
<p>Scaremongering and pseudoscience have plenty of other outlets on TV, and there are so many amazing science stories to be told locally and internationally. There was very selective reporting of existing data and sensationalist headlines. </p>
<p>Catalyst has missed an opportunity to use this topic as a way to demonstrate scientific or critical thinking.</p>
<p>With so many scientists questioning the content and angle of stories like this, then it’s probably time for Catalyst to reflect on its approach. </p>
<p>The really frustrating aspect is that rebuttals and factchecks won’t undo the damage. There are very real public health effects of scaremongering like this, creating anxiety and fear.</p>
<p>The two main flaws in the argument that stand out scientifically are: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>The lack of any demonstrable increase in brain cancer incidence over time. We have been exposed to the same kind of non-ionising electromagnetic radiation long before mobile phones and Wi-Fi became commonplace, and </p></li>
<li><p>The absence of a plausible biological mechanism for how this kind of radiation can cause cancer. There were very poor analogies made with microwave ovens and smoking, which are purely emotive and not based on actual science. Comparing a microwave to a mobile phone is like comparing a Saturn V rocket to your lawnmower.</p></li>
</ol>
<p><em>Dr Darren Saunders is a cancer biologist at the University of NSW and visiting fellow at the Kinghorn Cancer Centre, Garvan Institute.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Sarah Loughran, University of Wollongong</h2>
<p>The ABC’s Catalyst programme “Wi-Fried” asked the question of whether Wi-Fi and radiation from wireless devices could be affecting our health. </p>
<p>Unfortunately a very disappointing and inaccurate story was presented, with the underlying suggestion throughout the episode that exposure to the radiofrequency fields emitted by these devices is not safe. </p>
<p>Many claims were made without providing any substantiated science to support what was essentially individual and selective opinions that were used to paint an incorrect picture of the current state of knowledge. </p>
<p>Indeed there is currently no scientific evidence that exposure to low level radiofrequency, such as emitted by mobile phones and Wi-Fi, has an impact on health. </p>
<p>By not providing a balanced view of the science, Catalyst has left viewers with misleading messages related to the use of such devices, which may serve to perpetuate fear related to a health risk that currently does not exist.</p>
<p><em>Dr Sarah Loughran is a researcher at the National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia’s Centre for Research Excellence in Electromagnetic Energy. She is currently a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Environmental Health Criterion Evaluation Committee on Radiofrequency Fields, the scientific expert group of ICNIRP, and is on the board of directors for the Bioelectromagnetics Society.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Simon Chapman, University of Sydney</h2>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devra_Davis">Dr Devra Davis</a>, who was featured extensively in the Catalyst programme, asserted that it was too early to see any rise in brain cancer caused by mobile phones or Wi-Fi, and argued that brain cancers after the Japanese atomic bombs did not appear for 40 years. This is simply incorrect. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-were-not-all-being-pickled-in-deadly-radiation-from-smartphones-and-wifi-41980">no evidence of any increase</a> in the rate per 100,000 population of brain cancer in any age group in Australia from 1982 to the present, other than for the very oldest age group where the increase started well before mobile phones were introduced in Australia and so cannot be explained by mobile phones. All cancer in Australia is notifiable, and over 85% of brain cancer is histologically verified: it is not just a doctor’s opinion. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15378499">This paper</a> also reports on central nervous system cancers (including brain cancers) in those exposed to atomic bomb radiation in Japan. This table from the paper shows those diagnosed before 1985 (i.e. before 40 years). You can see that there were 110/187 cases diagnosed in the first 40 years, i.e. 58.8%.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111720/original/image-20160217-19260-1vdeo4o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111720/original/image-20160217-19260-1vdeo4o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111720/original/image-20160217-19260-1vdeo4o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111720/original/image-20160217-19260-1vdeo4o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111720/original/image-20160217-19260-1vdeo4o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111720/original/image-20160217-19260-1vdeo4o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111720/original/image-20160217-19260-1vdeo4o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111720/original/image-20160217-19260-1vdeo4o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This table shows the incidence of a variety of cancers of those exposed to atomic bomb radiation over the years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cancer/DOI 10.1002/cncr.20543</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And this quote from the methods shows that there were another 27 who died before 1958 from central nervous system cancers, i.e. within 13 years of the bombs.