Art is all around us, all the time. Where does it come from? It’s just ‘there’ …
Adelaide's Follow the White Rabbit, an Alice in Wonderland inspired exhibition in January. AAP Image/NEWZULU/Sam Talbot
The Senate Inquiry into the 2015-16 arts budget cuts continued in Adelaide last week. If nothing else, it provided a timely reminder that art - and the lives of artists - matter.
‘Not the best person to liaise with us’: senator David Leyonhjelm on new government Senate leader George Brandis.
Lukas Coch/AAP
An important element in the success of Malcolm Turnbull’s government will be how effectively it handles the Senate. Some crossbench senators have greeted the arrival of Turnbull enthusiastically, contrasting…
The new Arts Minister, Mitch Fifield, is in a fortunate position …
Rachel.Adams
If the new arts minister, Mitch Fifield, abolishes the National Program for Excellence in the Arts and diverts its funds back to the Australia Council, he will increase arts funding at no cost to the budget bottom line.
Chief Executive and Publisher of Melbourne University Press, Louise Adler, will chair the new book council.
AAP ONE
The Book Council of Australia began to take shape last week when MUP director Louise Adler was announced as its chair. But what is its purpose, and how will it embrace the industry’s new voices?
If we have learned anything thus far it is this: one man’s excellence is another man’s mediocrity.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
In live performance, when developing a new work and before getting to the final rehearsal period, previews and season, there is often a public showing. Enter the Senate Inquiry, stage left.
Federal Attorney-General George Brandis wants to remove green groups’ blanket eligibility to challenge environmental approvals in the courts.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
The government plans to change the law so green groups don’t automatically qualify to mount legal challenges against environmental approvals. That would make it much harder for green watchdogs to act.
Artists must take the opportunity to sharpen their minds as well as their rhetoric.
id-iom
How can common standards apply to a sector with so much difference? Artists must take the opportunity to sharpen their minds as well as their rhetoric. The implications of the NPEA go beyond the polemical.
Attorney-General George Brandis has slapped down the idea of a referendum on same-sex marriage.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Ministerial divisions have broken spectacularly into the open over whether Tony Abbott’s proposed popular vote on same-sex marriage should be a plebiscite or a constitutional referendum.
Australia’s method of appointing judges to its highest courts is opaque and informal.
AAP/Lukas Coch
It is no criticism of Australia’s judiciary to say that it would be preferable, both for them and the public, if they took office after a more transparent process.
Senator Scott Ludlam said changes to arts funding will mean the minister will not need to publicly reveal funding recipients. True or false?
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
The Greens’ Senator Scott Ludlam said changes to arts funding will mean arts minister George Brandis won’t need to publicly disclose who he’s funding. He said it’s unbelievable – but is it true?
The Law Reform Commission has likely given George Brandis much more than he was expecting in the review of rights-limiting laws that he asked for.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The federal government has to be on the back foot after a Law Reform Commission report identified that It has been the champion of many rights-limiting laws.
Tony Abbott has released the federalism discussion paper.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Allowing states to raise their own income tax and changing the way the GST is carved up are among options put in the government’s discussion paper on reform of Australia’s federation.
The capricious nature of this government’s approach to arts funding promises very rich pickings.
chiaralily
A motion in favour of a Senate Inquiry into the establishment of a National Programme for Excellence in the Arts has been passed. What more can be done by those artists and arts organisations lobbying against unpopular changes to arts funding?
Peter Dutton has proven why he should not be given sole power under the government’s proposed new law to revoke the citizenship of dual nationals involved in terrorist activities.
AAP/Dave Hunt
Last Friday, Attorney-General George Brandis and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton issued an extraordinary statement declaring that the president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, needed…
The ambivalence which with artists have viewed the Australia Council needs to be put aside.
Alvaro Tapia
Momentum continues to build in the Australian art community’s response to changes to arts funding in last month’s budget. Is it now time for artists to consider direct action?
The evidence of cultural consumption and production in Australia does not bear out the claims made by Senator Brandis.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
What is the premise of recently-announced cuts to Australia Council funding, and the establishment of a National Programme for Excellence in the Arts? There is actually a considerable evidence base from which to form policy decisions in Australian arts funding.
The overhaul of arts funding has left the sector in shock – with many looking for clues as to how George Brandis’ new arts funding body with work in practice.
Tom_Allan/Flickr
The arts sector has been shocked by cuts to the Australia Council – but details about the new National Program for Excellence in the Arts are in short supply. What do we know about George Brandis’s vision for the arts?
Three of the seven seats in the High Court of Australia will soon be filled by women judges.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Now that women will make up 40% of High Court judges come June 2015, is gender now irrelevant? Hardly. Women have made up slightly less than 10% of all High Court judges in the court’s history.
George Brandis has a heavy load to lift as Attorney-General – but his priorities for the Arts portfolio could be clarified.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
For artists and cultural workers, a change of government leads to a change of priorities – and often, opportunities disappear. So what do we know about the priorities for the current Minister for the Arts?
Attorney-General George Brandis has reiterated his lack of confidence in Gillian Triggs.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The Senate has censured Attorney-General George Brandis, saying he is “unfit to hold the office”, over his behaviour in relation to Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne