The nation's largest cultural institutions are hopeful the prime minister's suggestion they have been "starved of funds" in recent years will be followed with hefty cheques in the next federal budget, due in May.
Organisations such as the National Library of Australia and the National Gallery of Australia have sounded warnings about their ongoing viability, following budget cuts and surging operating costs.
In the 2015-16 midyear budget update, they were among institutions hit with a four year "efficiency dividend", designed to save Commonwealth coffers $36.8 million.
When asked on Tuesday whether he would increase funding, the prime minister hinted at extra support but avoided going into specific details.
"The national institutions have been starved of funds," he said.
"These are national assets that are a very important part about our fabric.
"And so, that is something that the government will give consideration to in the lead-up to the May Budget."
Late last year, the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) warned of significant staffing cuts and potential temporary closures.
The National Library of Australia (NLA) is still grappling with repairs to its heritage copper roof, following a devastating hailstorm in 2020, and is developing contingency plans for managing its popular online database Trove, with funding due to run out in the middle of the year.
"The library is in active discussions with government about funding matters, including those relating to Trove," a spokesperson said.
"The library's council will consider service options in coming months, when the forward government funding position is clear."
Money needed for infrastructure, not just collections
In addition to undertaking their day-to-day operations, many are dealing with ageing and crumbling buildings, leaving them pleading for extra funds from the federal government.
"The mundane reality is that towards the top of many of our wish lists of things like plumbing and cabling, you know, the kind of unseen but necessary kind of infrastructural problems," said Patrick McIntyre, chief executive of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA).
"But really, our wish list is about, in the digital age, as increasingly we preserve audio visual and digital formats — everyone around the country should be able to rummage through them."
Mr McIntyre claimed the NFSA's funding had only increased by around 5 per cent in 15 years, and argued the impact of the Turnbull-era efficiency dividend had hit hard.
"An efficiency dividend makes sense if your basic supposition is that there's a lot of kind of fat in the system to sweat out," he said.
"But I think what happened — you know, the cultural sector is generally pretty lean.
"And so I think what the efficiency dividend has done really is it's kind of forced us into reducing programs and services, rather than becoming more efficient per se."
NGA Director Nick Mitzevich said "the prime minister and the minister for the arts clearly understand our financial position and we are working with them on this."
Greens argue for more than 'sugar hit'
In December, Arts Minister Tony Burke told the Woodford Folk Festival there was "justified outcry" about the financial state of the nation's cultural institutions.
"There will be major decisions that the government will take in dealing with those challenges," he said.
Mr Burke noted they would not be dealt with at the end of January, when the Labor government is planning to release its new arts strategy.
Greens arts spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young criticised the former Coalition government for prioritising a half-a-billion-dollar redevelopment of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
"When you see hundreds of millions of dollars going towards the rebuild, and the massive expansion of a war memorial … it's quite clear that the previous government decided to go to war with our cultural institutions, and Australian artists and storytellers," she said.
"Many of these institutions suffered big blows during COVID, but a lot of the pain came well before then.
"We need not just a one-off sugar hit — we need an increase in recurrent funding for these institutions, which are the cultural infrastructure and fabric of our nation."
Acting shadow arts minister Sarah Henderson said the prime minister's claim had "no foundation".
"During the time the Coalition was in government, total arts funding increased from $703.5 million to $1.067 billion including vital COVID support, the highest level of Commonwealth arts funding in history," she said in a statement.
That figure is for the entire arts sector from 2013 to 2022, not just what was allocated in successive budgets to the nation's cultural institutions.
The former government did provide investments in the national institutions for specific projects.
"Regrettably, the Labor government in its October 2022 budget delivered a cut to arts funding," Senator Henderson said.
"A budget tells Australians everything they need to know about a government's priorities and, despite all the banter and bluster, this government has so far failed to do anything of substance for the arts sector.
"The opposition trusts that this paltry record will be reversed in the May 2023 budget."
