6.2.1 Public funding of music in Australia8 March 2008.
Overview of government cultural funding
Overview of government
cultural funding
Public cultural funding in
Heritage can be cultural, such as art and other museums, libraries and archives, or natural, notably nature parks and reserves (previously classified as national parks and wildlife services).(1) Zoos, aquaria and botanical gardens form a separate cultural group. ‘Arts’, similarly, are broadly defined to include broadcasting and film as well as what is sometimes described as ‘core’ arts: literature, performing and visual arts. The arts definition includes performing arts venues and, at local government level, public halls and civic centres.(2) It also includes community cultural activities, in line with the dual obligation of arts authorities to support both excellence and participation.
Public funding of cultural facilities and activities comes from all three levels of government: federal, state and territory, and local. In recent years, this funding has been known in detail at the two upper levels but only in total for local government (in each state and territory). The latest current statistical publication on cultural funding (2005-06) says that better information on local government funding is expected to be available for future years, using a more detailed local government purpose classification.
Please refer to the appended statistical file to view tables and charts (click on each table or chart number in the contents page to jump there direct). The recommended procedure, as usual in this knowledge base, is to keep the file open in its separate window and refer to it as you go. Note that all prices have been converted to constant 2006-07 values, using the general GDP deflator from the Australian national accounts.
Total cultural funding in 2005-06, converted to 2006-07 values, amounted to $5.66 billion (Table 6.2.1.1). The Australian government provided almost $2 billion (34.7%), state and territory governments $2.7 billion (48.1%), and local governments close to $1 billion (17.2%). However, there was a large difference in the known distributions of cultural funding between ‘heritage’ and ‘arts’. Total cultural funding by the Australian government was split 25% for heritage and 75% for arts (roughly $500 million and $1.5 billion), compared with 82% and 18% for the states and territories ($2.24 billion for heritage and $480 million for arts). Earlier statistics for local government cultural funding, from 1988-89 to 1997-98, show the arts component averaging 36% and ranging from 23% to 45% of the total. Excluding the initial year 1988-89, when public halls and civic centres were probably underestimated, the average for arts rises to 38% and the range narrows to 33-45%.(3)
The largest item in the heritage funding category is nature parks and reserves (over $1 billion in 2005-06, mainly through the state and territory governments), followed by museums and libraries. The arts category is dominated by broadcasting and film, which received almost $1.2 billion in 2005-06 from the Australian government, mainly funding of the radio and television services of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In other words, over four-fifths of total arts-related funding from the Commonwealth goes to broadcasting and film. Another $80 million was supplied by the states and territories (practically all film).
The remaining arts categories received $277 million from the Australian government and a round $400 million from the states and territories. Of the latter, almost half ($192 million) went to performing arts venues, which are almost exclusively in the state and territory domain (and local government).
Of the remaining categories, the performing arts including music, drama and dance were the largest recipient with a total of just over $200 million, $116 million from the Australian government and $85 million from the states and territories. This compared with $36 million for literature and print media and a similar amount for visual arts, crafts and photography. The distribution between the two levels of government was 50-50 for the visual arts and heavily biased towards the Commonwealth for literature.
Community cultural centres and activities received $26.5 million, mainly from states and territories ( 60%). Cultural administration absorbed $90 million of funds (57% of which at the Australian government level). Other arts not elsewhere classified received $84 million, 60% from the Australian government. The last group includes arts education (particular schemes only, excluding funding of the general education sector), major multi-arts festivals, and funding of other cultural activities and services that don’t fit any specific category.
It remains to be said that the data show direct funding by each of the three levels of government. The underlying policies are more interlinked than the statistics reveal, not only through general intergovernmental fiscal relations but through the encouragement or financial incentive (or lack of) that higher levels of government can give lower levels to pursue particular cultural policies. While the composition of cultural funding differs between governments, the political power of the Australian government (in particular) extends beyond its own direct funding of cultural activities.(4)
Table 6.2.1.2 provides another perspective on the cultural funding patterns in 2005-06, specific to music. It shows the two types of performing arts that relate exclusively to the music sector: music excluding opera, and music theatre and opera. It compares these with total performing arts, total arts, heritage and total cultural funding. The Australia Council is singled out among the funds providers at Australian government level, relative to other Commonwealth arts authorities, and non-arts authorities. Table 6.2.1.2 also shows the funding levels in each state and territory.
