MY PHONE rang late on a Wednesday afternoon. The Prime Minister’s office was calling to inquire as to whether I had any plans for Friday night. I did but they were swiftly cancelled. Little more than 48 hours later, I’d had my only passable suit dry-cleaned, some flights cancelled and new ones arranged and I [...]
Dinner at the Lodge
June 14th, 2010 View Comments
Tags: Arts Policy · Arts policy Australia · australia council · Bill Henson · Bob Carr · Does Kevin Rudd give a shit · Kevin Rudd · luvvies · Peter Garrett · The Lodge
Australia Council should burn some midnight oil
March 22nd, 2010 View Comments
There is something slightly disingenuous about the spin that came with the Australia Council’s More than Bums on Seats: Australian Participation in the Arts survey released last week. At the very least, it’s a double-edged sword. At the superficial headline level, the report shows that Australians love and value the arts. But dig a little [...]
Tags: Arts Funding · Arts funding spin · australia council · Australian Government · contemporary music · definition of the arts · midnight oll · More than Bums on Seats: Australian Participation in the Arts · music in Australia · orchestras · Peter Garrett
Crowdsourcing a cultural policy?
November 23rd, 2009 View Comments
National Museum of Australia WHAT HAPPENS when the Federal Government puts a call out to the public to make suggestions about a cultural policy? After a few hours of reviewing some of the submissions, it would be fair to say that the quality and usefulness of the submissions so far have been decidedly mixed. Despite [...]
Tags: ABC · Arts Funding · australia council · Creative Nation · crowdsourcing · National Cultural Policy · nobel prize · patrick white · Peter Garrett · Rudd Government · screen australia
Creative Australia and Ministerial Impersonators
January 27th, 2009 View Comments
It’s taken me a long time to update it here (hey, i went on holidays in New Zealand for 3 weeks and they don’t have the internet over there yet) but i’ve been asked to sit on a “Creative Australia” advisory panel established by Federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett. You can read all about it [...]
Tags: 2020 Summit · Arts Policy · Creative Australia · midnight oil · Peter Garrett