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We excluded 73 tumors in individuals who were not in Hiroshima or Nagasaki at the time of the bombings, 35 individuals who did not have available organ dose estimates, and 27 individuals who died or were diagnosed before January 1, 1958.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We have had mobiles in Australia since 1988. Some 90% of the population use them today and many of these have used them for a lot longer than 13 years, but we are seeing no rise in the incidence against the background rate.</p>
<p>Davis is arguing that we would see a sudden rise 40 years later. That is not what we see with cancer; we see gradual rises moving toward peak incidence, which can be as late as 30-40 years (as with lung cancer and smoking for example).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82134/original/image-20150519-25403-17dit8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82134/original/image-20150519-25403-17dit8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82134/original/image-20150519-25403-17dit8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82134/original/image-20150519-25403-17dit8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82134/original/image-20150519-25403-17dit8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82134/original/image-20150519-25403-17dit8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82134/original/image-20150519-25403-17dit8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New cases of brain cancer in Australia, 1982 to 2011 (age-adjusted)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/acim-books/">Australian Institute of Health and Welfare</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Simon Chapman is Emeritus Professor in Public Health at the University of Sydney</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darren Saunders receives funding from The National Health and Medical Research Council, Motor Neuron Disease Research Institute of Australia and the US Department of Defense.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodney Croft receives funding from National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia. He is affiliated with University of Wollongong, International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection, the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence the "Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research", and the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence "Population Health Research on Electromagnetic Energy".</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Loughran receives funding from The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC). She is affiliated with the University of Wollongong, is currently a member of the WHO Environmental Health Criterion Evaluation Committee on Radiofrequency Fields, the Scientific Expert Group of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), and is on the board of directors for the Bioelectromagnetics Society. She is also a member of two NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence, "Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research" and "Population Health Research on Electromagnetic Energy".</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Chapman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>ABC’s Catalyst episode “Wi-Fried” claimed that mobile phones and Wi-Fi might be a cancer risk, but the leading experts are not so convinced.Simon Chapman, Emeritus Professor in Public Health, University of SydneyDarren Saunders, Senior Lecturer in Medicine, UNSW SydneyRodney Croft, Professor of Health Physiology, University of WollongongSarah Loughran, Research Fellow, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/523822015-12-15T08:53:15Z2015-12-15T08:53:15ZShort shelf life: the Book Council of Australia is stuffed back on the rack<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105999/original/image-20151215-23166-18anpen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The BCA was probably doomed the moment Tony Abbott announced its creation out of Australia Council funds.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nastya Shershneva</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 2006 throwaway romantic comedy <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427229/">Failure to Launch</a>, Matthew McConaughey plays a funny, handsome, promising man who, deep into his thirties, just can’t leave home. Eventually, it turns out that he had suffered a calamitous loss many years before when his fiancée died. He was doomed from the outset; after the bad start, his pecker and promise are all gone. </p>
