A Coalition government would divert more than 10% of annual government funding for Creative Australia to a single cultural project and unspecified broadcasting programs if elected at Saturday’s federal election.
In the Coalition’s policy costings, released on Thursday, the “safe, sustainable and connected communities” section contained a pledge to “redirect” $33.2m of Creative Australia’s annual funding of $312m “to Melbourne Jewish Arts Quarter and supporting broadcasting”.
The quarter is a planned new centre celebrating Jewish arts, culture, food and shopping in Elsternwick in Melbourne.
A Coalition spokesperson did not clarify what “supporting broadcasting” referred to.
Creative Australia and its chief executive, Adrian Collette, became the subject of criticism in the Senate in February, when the Coalition’s arts spokesperson, Claire Chandler, called into question the funding body’s choice of the Lebanese-born Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi as Australia’s representative at next year’s Venice Biennale.
Within 24 hours, Creative Australia had rescinded its commission to Sabsabi and his curator, Michael Dagostino.
Last month, Labor announced $18m for the new Jewish Arts Quarter, which will include a relocated Jewish Museum of Australia, a new Holocaust museum and redevelopment of the Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre and National Library.
Within days, Chandler announced her party would match Labor’s pledge for the project, which sits in the federal electorate of Macnamara, a previously safe Labor seat held by MP Josh Burns since 2019 which is in a tough three-cornered contest this election.
On Thursday, the Liberal party’s costings showed that pledge had now more than doubled to almost $44m, with the first tranche of $33.2m to be drawn from Creative Australia’s coffers in the 2025-26 financial year.
“The Coalition prefers to fund art rather than arts bureaucracy,” a Coalition spokesperson said. “So we will redirect some funding from Creative Australia towards Coalition priorities in the arts.”
Labor’s arts minister, Tony Burke, harked backed to a previous Liberal government decision on arts funding, which saw $104.7m redirected from Creative Australia – then called the Australia Council – to a separate kitty, to be dispersed at the discretion of the then Liberal arts minister George Brandis.
“It’s the Brandis cuts all over again,” Burke said. “Last time they went down this path, independent artists and small to medium companies were smashed.”
Labor confirmed the $18m it had pledged to the Jewish Arts Quarter would be funded separately from the Creative Australia budget.
The Greens’ arts spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, condemned what amounted to a 10.65% cut to Creative Australia’s 2025-26 funding.
“It is an absolute disgrace that the Liberals’ only plan for the arts is a big cut to funding,” she said. “The arts contribute $112bn to our economy and our artists and workers in the creative industries deserve better.
“We know from the last time that they were in government the Liberals will cut arts funding and attack artistic freedom.”
A spokesperson for Creative Australia said on Thursday its CEO did not comment on election commitments.
