Culture and Political Party Ideology in Australia KATYA JOHANSON AND HILARY GLOW

ABSTRACT. Australian federal cultural policy has often been shaped and altered, depending on the political party in power, in ways that reflect that party’s distinctive ideology. The authors trace the influence of Australia’s two major political parties on federal cultural policy, arguing that their distinctive political philosophies have been significant forces in determining the changing shape of cultural policy in diverse and complex ways. The authors then demonstrate that, over the past decade, the cultural policies of the two major parties have become less distinctive as each party responds to the same international economic and political challenges. They argue that this lack of ideological dichotomy within political discourse over the past decade has hampered the development of cultural policy that adequately responds to the cultural interests of Australian communities and artists.

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(AQ: Are the following paragraphs part of the abstract, are they an introduction, or are they part of the body of the article? Please shorten abstract to 100 words or less) We analyze Australian federal cultural policy in the context of political par-

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The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society ties’ ideologies. While other writers on cultural policy, such as Gibson (2001), Stevenson (2000), Radbourne (1997), and Rentschler (2002) have documented historical shifts in cultural policy and often analyzed the political significance of these shifts, their focus has not primarily been on an analysis of policy in relation to the political parties. We examine how Australia’s two major political parties—the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Liberal–National Party Coalition (hereafter referred to as the Liberal government)—have shaped their cultural development policies with their own distinct political values and objectives. We have two aims: first, to identify continuity and change in the federal government’s approach to cultural policy since the 1970s and to identify when cultural policy can be seen to have reflected traditional and changing political party ideology. Changes to these ideologies were a response to changes to Australia’s social and economic environment—changes that also affected policy development in several Western European countries. We define cultural policy as the dedication of federal public funding to the arts and cultural development, as distinct from regulatory types of policy or government strategies to encourage private funding. We focus on federal policy rather than state and local governments. The significance of the analysis here is that it illustrates political and social trends that extend well beyond Australia’s shores, trends that have propelled the development of cultural policy in many nations. O’Regan (2002) points out that the “international agenda for the extended scope of cultural policies has a significant Australian connection”(15). Australian cultural policy studies have often led the international development of rationales for cultural policy and, as such, Australian cultural policy can be seen as emblematic of international policy trends. Second, we focus on the period from 1996 to 2007. We argue that during this time period, the rationales for the two major parties’ cultural policies have become more similar to, and derivative of, one another than in the past. This divergence has been detrimental to the success of cultural policy in generating and supporting wide-ranging cultural practices. Recently, however, there have been signs that the ALP is beginning to depart from the cultural policy it established in 1994 and which has shaped the current Liberal government’s cultural policy. We begin by providing a historical context for the Australian political party system. We then analyze the period between 1972 and 1991 to establish the evolving conventions and rationales for cultural policy over this period. In particular, we look at the formative cultural policy initiatives that took place during the Labor government of Gough Whitlam; these are contrasted with the changing policy rationales under the subsequent Liberal government of Malcolm Fraser. Following this, we review the period between 1991 and 1996, when Australian cultural policy achieved an unprecedented level of 2