<p>So it is with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-book-council-of-australia-well-its-better-than-nothing-47549">Book Council of Australia</a> (BCA), which was long dreamed of – since 2010 in fact – by a kabal of publisher, bookseller, agent, and author organisations, and eventually endorsed by Labor, and then <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/tony-abbott-announces-new-literary-body-the-book-council-of-australia-20141208-122vpd.html">announced by Tony Abbott</a> at last year’s Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105997/original/image-20151215-23202-108741r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105997/original/image-20151215-23202-108741r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105997/original/image-20151215-23202-108741r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105997/original/image-20151215-23202-108741r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105997/original/image-20151215-23202-108741r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105997/original/image-20151215-23202-108741r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105997/original/image-20151215-23202-108741r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Caleb Roenigk</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the day after this year’s PM’s Awards, the A$6 million to fund the BCA for its first three years has slipped back into general revenue as part of the <a href="http://www.budget.gov.au/2015-16/content/myefo/html/11_appendix_a_expense.htm">MYEFO budget statement</a>. The BCA, rather than launching, has been sent back to hangar.</p>
<p>The Council’s fate was perhaps soured from the start when – against industry wishes – it was funded by <a href="https://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/Mediareleases/Pages/2015/ThirdQuarter/11-September-2015-Book-Council-of-Australia.aspx">A$6 million</a> taken from the budget of the Australia Council. </p>
<p>It was dirty money, and it became dirtier still when it turned out that this was just a precursor to Senator George Brandis’s A$104.7 million attack on the Australia Council budget in May in order to establish a ministerial <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/national-programme-for-excellence-in-the-arts">National Program for Excellence in the Arts</a>. </p>
<p>Eventually, in September, when Brandis, in one of his dying acts as arts minister, empanelled a Book Council Board, under the chairpersonship of Melbourne University Press’s director Louise Adler, further indignity was heaped upon the BCA. </p>
<p>Melbourne literary activist Sam Twyford-Moore <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/sep/18/nick-cave-among-360-australian-writers-to-call-for-george-brandis-to-be-replaced-as-arts-minister">engineered an industry campaign</a> against the Council’s provenance, structure, and board appointments. Louise Adler in particular was targeted. Twyford-Moore called out the big guns: John Coetzee and Nick Cave, alongside 350 others, signed a public letter of opposition.</p>
<p>Since then nothing official has been heard about the BCA until the one-line detail in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/myefo-2015-at-a-glance-52298">MYEFO papers</a> today. But few seem to be mourning its passing. </p>
<p>Former President of the Australian Publishers Association <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-donoughue-128936">Peter Donoghue</a> seemed to sum up industry feeling in a Facebook post today:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The now abolished Book Council of Australia was always a bullshit organisation of dubious “industry policy” Kim Carr provenance, funded with stolen money, and a play pen for your standard book trade enmities – big players versus small; established versus emerging; local versus global; authors versus everybody else, etc – so I for one rejoice in its demise. The pity is the money wasn’t returned to its rightful owner, the Australia Council.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The demise of the BCA leaves government policy in the literary sector uncertain. Arts Minister <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/book-council-of-australia-to-be-scrapped-as-525-million-cut-to-arts-revealed-in-myefo-20151215-glnwza.html">Mitch Fifield is promising</a> to “consult widely with the literary community about alternative sector-led mechanisms for representation and promotion”, but for now conservative governments are leaving behind them a trail of acts that some interpret as hostile to literature, including: </p>
<ul>
<li>the <a href="https://theconversation.com/queensland-announces-literary-award-winners-no-thanks-to-newman-9322">cutting of funding</a> for literary awards in Queensland <br></li>
<li>the removal of <a href="http://www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com/2015/12/apples-and-oranges-the-false-economy-of-the-parallel-importation-debate/">territorial copyright protections</a> <br></li>
<li>cuts to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/philosophy-vs-evidence-is-no-way-to-orchestrate-cultural-policy-42487">Australia Council</a><br></li>
<li>and industry reports of imminent cuts to small literary organisations in WA. </li>
</ul>
<p>At the very least the conservatives seem ambivalent about supporting literature’s potential to arm any of their opponents in the renewed culture wars.</p>