The role of the Australia Council is further discussed towards the end of this paper, but it is clear from Table 6.2.1.2 that it is the major supporter of the music sector, providing $75 million in 2005-06. Most of this amount (all but about $5 million according to Table 6.2.1.12) went to orchestras and opera companies through the Australia Council’s Major Performing Arts Board. At this stage it is sufficient to note that direct music funding including music theatre and opera amounted to about $77 million through all Australian government authorities and $43 million through the states and territories.
Victoria provided the largest absolute amount to music in 2006-07 ($12.7 million), followed by Queensland ($7.5 million), New South Wales ($6.5 million), Western Australia ($6.2 million), South Australia ($4.8 million), Tasmania ($2.5 million), the Australian Capital Territory ($2.1 million), and the Northern Territory ($0.7 million).
There were large differences in funding levels for music per
head of population (Table 6.2.1.3), as illustrated by Chart 6.2.1.1 in the
attached statistical file. For music including opera and music theatre, the ACT
(
Chart 6.2.1.1 also shows other performing arts funding per
head of population: theatre, dance, and other genres such as circuses and
festivals, and including funding of individual actors, dancers and other
performers. It ranged from $5.46 for
While the correlation of other performing arts with music
funding per head is not statistically significant, once again
Naturally there are reasons for these very different levels
of funding relative to population size; reasons that statistical analysis
cannot identify on its own. One possible reason is high funding levels by the
NSW government for performing arts centres (Table 6.2.1.7). However, it might
be difficult to explain everything away completely in terms of different needs
expressed by the music and other performing arts sectors in each state and
territory. Political and other factors, and existing arts infrastructures,
would be factors determining why the performing arts as a proportion of total
arts varies so much across
Both music and other performing arts funding by states and
territories amounted to about 9% of total arts funding in 2005-05 (Table 6.2.1.4). But again the variation was great around these averages, and in the total
arts component itself which has to be considered first. Total arts funding per
person by all state and territory governments amounted to $24.28 in 2005-06,
but this average was greatly exceeded in the ACT ($59.43) and Northern Territory
($43.01), and also in South Australia ($32.65), Western Australia ($32.01), and
marginally in NSW ($24.76). It fell short of the national average in
So the two extremes displayed in the pattern of music and other performing arts funding were:
·
· New South Wales, providing an average level of total arts funding per person and relatively high funding levels for performing arts centres, but only 3.9% going directly to music and 5.8% to other performing arts – by far the lowest proportions in any state or territory.
At the lower end of the scale of total arts funding per person, we find Victoria and Queensland with low total arts funding per person, but a relatively high proportion of this funding (12%) going to music, and a relatively high proportion going to other performing arts in Queensland (13%) but not so in Victoria (7.5%).
At the higher end of the scale in terms of total arts
funding per person, the ACT devoted a slightly more than average proportion to
music (11.1%) but below average to other performing arts (5.6%). The
Statistical analysis can only point out the differences. It cannot explain why. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats lay hidden in these strongly differing patterns, which can only be identified by informed analysis, possibly most efficiently through workshops of 12-15 participants, to query the differences and justify or challenge why they exist.
The Australian cultural funding statistics were changed in 2000-01 from the original classification, which had three main groups: cultural facilities and services, broadcasting and film, and culture not elsewhere classified (n.e.c.). The new classification made the basic distinction between heritage and arts discussed in the initial section of this paper. Fortunately, the main new statistical framework was reproduced for two past years, so we have alternative classifications for 1998-99. The left-hand columns of Table 6.2.1.5 show the new classification for that year, the right-hand columns the previous one.