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Article Name attention from Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, who saw the arts and cultural activity as critical components in a renewed focus on cultural identity. Under Keating’s government, Australia saw the development of its first cultural policy statement, Creative Nation, a framework that continues to shape the policy priorities of the present day. Finally, we consider the period between 1996 and 2007 and the state of cultural policy under the Liberal government of John Howard. We note that, over time, the ideological and policy differences between the two major political parties has become increasingly blurred and that, as a result, Australian cultural policy is in a hiatus. THE PARTY SYSTEM The Australian party system is frequently described as more ideologically driven than the systems of other nations, such as the United States and Canada (Woodward, Parkin, and Summers 2002). Class interests form the dominant factor around which the two major parties in Australia were created and have historically competed. Founded in the 1890s, the ALP was formed as the political wing of the labor movement. From its beginning, the ALP promoted democratic socialism. It sought economic and political redistribution to enable equality of opportunity, public enterprise, full employment and the protection of political and civil rights. The Liberal Party was formed in 1910, largely as a reaction to the election of the first national Labor government. The Liberal Party’s ideology is less readily articulated than the platform of its opponent, but it promotes the following: the rights and freedom of the individual over those of the state; free enterprise; and profit-making as the dominant means of stimulating production and heightening living standards. The party’s peripatetic coalition with the National Party has been made possible by the latter’s commitment to free enterprise and hostility to communism and socialism. Since the 1970s, the policy platforms of the two major parties have become more alike, as the ALP has embraced the growth of private enterprise in key policy areas such as health and education. We identify a similar trend in cultural policy. However, while the respective parties’ approaches to economic or social welfare policies are clearly drawn from party ideology, a party’s approach to cultural policy is not so predictable. We begin with the period between 1972 and 1996, which represents an extraordinary period in the fermentation of both parties’ approaches to cultural policy. These were the years in which cultural policy was gradually stitched into the fabric of both parties’ ideological agendas. 1972–1991 The crucial establishment phase of public cultural funding occurred Summer 2008

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The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society under the Liberal governments of Harold Holt and John Gorton and Gough Whitlam’s Labor government. In this phase, the parties began to articulate cultural policy objectives that clearly reflected their, albeit changing, party’s philosophies. In this phase, the Australian Council for the Arts, the Australian Film Commission, the Experimental Film Fund, and the Australian Film Television and Radio School were created. These initiatives were responses to international trends and changing Australian demographics. The Holt and Gorton governments designed the original plans for most of these institutions, but they were reticent about the political objectives for doing so. In contrast, the Whitlam Labor government, which devoted an unprecedented budget to the establishment and functioning of cultural funding agencies, clearly articulated the ALP’s evolving party ideology over the issue of cultural policy. The Whitlam government had three cultural policy concerns. First, the government was concerned about recognizing and protecting the rights of artists as workers. Echoing the sentiment of the Paris May 1968 uprising, in which students and artists fought to “reconcile culture and life . . . to make it one thing to li[v]e, to work and to celebrate” (Wimmer 2004, 6), Australian artists and students had formed a powerful lobby group that supported Whitlam in the lead-up to his 1972 electoral victory. “Artists for Whitlam” committees consisted of people who considered themselves professional artists, and Whitlam’s generous cultural policy reflected their identity as professional workers (Whitlam 1985). The infrastructure that the Labor government put in place, such as the art form boards of the Australia Council in which groups of artists made funding decisions, was based on a model of participatory democracy in the workplace (Coombs 1981). The definition of artists as workers, requiring improved industrial conditions and protection, clearly stemmed from ALP ideology. Second, however, the government sought to appeal to Australia’s growing middle class. [AQ: Please clarify (missing word?) Whitlam’s ALP targeted the middle class it had (made a?) politically significant demographic by the 1970s (Blazey and Campbell 1974)]. Lacking a historical political allegiance, it was a class looking for a leader, and generous cultural funding was one means of appealing to it. Thus, Whitlam’s appeal “was aimed into the living-rooms of the ‘decent’ middle class—the people who had believed in Menzies, who approved the end of the Vietnam War . . . and who had read Patrick White’s novels” (Blazey and Campbell 175). Third, Whitlam sought to move Labor’s ideology beyond its traditional preoccupation with social welfare—a move facilitated by the ostensible success of Keynesian economic management. The “ordinary, old-fashioned problems of economic management” appeared to have been solved, and the Labor government’s policies resembled “programmes for social engineer4

