CULTURE AND PUBLIC MONEY

Musing around with a basketry workshop going on across town the conversation turned to Launceston’s proposed Cultural Unit. Some assumptions and some scribbling on the back of an envelope suggests that ‘the initiative’ is likely to cost somewhere between $100K & $200K recurrently – possibly more in time. 

Despite Launceston Council’s cargo cult mentality, money just doesn’t drop in like a food drop in a crisis zone – say in New Guinea during WW2. The cost here is to Launceston’s ratepayers as we’ve come to learn that when money does drop in … it’s a loan that’s to be paid back. 

First up, there are some assumptions here relative to the Cultural Unit and under the ‘confidentiality rules’ enshrined in SECTION 62 of the Local Govt. Act Tas 1993 that’s all they can be – assumptions. Nonetheless if you’ve been around the block a few times those numbers – $100K to $200K – feel OK if we are talking about: 

• A position for an intelligent person, their salary and on-costs; 

• Some part-time or intermittent support; • Infrastructure and equipment; 

• Travel, transport and related costs etc. 

Thus far all the indicators seem to be suggesting this. Always remembering that many of these costs are hidden and often go unacknowledged. It is a political imperative. 

Recalling the 1970s when there was a flush of Arts Funding and many opportunities were wasted on such initiatives – that’s an opinion. So far as it was politically tolerated direct funding to ‘producers’ delivered impressive ‘key performance indicators’ in quick smart time. 

BTW: Direct Funding = Targeted Grant For Target Outcome. 

Moving right along, TGTO[Grants] of $20K (Cultural Unit cost $200K) in a year would deliver: 

• 10 quite generous cultural projects in the community across say 5 disciplines – performance outcomes, art in public places, touring exhibitions etc; 

• Almost unprecedented opportunities to grow ’the cultural sector’ in Launceston or on the Tamar if adjoining Councils could be encouraged to participate in such a program; 

• 10 more generous cultural projects in the community IF the grants attracted complementary funding, sponsorships or say PhD, Masters, whatever, scholarships; and 

• If some were $10K and one say $30K, perhaps a lot more cultural activity still. This kind of expenditure would have a direct economic impact in the community IF it was a requirement that the project took place in the community and carried out by someone currently living in the community. 

Perhaps, it would be an audacious initiative but Tasmania, with the opening of MONA, has witnessed the fruits of serial audacity being planted.    

Such grants are relatively easy to administer, and accountably, on the scale suggested here and they could, ideally should, be devolved to a trustworthy incorporated arts organisations, university, etc with expert peer assessment panels advising them. The important task being to remove the politics from the decision making. There might well be an arms-length trust set up to attract complementary donations and sponsorships. 

Anyway, there’s that thinking and it’s “out of the bag” as they say. 

Then again, the announcement in Sydney to do with the Powerhouse is as one would expect, political and pragmatic! The lack of a ‘business case’ resonates fairly loudly here in Launceston with UTAS in mind. 

Nonetheless, the players on the ground in Sydney seem to be saying that there is more to be played out in all this yet with ex-Premier Baird yet to front up to ‘the inquiry’. 

Many of the ‘players’ and protagonists that remain are there as advocates for the status quo despite the evidence telling many of us that the “quo has lost its status” in a 21st Century context. 

Interestingly, all the ‘branding’ seems to be projecting that the quo in regard to the Powerhouses’ governance looks like being ‘politically preserved’ (bureaucratically fossilised) rather than renewed. 

There are good arguments for renewal in musingplaces and not just at the Powerhouse. The purpose of musingplaces is simultaneously becoming more focused while being opened up to new possibilities and opportunities. It is especially so in the digital environment.

Along with the lack of a business case the press releases (apparently) seem to be saying precious little about the operation’s/institution’s purpose. A purposeful business case looks like as if it might be unlikely. 

However, there is a full set of unmeasurable aspirations (aspirational political smoodging) in the full colour, jazzed-up strategic plan that looks every bit like it remains dedicated to the status quo albeit with a new set of clothes [LINK]  

In both Launceston and Sydney it looks like it’s a bridge too far to have anything that’s measurable in any kind of credible accountability process. Nonetheless, it is somewhat reassuring that the ‘acknowledgement of country’ is there up front and centre in the Powerhouse’s strategic plan. 

\With the numbers being bandied about in NSW, $645 million, it is quite likely that the costs will blow out just as soon as the first sod has been turned. Curiously, accountability is not high on anyone’s agenda albeit that a sense of ‘purposefulness’ almost certainly could deliver and politically even. 

It does help to know what you’re there to do and why – a quaint idea it seems.

Ray Norman April 2018

Ignorance At Town Hall!

Click here to watch the video

MEDIA RELEASE: Launceston's Traffic Management Plan Now Available

The City of Launceston finally released the confidential Traffic Management Plan commissioned from STREETS CONSULT. 

An Alderman, who didn't want to be named, said "this plan is a thing of beauty and ratepayers would be astounded if they were to ever discover its cost." 

STREET CONSULT and the City of Launceston team engaged with the community at every level of the plan's development. 

Feedback is welcomed 

Please address all emails to the Mayor: mayor@launceston.tas.gov.au

CALL FOR CANDIDATES

CANDIDATES READY TO STAND FOR 

LAUNCESTON COUNCIL

• Must be ready to start campaigning NOW!

• Candidates should represent the diversity of the Launceston community!

• Ideally you will have a general working knowledge of council affairs – but nut essential

• Launceston Council meets every two weeks on a Monday 

                                      BUT newly elected aldermen can change that

• Council Workshops held every alternate Monday 

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• Currently Council Workshops are closed to residents and ratepayers 

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• Candidate need to attend Council meeting regularly to get understand how Council is        working

• Candidates need to be prepared to keep Council business free of party politics!

• Candidates need to be prepared to put residents’ and ratepayers’ interests 1^st, 2^nd & 3^rd

• Candidates need to be prepared to develop and present their personal profiles from the day they decide to stand – right now ideally

• If you are a member of any community organisations, charity groups, whatever – be prepared to promote that!

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• Candidates must be prepared to work towards Launceston being a better and safer place to live!

• You must be your own person!

• Mentor team available to assist you in your candidacy!

Please contact Basil Fitch as soon as you make your decision

(PH) 6344 2688      eMAIL: fitchbasil2@gmail.com

LET'S UNLOCK TOWN HALL NOW

A NEW CANDIDATE TO STAND FOR CITY OF LAUNCESTON COUNCIL

CONTACT INFORMATION
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• A fair go for ratepayers!! ... Ratepayers' 1st, 2nd & 3rd
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DISCUSSION PAPER: The Proposed Cultural Unit

STATUS: Unsolicited

Background

Funding ‘culture’ in a local cum regional context is a concept that is ever likely to raise issues to do with relevance and affordability. In a ‘public art’ context in the 21^st Century there are the age-old challenges in defining just what it is that is being funded. 

Australia saw a boom in ‘arts funding’ in a much broader context in the 1970s. Cultural practises somewhat differently that before were defined in a ‘coal-face-up’ context with ‘peer assessment’ increasingly leading to the de-siloing of cultural practise. 

The Australia Council in particular led the way in Australia sometimes referencing funding models elsewhere and at other times generating new models and paradigms.

From the relatively low level of cultural funding to the new seemingly heady heights increasing amounts of public funding for ‘cultural development’ money began to find its way into various budgets in various contexts. 

After the initial euphoria, gradually the number of funding agencies burgeoned as State Governments mimicked the Federal model. Local Gov. tagged along in a relatively uneven way depending upon

• The ‘place’, its geography and social circumstance;
• The cultural landscape – current and historic;
• The size and shape of a town/city's/region's economy – current and historic; and
• The cultural realities and their dynamics;

Local priorities can be determined in accord with these factors. Over time, local governments have increasingly found the means to ‘add value’ to community life via investments in cultural infrastructure and the programming that goes with the ‘cultural commitment’.

In larger communities Local Govt sometimes committed a set percentage of their annual budget to cultural activity –  similarly with sport. Sometimes contentiously various genre jostled for precedence and priority. The visual and performing arts often took their competition into the public arena.

In the Federal sphere, bureaucratically ‘The Arts’ – along with Aboriginal Affairs and ‘The Environment’ – were seen as the ‘nice-to-have’, and spare cum leftover portfolios – and variously around Australia this still pretty much the case. 

Typically, the funding dedicated to cultural development didn’t always find its way into the pockets of practitioners and producers. Rather it tended to be swallowed up by the so-called facilitating agencies as salaries and on costs with very little finding its way into studios, theatres, workshops etc. At one point the almost a third of Australia Councils budget was spent servicing itself as an operation. About that time the comparable Tasmanian circumstance was somewhere between 14% and 18%.

Interestingly, curators, administrators and their like receive significant salaries while artists by-and-large struggle to make a living. Moreover, the ” ‘middle management’ of arts organisations and even museum/commercial galleries exist on the pretext that they are “assisting” Australian artists but the evidence suggests they and the government are simply exploiting them”. And “The government receives much more money from the sale of an artwork than the artist.”… John Kelly in the Daily Review.

John Kelly goes on to ask “has the Australian government created a form of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP) where the carers keep the artists financially sick in order to continue to get funding to show how supportive they are of the arts? …. However, there is another perspective; one that factually shows artists create wealth for Australian society and the government.”  … https://dailyreview.com.au/business-money-artists/43333/

It would seem that in moving to ‘supporting the arts’ in a local government context it is ever likely to be a contentious move even if it seems to be a deserving cause. For the support to be equitable and relevant the primary focus probably should on be funding the producers as directly as possible while curtailing administrative costs as much as possible.

In other words, the ‘performance indicator’ would be more practitioners and fewer bureaucrats, administrators and their support staff. While accountability may be an issue the question hanging in the air is “who holds the facilitators accountable and who measures the bean counters accountablity”? The question arises as typically they consume the resources the producers need and crave in order to be productive and add value to their practices – and by extension their communities.

The proposed Launceston Cultural Unit has all the promise of being just another money soak. If worst fears were to be realised, a very percentage of allocated funds would be expended keeping itself in existence as a non-income generating cost centre. There is nothing to be found in the contextualisation documents that overly mitigates against such a scenario.

What Could a Regional Cultural Unit Look Like

The current proposal for a cultural unit, and its contextualisation, does not set out:

• A clear unambiguous purpose  – reason for being;
• The objectives that such a might have;
• The reason for having one given its purpose and objectives; and
• The strategies it would employ to fulfil its purpose beyond its own existence.

Nonetheless, a cultural unit is being envisaged and apparently to do whatever there is to be done while growing the Launceston Council’s level of cultural expenditure across a range of cultural activities. 

Also, there does not appear to be a clear understanding of what culture is understood to be in order that the unit might service it or some aspect of it. 'Culture' is notoriously understood in multiple ways.

Looking at what the city and Tamar region, and speculatively, and in a very general way, it is conceivable that there be a ‘Projects & Publications Unit’ purposed to:

• Generate new opportunities for the region’s cultural producers;
• Facilitate the possibility of cultural producers and their audiences to engage with new experiences; and
• Develop new and expanded understandings relative to cultural production in the region.

Ideally, such a unit would operate collaboratively and cooperatively across the various forms of cultural production and the region's various cultural communities. Such a unit would need to be working towards an agreed set of objectives for reasons determined in the community/ies. Likewise, the strategies implemented would need to devised and determined across the community and region – ideally collaboratively.

In order to ‘succeed’ such a unit would need to be entrepreneurial and;

• Working with communities;
• Working toward common, ideally collaborative, goals set in the region; and
• Structured in an organic and rhrizomic way rather than hierarchically. 

Imposing strategies and programs from outside would arguable have an inbuilt element of dislocation. Operating without a clear and unambiguous purpose would likewise be sheer folly.

Publicly funded operations of the kind being contemplated in the form of a Launceston Cultural Unit needs to be accountable. Arguably, the best way to achieved that outcome would  be to establish it a standalone corporate entity with its own board of Trustees/Directors/Governors:

• With a membership appointed rather than elected;
• Appointed for the skill and knowledge sets they bring to the operation;
• Appointed with limited tenure; and
• Drawn from the region and where appropriate beyond it relative to their expertise. 

If this is seen as unachievable the funds anticipated as being expended would be more productively employed granted to producers to deliver targeted outcomes. Given that such unit could have recurrent cost running to $150K to $200K this kind of alternative has a range of advantages.

In Conclusion

In Launceston Tasmania, with the proposal to development of a 'cultural unit' there is much to consider. Those consideration need to be out in the open with the community closely engaged in the discourse.

Interestingly in Launceston, Tasmania's local government area, it is possible to closely track what the cost of funding cultural activity is if it delivered via local government -and attribute the cost almost down to an individual's contribution.

The funds are conscripted from the community and therefore the community must be closely engaged in the discourse.

In the end the operation delivering whatever whatever dividends that are on offer must be accountable not just notionally accountable, but functionally accountable.

      

Ray Norman April 15 2018