Australian Accession to Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions

MCA submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties

Richard Letts
March 5, 2009

The Music Council has made a submission to the Commonwealth Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, making a number of proposals as it considers Australian accession to the UNESCO Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

The MCA was active in the period of gestation of this Convention before it was taken up by UNESCO. The UNESCO General Conference adopted the Convention in 2005, with a vote of 148 to 2 against, and 4 abstentions, among them Australia. The Rudd government takes Australia back to multilateralism and participation in these international treaties.

The Convention was motivated primarily by the need for an international agreement that would give normative support to a nation’s assertion of cultural sovereignty in the negotiation of free trade agreements. If it had existed when Australia was negotiating its “free” trade agreement with the USA, our government might not have been forced to sacrifice its until then unfettered right to support Australian culture.

Signatories to the Convention claim that right. It is a right that the Australian cultural sector, including MCA, strongly supports.

The Convention has many non-binding clauses that encourage support to a diversity of cultural expressions within national borders, and through cross-border cultural exchanges, especially with developing countries.

The Music Council submission argues that accession to the Convention will encourage the Australian government to support among other things, traditional Aboriginal cultures, especially the musical cultures at risk of extinction, and the music of immigrants. In the MCA’s view, the inadequacy of support to these musics has meant a major lost opportunity for the enrichment of Australian culture and the emergence of our own distinctive music.

The Music Council also sees the opportunity for cultural partnerships with neighbouring developing countries, both to assist them in developing their own music sectors and to bring their music and arts to Australian audiences.The submission goes into these issues in some detail.

Read the submission