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Article Name ing rather than economic planning” [AQ: Please provide page number(s) (Freudenberg 1977, 78)]. This sense of reliable prosperity allowed the “quality of life” issues such as the arts to become the principal motivation for a range of government policies. Thus, Whitlam stated that the central objectives of a Labor government—such as social reform, welfare equity and educational opportunities—were geared toward creating a society in which “the arts and the appreciation of spiritual and intellectual values can flourish. Our other objectives are all a means to an end; the enjoyment of the arts is an end in itself” (Whitlam 1985, 553). Just as it was considered the role of a Labor government to provide universal welfare and education, it was the role of a Labor government to provide culture for all citizens. As a result of economic and social changes in Australia, the ALP’s concerns increased in the 1970s, and its cultural policy reflected this expansion. In the Whitlam years, cultural policy was directed toward the encouragement of a protected workforce of professional arts workers as a form of public enterprise to serve the cultural needs of the citizenry. By the end of Whitlam’s term, however, the ALP was becoming increasingly concerned that cultural policy was not serving the needs of the “community,” but those of an elite that frequented performing arts such as opera and ballet, which also happened to be the major recipients of cultural funding. Labor Senator John Button (1976), for instance, argued that: cultural values of . . . [Australian] children are being basically obtained from television. They are not being obtained from the Australian Opera, the Australian Ballet or any of the large prestige arts organisations which this Parliament continues to fund and sponsor. . . . There is no doubt that consumers of the prestige arts organisations in Australia are privileged and that the children of Australia are grossly underprivileged in what they consume and in what might be described as their cultural milieu (1346). [AQ: Emphasis added?]

By 1976, cultural policy appeared to have failed traditional Labor ideology by reinforcing the interests of the elite and forsaking social equity. This reinforcement of the interests of the elite might appear to contradict the traditional egalitarian principle of the ALP. But this focus was a symptom of the government’s perception of professional artists as workers, and it was the professional artists that took part in the major performing arts companies that best suited the industrial model. A significant policy response to this failure, and one that complemented Labor party ideology, was the development of funding for the community arts movement to allow local and specific cultural communities to choose and develop their own arts. This was a policy over which the Whitlam government missed presiding, as it was removed from office in 1975. The incoming conservative Fraser government sanctioned and gradually increased community arts funding (Hawkins 1994). That it did so might again be considered Summer 2008

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The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society a contradiction of conservative party ideology, as it involved the expansion of federal public funding [AQ: What is federal public funding?]. Yet this apparent contradiction, like that of Whitlam funding elite art forms, can also be seen as reflecting party ideology. In particular, community arts came to encompass the Liberal government’s traditional philosophy of freedom of individual expression by ostensibly giving greater power to communities to make their own cultural choices. Fraser stated: “We believe in freedom for artist and patron alike. For this reason, we do not see the Government as the only or necessarily the major source of art patronage” [AQ: Please provide page numbers for all quotations (Fraser 1976)]. The Liberal Party was ideologically opposed to public enterprise, and this applied to the arts. Several years later, for instance, Alexander Downer declared in parliament “ So many people are sitting around like junkies, waiting for their next fix of government grants. The big spending has undermined the sense of community responsibility that was once such an important part of Australian civilisation” [AQ: Need page # (Downer 1987)]. He thus gave public arts funding the same social stigma that Fraser applied to “dolebludgers” [AQ: Need page # (Crowley 1986)]. At the national level, the Community Arts Board of the Australia Council, formed in 1977, brokered partnerships with local and state governments and quasi-government organizations, which shifted the bulk of financial responsibility from a government that was ideologically opposed to “big government” (Hawkins 1994, 55). The broad objectives of community arts therefore complemented trends in Liberal government policy. Support for community arts reflected the fact that in its broader policies, the government was not hostile to the notion of community in the same way the Thatcher government in Britain was seen to be, but actively adopted it where “communities” could be seen as potential vehicles for service delivery that were largely financed by agencies outside the national government. The government thus facilitated a reduction in national public expenditure [AQ: Please provide single page number for “communities”; for paraphrases, page numbers are not needed (Castles, Kalantzis and Cope 1990, 57–79)]. The Hawke Labor government that defeated Fraser in 1983 also imbued cultural policy with party ideology, but in quite a different way than Whitlam. Labor party faith in the Australian success of Keynesian economic management had dissolved by the early 1980s, and the pressing political issue for the government was Australia’s foreign debt, as evident in the then Treasurer Paul Keating’s famous comments about Australia needing a recession to avoid becoming a “banana republic” (McMullin 1992, 422). The Hawke government thus promoted market liberalization, the abolition of tariffs, and public sector cuts to stimulate export growth and increase Australia’s responsiveness 6