<p>The BCA was probably doomed the moment Tony Abbott announced its creation out of Australia Council funds. But whether government-funded or otherwise, the sector, after the demise of the <a href="https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-218/when-they-come-to-save-books-what-will-they-save/">Literature Board</a> in 2014 and the BCA today, still badly needs a body to advocate for literature and to advise government on policy settings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52382/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Glover has served as an advisor to the Australia Council.</span></em></p>The Book Council of Australia – announced by Tony Abbott just over a year ago – was today scrapped. But we still need a body to advocate for literature and to advise government on policy settings.Stuart Glover, Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/510262015-11-20T03:45:05Z2015-11-20T03:45:05ZOut with the NPEA, in with Catalyst: expert response<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102590/original/image-20151120-13460-o2mhdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Following a sustained and vocal campaign by the arts sector, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts has been canned. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/national-programme-for-excellence-in-the-arts">National Program for Excellence in the Arts</a> (NPEA) – the hugely controversial body announced in the May budget by George Brandis to reorder arts funding in Australia – has been renamed and revised. </p>
<p>More than <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/thousands-lodge-submissions-to-the-senate-inquiry-into-arts-cuts-20150721-gih4e7.html">2,200 submissions</a> had been made to a senate inquiry into the funding changes, the vast bulk of which argued that the funding reallocated from the Australia Council to set up the NPEA – A$104.7 million over four years – should be returned, and that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/arms-length-forget-it-its-back-to-the-menzies-era-for-arts-funding-41743">arms-length funding principle</a> of the Australia Council should be maintained. </p>
<p>New Arts Minister Mitch Fifield <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/turnbull-government-overhauls-george-brandis-arts-slush-fund-20151119-gl35nc.html">announced last night</a> that the NPEA will be replaced by Catalyst — Australian Arts and Cultural Fund, which will distribute A$12 million annually, as opposed to the NPEA’s planned A$20 million.</p>
<p>The independent Australia Council will be re-allocated the difference – an additional A$8 million a year. The Catalyst Guidelines <a href="http://arts.gov.au/catalyst">can be accessed</a> on the Ministry for the Arts website. </p>
<p>Below, our experts give their initial impressions.</p>
<h2>Stuart Glover, Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing, The University of Queensland</h2>
<p>Mitch Fifield’s Catalyst Fund pretends to remedy the basic problems of George Brandis’s proposed NPEA – but really just sweeps up the mess into a slightly neater pile. The gains for writing and publishing in these latest changes are marginal – and still no news about <a href="https://theconversation.com/writers-and-publishers-are-all-at-sea-under-brandis-and-the-npea-44842">the Book Council of Australia</a>. </p>
<p>Brandis set up his NPEA without articulating clear policy imperatives to do so, and he then raided a long-standing program – the Australia Council funds for individuals and small and medium organisations – in order to fund it. The boy might have an Arts degree but he’ll go down as the biggest wrecker we’ve had as a Federal Arts Minister. </p>
<p>The new minister, Mitch Fifield, sensibly has returned some funds to the Australia Council and set clearer and more developed parameters for the ministerial funds he’ll hold onto, including (excuse my sarcasm) coming up with a much better name for his pot. The downsides to this scheme are the same: politicisation of arts funding decision-making on a scale not seen since the battle over Commonwealth Literary Fund in the 1940s – and cuts to the Australia Council’s capacity to support individual artists and small to medium organisations. </p>
<p>For literature, it seems that the proposed Catalyst fund will accept applications from writing and publishing organisations – which the NPEA wasn’t going to do – but even with some NPEA funds flowing back into the pot at the Australia Council, the literary sector will face a net reduction in funds compared to 2013/14. </p>
<p>Beyond this, the new minister still seems to be “umming” over the Abbott/Brandis Book Council initiative and its A$2 million budget. Following the demise of the Literature Board, I am pro-the Book Council – we need a whole-of-sector body for funding and policy making – but the provenance of its funds (also sourced from a cut to the Australia Council) has already problematised its relations with the sector, imperilling the Book Council’s future. </p>
<p>The arts budget is small beer – and literature and publishing barely an afterthought – but they deserve better than this. </p>
<h2>Joanna Mendelssohn, Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW Australia</h2>
<p>It is understandable that the arts community has been quick off the blocks to claim credit for the significant changes to the ill-considered “National Programme for Excellence in the arts” (to give its original George Brandis spelling). After all, they did run the most coordinated and targeted lobbying exercise I have seen for many years. </p>
<p>With the exception of the large companies, insulated by ministerial largesse, arts groups from many different cultural perspectives came together to campaign for their very existence.</p>
<p>While details are still sketchy it appears that the main beneficiaries of the A$8 million a year that is being refunded to the Australia Council will be individual practitioners. This is fair enough as they were the main victims of the original cuts. </p>
<p>The newly named Catalyst program is intriguing. The name is a popular one in the arts. In Western Australia it is given to a <a href="http://www.canwa.com.au/what-we-do/catalyst/">community arts funding program</a>, while in the UK it’s a culture sector-wide private giving <a href="http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/apply-funding/funding-programmes/catalyst-arts/">investment scheme</a> aimed at helping cultural organisations diversify their income streams and <a href="http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/apply-funding/funding-programmes/catalyst-arts/#sthash.5TE3yrCg.dpuf">access more funding</a> from private sources. </p>
<p>The arts community has been assured that funding from Catalyst, unlike its awkwardly named predecessor, will all be doled out in an arms-length, non-political process.</p>
<p>From what has been released so far the Australian Catalyst Arts and Culture Fund could be going down the UK path, or maybe after the embarrassment of “Excellence” the minister’s advisers are trying to politely distance their new policy from Senator Brandis, who is still in Cabinet. </p>
<p>But even though Mitch Fifield has made the announcement, it is fairly clear that the changes in funding are all a part of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s larger purpose of moving government policies away from the impetuous extremism of the Abbott years, towards the effective centralism of Hamer, Menzies and Turnbull’s long-time mentor, Neville Wran.</p>
<h2>Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Flinders University</h2>
<p>To borrow a phrase: this is not the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning. The remodelling of the NPEA as the Catalyst Fund does three things. </p>
<p>First, it shifts government relations with the theatre sector out of the rhetoric of excellence and into the language of innovation. The latter might be equally opaque and decontextualised, but at least it doesn’t equate to the minister’s personal reading list. </p>
<p>Second, it gives some money back to the Australia Council that, by any rational measure, should never have been removed from it in the first place. The client base was already cut to the bone. The NPEA bit into the bone. Catalyst still means unnecessary pain for the sector, but less of it. </p>
<p>Third, it allows the Fund to better position itself on the horizon of small to medium theatre organisations. Key to this is the fact that the Fund can consider administration costs as part of its application process, even if “projects that include a high percentage of administration costs are likely to represent less value for money to assessors”. </p>
<p>This means it won’t be just the major companies – the ones who can absorb such costs in other parts of their budget – that are able to apply when the Fund opens in two weeks’ time. </p>
<p>Despite these positive aspects to the announcement, however, it won’t stop the job losses that many smaller organisations face come the end of the year; nor does it revive plans for a six-year reporting cycle; and it doesn’t meaningfully reconnect with the <a href="http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/strategic-plan/">Australia Council’s 2014 Strategic Plan</a>, or the years of policy-making behind it. </p>
<p>As a blunder of the first water, the NPEA has been reduced in size, but remains visible. If Catalyst works, it will be duplicating the role of the Australia Council. If it doesn’t, it will be undermining it. </p>
<p>The only real way out of this problem is to seed the fund with new money, and make good in full the cuts to the federal agency. No doubt the minister has many requests on his Christmas list. He should put that one at the top.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51026/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Glover is a peer assessor for the Australia Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn receives funding from the ARC through a Linkage Project on the History of Exhibitions of Australian Art and has been a recipient of an ARC LIEF grant for Design and Art of Australia Online.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Following a sustained and vocal campaign by the arts sector, the controversial National Program for Excellence in the Arts has been rethought and renamed. Should we be celebrating or concerned?Stuart Glover, Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing, The University of QueenslandJoanna Mendelssohn, Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW SydneyJulian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.