ALL Art be it music or whatever else is at the end of the day bluffing and fluffing and chicanery and stepping on the stepping stones you see on others backs and making out something is more significant that what is actually is. Life is an illusion….

I have worked FUCKING HARD to make a tiny income from the arts, creative Australia? Let’s do what Nick Cave did and live in exile of this shithouse fucking country and report back to it. PHTTT!!!!!

I’m interested in the way in which particpation can be created by those in the Middle and Outer rings. Have a look at the amount of DIY gardening magazines that are in a newsagency in a suburb like Greensborough and Im sure that you would come to this conclusion as well.

Sounds like a great chance to push the barrow down the halls of power!

I agree entirely with Alex on the point of putting the significance of creativity back into peoples awareness,

There still exists a great crevasse of connectivity between the talent base and purposeful creation. As it is money is still going to those who would repeat the past so make them more vulnerable to the market forces and save government support for those who truly wish to change the way we see ourselves as Australians.

I guess as the Prime Minister has demonstrated with his refusal to change the date of Australia Day in respect of aboriginal people, policy is only as useful as the people who create it and political expediency will win the day when it matters most.

If sportspeople get public honours for gold medals then there needs to be a shift in the way that the people view our creators. Perhaps a system which places a value on creativity over the rhetoric of achievement.

I don’t how to do it but you’ll be locking horns with those whose duty it is to find the truth and create the way forward.

Good Luck

We have many great artists and creative people in Australia, but they are undervalued. The language of class warfare is often evoked by people who view artists with contempt as elitists, while contradicting themselves by simultaneously praising elite athletes.

I would like to see the promotion of a broad cultural change in Australia that seeks to develop a society that values its artists and creative people in the way sport is valued. This could be introduced with a life-be-in-it style campaign that spells out the importance and value of a Creative Australia to the whole population. Other promotional ideas could build on this, until greatness in art and creativity are viewed with the same passions as greatness in sport by the majority of the population.

A measure of success after this campaign would be if elite athletes and an elite artists where both considered equally valuable contributors to Australian culture.