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Article Name to international markets. Under Hawke, the Labor Party drove economic rationalism into government as a major ideology that would shape a range of policies over the next twenty years (Kelly 1994). Cultural policy was included in the list of measures relevant to these new ideological imperatives, largely because of the success of cultural funding proponents like Donald Horne (chair of the Australia Council) and Barry Jones (minister for science and former member of the Australia Council’s Film Board) in appealing to government ministers and molding policy rhetoric. Horne argued, for instance, that cultural policy could serve the interests of industry reform [AQ: What industry?], because it was directed at stimulating culture as a “post-industrial” or tertiary industry, the success of which would reduce the economy’s reliance on the export of primary produce (Horne 1986). Not only were the recipients of cultural funding potential producers of cultural exports, but the “creativity” they represented and stimulated in others came to be seen as a value-adding resource that could give Australian products a competitive edge in the international market. In the context of international trade, Labor Party ideology had shifted since the Whitlam government’s cultural policy initiatives, but culture was nonetheless regarded as [AQ: Please clarify “of significant national interest”]. This section has illustrated the complex and changeable nature of the relationship between cultural policy and political party ideology. The development of Australia’s cultural policy provides an excellent illustration of how party ideologies and their associated objectives are redefined in response to changes to the political and social environment to which they are geared. 1991–96 Paul Keating succeeded Bob Hawke as prime minister in 1991. Under Keating’s stewardship, the public profile of Australian arts and culture was greatly enhanced. This was because Keating was an arts enthusiast. There was a big increase in the Australia Council’s appropriation over the term of Keating’s government (Milne 2004).1 The profile of Australian arts and culture was also tied to Keating’s vision for Australia’s future economic and social viability, which entailed a concomitant movement toward republicanism, reconciliation, [AQ: reconciliation with whom?] and strengthening ties with the Asia Pacific region (Kelly 1994). Brett (2002) points out that after winning the 1993 election, Keating turned his attention toward “big picture issues,” addressing Australia’s cultural and national identity (Brett 183). Keating’s big picture was, Brett says, “grandiose” because he “claimed for Labor all the reforming energy in Australia’s political life” (184). Keating saw republicanism not only as desirable but as essential to Australia’s economic and social well-being. It would make Summer 2008

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The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society Australia “a robust social democracy, a player of substance in the world, integrated with our region and prosperous in a way that we have never been before . . . not only in material comforts but in ideas and innovation; in our capacity to make things and sell them to the world” (Keating 1995, 155). A sense of cultural identity would be essential to the success of this transition, and artists therefore occupied an important role in Keating’s vision. “The shift we’ve made in this country from just being a quarry and a farm to a great manufacturing society, as we’re becoming, that shift to innovation and manufacturing is a call on the fountainhead, a call upon the ideas and the art” (Keating 1993, 2–3). Like Horne, Keating talked about republicanism, cultural identity, and industrial development as different parts of the same phenomenon: “the Arts and industry are one, can be one, should be one, because . . . both give of the sense of creativity which this country has . . . we’ll never get pride from a truckload of coal” (Keating 2–3). The renewed focus on cultural identity was part of Keating’s nationalist reading of Australia’s past and his grand vision for its future. It was a vision underwritten by his belief in a distinctive Australian nationalism and the importance of national self-realization. But, at the same time, Keating was also responsible for ushering the era of globalization into Australia, [AQ: please clarify “ushering the era of globalization into Australia”]along with a free-market ideology with its potential to destabilize national boundaries and heart-felt national sentiment. Keating, with a foot in each camp, saw himself with a mission to redefine the nation (Curran 2004). According to Curran, Keating rejected the idea that globalization necessitated the abolition of the nation-state and instead supported “an enduring, central role for government in a globalized world” (208). In 1994, Keating released Creative Nation, [AQ: Need citation for Creative Nation] the first comprehensive cultural policy statement by a sitting government (previous statements had tended to be part of a political party’s preelection policy) and it has set the benchmark for Australian cultural policy in all its subsequent iterations (Smith 2001). Creative Nation declared that “being open to the world” and not cultural protectionism would prserve Australia’s fragile national cultural identity. [AQ: Need page number] As long “as we are assured about the value of our own heritage and talents,” Australia could only benefit from the “meeting of imported and home-grown cultures” (Commonwealth of Australia 1994, 6). Thus, the AUD $250 million in additional funding that it promised to cultural institutions over four years was geared toward strengthening cultural activities and institutions in Australia to promote independence [AQ: independence from whom?], so that imported culture would be seen as inspiring. In Creative Nation, the government identified five broad categories for defining the role of cultural development: “nurturing creativity and excellence; enabling 8

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Article Name all Australians to enjoy the widest possible range of cultural experience; preserving Australia’s heritage; promoting the expression of Australia’s cultural identity, including its great diversity; and developing lively and sustainable cultural industries, including those evolving with the emergence of new technologies” (Commonwealth of Australia 1994 [AQ: Why is the Commonwealth of Australia the citation source instead of Creative Nation?]). This new policy framework was significant for a number of reasons. It focused a new and heightened level of public recognition of the “cultural industries.” [AQ: Please clarify previous sentence] It insisted that “culture” be seen and understood as a larger and more diverse category of activity than that implied by the “arts.” It recognized, for example, the importance of the new multimedia and digital arts (Smith 2001). It also provided a means of raising the political clout of the cultural industries since for the first time communications and the arts were ensconced in the one portfolio that “positioned ‘culture’—or rather, cultural production—in a pivotal position at the centre of governmental strategy” (Bennett and Carter 2001, 23). Creative Nation also encapsulated a new way of understanding the roles and purposes of culture by putting forward “an industry/economic argument for culture’s significance to the nation” (Bennett and Carter 5). Johanson (2000) and Gibson (2001) argue that the arts-as-industry paradigm was apparent in Australian political thought at least since the Industry Assistance Commission Report, [AQ: Who authored this report? Is it a book?] which, as early as 1976, argued that the arts could be viewed as “one industry among many” and while the report was rejected in its day, it nonetheless “has been crucial to the way the arts has come to form itself as an industry” (Gibson 2001, 79). What was distinctive about Creative Nation was its presentation of a mixed approach to the rationalization of the state’s subsidy of the arts. The policy continued to emphasize the importance of the arts as a catalyst for the production of national sentiment—the objective that had marked the work of the Australia Council from its inception in the late 1960s. Further, the policy continued to promote the values of participation and diversity, which had been the hallmark of policy development in the 1980s, through the work of multicultural arts and the Community Arts Board. But the striking new policy development was the stress it placed on the economic value of cultural production. Indeed, as Stevenson (2000) writes, “The federal government was intent on framing a cultural industries agenda for the arts that not only privileged the celebration of nation through artistic expression, but was grounded in economic rationalist philosophies that accelerated the move to user-pays” (16). For the arts, the policy signaled a significant shift away from the idea of an arts community to the notion of an arts industry—a discursive shift underlining the view that arts organizations should be exposed to the same market Summer 2008

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The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society forces as non-arts industries. Furthermore, while many of the earlier cultural policy statements had identified the benefits of intersections with other industries, Creative Nation called for “a cross-fertilisation of ideas to develop new products and new markets” (Rentschler 2002, 30). This emphasis on the nexus between arts and economics is made clear in Creative Nation, which states: This cultural policy is also an economic policy. Culture creates wealth. Broadly defined our cultural industries generate 13 billion dollars a year. . . . Culture adds value, it makes an essential contribution to innovation, marketing and design. It is a badge of our industry. The level of creativity substantially determines our ability to adapt to new economic imperatives. It is a valuable export in itself and an essential accompaniment to the export of other commodities. It attracts tourists and students. It is essential to our economic success (Commonwealth of Australia 1994, 7). Thus, this new version of the arts-as-industry paradigm privileged the export potential of Australian arts and the important role of touring arts productions and products as a means of promoting Australia as a tourism destination. Indeed, according to Radbourne (1997), Creative Nation signaled the arrival of “a new entrepreneurial era” (278). Radbourne [AQ: Please provide page # if the source year is not 1997()] and Rentschler (2002) see Creative Nation as a new way of looking at the cultural sector in terms of employment opportunities and the “development of creativity, national identity, marketing, tourism, information technology and economic success in Australia” (Rentschler 29). Behind Keating’s commitment to republicanism, Aboriginal reconciliation, and furthering Australia’s status within the Asia–Pacific region was a conviction that Australia’s social and economic future in the world could be created and steered and that its “success in the world does depend on our strength as a nation, on our faith in ourselves and the way we represent that faith” (Keating 1995, 39[AQ: Emphasis added?]). In this perceived need to define, fortify, and represent Australian identity was the importance of cultural policy, as culture was “the skeleton, heart and mind of a community” (1995, 39). In the Sydney Morning Herald, John McDonald (1994) argued that even the largesse of Creative Nation reflected the republicanism behind it, as it aligned Australia with “the cultural big spenders” like France and Germany rather than Britain. “It is that Anglo-Saxon inheritance that Paul Keating is attacking by making the arts such a prominent feature of government policy” (McDonald 14a). 1996–2007 In 1996 the Liberal Party led by John Howard came to power. Howard did not have the standing within the arts community that his predecessor enjoyed. 10

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Article Name Past relationships between conservative governments and the Australia Council were nothing if not ambivalent. While Liberal Prime Ministers Holt and Gorton had been largely responsible for establishing the organization, throughout much of its history, the Liberal Party,which periodically threatened to cut arts funding and reduce the council’s power, criticized the council (Johanson 2000). Under Howard, the emphases and priorities articulated through Creative Nation have intensified. Along with an ongoing focus on the convergence of technologies, the central concern of the policy to place cultural practices within a wider commercial context remained the principal rationale for arts funding under the federal Liberal-National government (Rentschler 2002). Cultural tourism in particular continued to be a priority and was seen as a strategy that benefits arts organizations, as well as providing promotional opportunities for Australia’s individual states, giving them access to international and local tourism markets (Stevenson 2000). The Australia Council’s role was increasingly oriented toward the development of new audiences and marketing the arts. Recent Australia Council publications testify to the council’s intensified commitment to researching audience development and marketing, and promoting these priorities and strategies to the arts community (Australia Council 2000; Australia Council and Saatchi 2000). Rentschler (2002) confirms that this shift in the council’s priorities was a reflection of a continued movement away from the supply side of funding programs, that is, artistic and creative production and development. Instead, there was a greater focus on audience development, consumption, and demand. Brett (2003) defines the new policy regime catalyzed by economic rationalism and instigated by Howard’s government as a shift “from citizens to consumers” (172). This shift entails the disaggregating of “the public of citizens into self-interested individuals who become clients and customers of government”(175). The philosophical commitment to consumerism has impacted current cultural policies. The corporatization of the arts and universities are exemplars of this policy framework. As levels of government funding for culture have remained static or diminished, so the level of corporate sponsorship for art galleries and museums has increased (McKnight 2005). Robert Hughes points out that such dependence on corporate sponsorship is problematic because of the implications for public culture being determined by “the corporate promotion budgets of white CEOs, reflecting the concerted interests of one class, one race, one mentality” (Wu 2003). This problem is not unique to Australia. Wu points out that corporate sponsorship of the arts is a global phenomenon by which “art becomes the unwitting accomplice of a new cultural hegemony” (270). Another example of this shift toward private enterprise in contemporary Summer 2008

