I sigh. I shake my head. I try not to wail.
But it’s hardly surprising.
I’m not sure if you know, but this thing has happened. This is a direct quote from Limelight magazine. The writer says it so clearly, so I’ll quote Mr McPherson. “The Australian arts world is reacting with fury to the news that the arts have been demoted in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s restructuring of the public service announced yesterday. The Arts, already an addendum to the Department of Communications and the Arts, will be merged along with the rest of the department into a new one with the unwieldy title of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications.”
That’s right. There is no longer a department with ‘Arts’ in the title. I suppose that right now, with NSW burning (and no-one meant to relate this to climate change), water restrictions being upped (but it’s still okay to fill your pool up) and Christmas on the way (and all the craziness that goes with it), that it’s easy to overlook this.
But it feels awful. I work in the arts, and this is a way that the Government, the mostly-men leading this country is subtlety saying ‘Umm… Rachel? The thing you do? Along with your friends? Yeh – that thing. It doesn’t actually matter. Not a bit to us. You got a problem with that? Too bad. No minister to complain to.”
It just makes things harder. Harder to succeed. Harder to feel valued. The article in Limelight (worth a read, you know) starts the discussion we need to have. In the arts industry, artists bring in a lot of money to the economy. And we’re struggling. We’re struggling to pay our bills and our taxes. We’re struggling to stay positive. We’re struggling to keep the black dog from consuming us. We’re working incredibly hard. I can’t remember when I last had a full day off.
And who cares? Well, it seems the government has washed its hands of us. Not that I think Morrison and his mates would approve of me anyway. I sure as hell don’t agree with what they are doing.
But it’s still a slap in the face.