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The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society cultural policy (since Creative Nation) can be seen in the attitude of the government toward public broadcasting. Throsby (2006) argues that the Howard government demonstrates an ambivalence toward the national broadcaster, the ABC [AQ: Is this the only national broadcaster in Austrialia?], which stems from an “ideological distaste for public-sector involvement in any area they see as being better left to private enterprise” (10). The development of cultural policy in Australia from 1972–96 can be understood as exemplifying the distinctive ideologies of the two major political parties. This frequently took forms that may have defied expectations and appeared contradictory, such as the ALP’s support for elite art forms and the Liberal government’s support for community arts, but we have identified the driving role that such ideologies played. How, then, does the absence of a current cultural policy statement reflect current ideological priorities? The Australian political scene of the past decade, much as in the international sphere, has seen a blurring of the ideological boundaries between the Left and the Right (McKnight 2005). The economic rationalist priorities and objectives established by Keating’s Labor government in the first half of the 1990s were subsequently enshrined in the policies of Howard’s Liberal government from 1996–2007. In this sense, the ideologies of the two parties have merged, and this manifests itself in the changed patterns of voter-support and traditional class-based party affiliations. We argue that the absence of dialectical ideological engagement has consequences for cultural policy where there is a palpable lack of questioning about the role of arts and culture. In this vacuum, it is difficult to see how cultural policy can continue to develop—it has been the beneficiary of more than twenty years of interrogation as political parties have debated and redefined its political objectives. However, that interrogation appears to have ceased. There is no Liberal Party cultural policy, and there is silence from the Labor party, which seems keen to shake off its earlier association with the arts lest it be accused of pandering to the so-called elites.` CONCLUSION

Historically, the political parties’ approach to cultural policy has been shaped by their distinctive party ideologies, albeit in unexpected ways, but this influence is less clear in the policies of the past decade and as a result there is little room for political opposition in cultural policy discussion. Several notable commentators, such as Hall (2005), Archer (2005), Battersby (2005), Marr (2005), and Throsby (2006) have argued for a critical review of federal cultural policy. However, in the absence of a dialectical debate between the two political parties and their cultural policies—debates that had been in evidence in earlier decades—these oppositional voices will find it hard to be heard. In this sense, we concur with Wimmer’s analysis of the 12

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Article Name stalemate in cultural policy development in Austria where he argues: “the major objective of the . . . approach of conservative cultural policy seems to be to end public debate on cultural policy” and thus has established a “silent cultural hegemony” (Wimmer 2004). But for a few countervailing voices (such as Hall’s), in Australia there is silence, too. Our political reading of the historical development of cultural policy in Australia underlines its fundamental relationship with changing party political ideology. In the absence of this dialectical engagement, the cultural policy project has also suffered. KEYWORDS

Australian federal cultural policy, political parties NOTES 1

Milne states that the overall budget for the Australia Council peaked at $70 million in 1995/96 in the last year of the Keating government, Milne, G. (2004). Theatre Australia (un)limited: Australian theatre since the 1950s. Amsterdam, Rodopi.. REFERENCES Archer, R. 2005. The myth of the mainstream: Politics and the performing arts in Australia today. Strawberry Hills, (AQ: Please spell out NSW): Currency House. Australia Council. 2000. Selling the performing arts. Sydney: Australia Council. Australia Council and (AQ: Need at least first initial for this author Saatchi). 2000. Australians and the arts. Sydney: Australia Council. Battersby, J. 2005. Councils on wrong track: Empower artists, don’t manage them. The Australian Financial Review, May 12, 2001. (AQ: What type of source is this [book, periodical, etc.]?) Bennett, T. and D. Carter, eds., 2001. Culture in Australia: Policies, publics and programs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blazey, P. and A. Campbell. 1974. The political dicemen. Sydney: Outback Press. Brett, J. 2002. Australian liberals and the moral middle class. Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Button, J. 1976. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, Senate, October 20, 1976, p. 1346. (AQ: Please provide series number) Castles, S., M. Kalantzis, and B. Cope. 1990. The Construction of Ethnicity 1972–87. In Mistaken identity: Multiculturalism and the demise of nationalism in Australia, 57–79. Sydney: Pluto Press. Commonwealth of Australia. 1994. Creative Nation: Commonwealth Cultural Policy. Department of Communications and the Arts. Canberra. (AQ: What type of source is this?) Coombs, H. C. 1981. Trial balance. Melbourne: Macmillan. Crowley, F. 1986. Tough times: Australian in the seventies. Melbourne: Heinnemann. Curran, J. 2004. The power of speech: Australian prime ministers defining the national image. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Downer, A. (1987) Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates: Representatives, 15 May 1987, p. 3114. (AQ: Please provide series number) Fraser, M. 1976. Speech by the Rt. Hon. Malcolm Fraser, prime minister, on the arts, 3 June 1976, Blainey Papers, University of Melbourne Archives, Box: Australia Council Minutes 1976–. Freudenberg, G. 1977. A certain grandeur: Gough Whitlam in politics. Melbourne: Macmillan.

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The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society Gibson, L. 2001. The uses of art: Constructing Australian identities. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Hall, R. 2005. Give wings to the arts: A new model for arts funding. Unpublished report, Australian Labor Party, Office of Senator Bob McMullan, July 2005. Hawkins, G. 1994. From Nimbin to Mardi Gras: Constructing community arts. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Horne, D. 1986. The public culture: The triumph of industrialism. London: Pluto Press. Johanson, K. 2000. The role of Australia’s cultural council 1945–1995. PhD diss., University of Melbourne. Keating, P. 1993. Transcript of ALP Cultural Policy Launch. Sydney, State Theatre. February 28, 1993. (AQ: Please indicate type of source [speech? paper presented? report?]) Keating, P. 1995. Starting the process. in Advancing Australia: the Speeches of Paul Keating, by M. Ryan, (AQ: Please provide page number[s]) Sydney: Big Picture Publications. Kelly, P. 1994. The end of certainty. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Marr, D. 2005. Theatre under Howard: The Philip Parson’s memorial lecture. 9/10/05, Unpublished speech (AQ: Please provide either the location/meeting where the speech was presented or the official location where it can be found) in the possession of H. Rayson. McDonald, J., A Nation of Art Lovers for $252 million, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald, October 22, 1994. McKnight, D. 2005. Beyond right and left: New politics and the culture wars. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. McMullin, R. 1992. Some new and alien philosophy. In The light on the hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891–1991. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Milne, G. 2004. Theatre Australia (un)limited: Australian theatre since the 1950s. Amsterdam: Rodopi. O’Regan, T. 2002. “Too much culture, too Little Culture: Trends and Issues for Cultural Policymaking”. Media International Australia: Culture & Policy. No. 102. February 2002. pp.9-24. (AQ: Please indicate type of source -- journal article?) Radbourne, J. 1997. Creative Nation—a policy for leaders or followers? The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 26: 271–83. Rentschler, R. 2002. The entrepreneurial arts leader. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Smith, T. 2001. The visual arts: Imploding infrastructure, shifting frames, uncertain futures. In Culture in Australia: Policies, publics and programs, Bennett, T., and D. Carter, 66–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stevenson, D. 2000. Art and organisation: Making Australian cultural policy. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Strickland, K., Bureaucrats put creativity at “Bottom of the Pile,” Arts, The Australian, July 14, 2005. Throsby, D. 2006. Does Australia need a cultural policy? Sydney: Currency House. Whitlam, E.G. 1985. Arts, letters and media. In The Whitlam Government 1972–75. Melbourne: Viking. (AQ: Please provide page numbers -- see other “chapter in book” entries) Wimmer, M. 2004. The political dimensions of cultural policy: The need of policy analysis in the field of cultural policy. Paper presented at the 3rd International Conference on Cultural Policy Research, Montreal, Canada. Woodward, Parkin, and Summers. 2002. Government, politics and power in Australia. Frenchs Forest NSW (AQ: Please spell out): Longman. Wu, C.T. 2003. Privatising culture. London: Verso.

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Vol. 29, No. 1