The statistics for any given past year may have been revised since first appearing, so some minor variation is to be expected. In addition, however, there were some significant re-classifications. In the arts these affected mainly the classification of Australian government funding into the two groups of administration of culture and other arts not elsewhere counted. Total arts funding was apparently not affected by the change. We can safely combine the old and new statistical classifications to secure a trend all the way from 1988-89 to 2005-06 (with a gap to 1991-92 while the ABS was setting up its procedures based on the original Australia Council report on the subject).
For heritage, the changes were more extensive, especially in the general museum area, which when applying the new classification increased by $97 million at the Australian government level and $60 million for states and territories. The $97 million coincides with the disappearance of a previous group of ‘other cultural heritage’, which may also have added $37 million to the state and territory total for museums. There was another significant increase of $60 million in the transition from ‘national parks and wildlife services’ to ‘nature parks and reserves’, and $10 million for zoological parks, aquaria and botanical gardens (all states and territories). In total, the new figure for heritage increased by $30 million for Australian government funding and by $58 million for state and territory governments (or by 7.6% and 3.1%, respectively, compared with the previous statistics).
The heritage trends have been corrected for these changes by assuming that the previous years should all be adjusted upwards by these percentages. The available aggregate trends are shown in Table 6.2.1.6. They are plotted on Chart 6.2.1.2 (total cultural funding at each government level, and in total), and Chart 6.2.1.3 (total funding of heritage by the Australian government and total state and territory governments, and the same aggregates for arts funding).
Plainly, cultural funding has grown most strongly due to the state and territory governments (Table 6.2.1.6). The growth rate was 3.6% per annum for all levels, but 6.1% pa for state and territory governments, 4.7% pa for local governments, but only 0.9% pa for the Australian government.
By far the strongest growth at this level was in state and territory government heritage funding (6.7% pa). The comparable rate for Australian government heritage funding was 3.6% pa. There was little or no growth in the Australian government’s total arts funding (0.1% pa), while the arts component of state and government cultural funding grew by 4.5% pa.
These growth rates cover the whole period from 1988-89. The charts add their own telling story. At the aggregate level (Chart 6.2.1.2), all the growth in local government cultural funding took place between 1988-89 and 1996-97 and there has been no growth since (the growth in the earlier period appears to have been shared between heritage and arts according to the lower half of Table 6.2.1.6). There was also no growth in total Australian government cultural funding from 2000-01. This lack of total growth was composed of an actual fall in heritage funding by the Australian government while that government’s arts funding recovered after suffering significant falls in the late 1990s – however the recovery in this component took it to little more than the level of the late 1980s by 2005-06 (Chart 6.2.1.3).
Table 6.2.1.7 shows a number of indicators relating to the new classification into heritage and arts. It concentrates on the latter, showing the same classification for the Australian government and for each state and territory: music excluding opera; music theatre and opera; total performing arts; performing arts venues; radio and television services; film, video and multimedia; and total arts. The broadcasting and film categories are important for two reasons: to show the dominance in Australian government arts funding of television and radio services, and because both broadcasting and film contain music as an important component.
The central data of interest here relate to music funding,
showing that music received $77 million in 2005-06 from the Australian
government. In the seven years prior to 2005-06, opera and music theatre
received 20% of total music funding.(5)
The total figure for Australian government funding is dominated by the grants
to major performing arts organisations including the eight major symphony and
pit orchestras,(6) Opera Australia, and the
state opera companies in
There was no growth in constant value terms in the Australian government’s grants to music from 1998-99 to 2005-06 (Chart 6.2.1.4). In fact, the trend rate was slightly negative. Funding by state and territory governments showed a significant positive trend (4.9% pa), and there was a 1.1% annual trend in total funding of music by these two levels of government. However, the data don’t follow a consistent trend and the measure of variability that is accounted for by the simple statistical trend model (R2) is generally low.
This applies also to many individual states and territory
trends in music funding (Table 6.2.1.8). Trend rates varied widely around the
annual 5.9% average for all states and territories, from Victoria’s 14.3% pa,
Northern Territory’s 10% pa and Queensland’s 9.3% pa to only 1.7% pa in NSW and negative growth
(-1.5% pa) in Western Australia. R2
was very low for all areas
except total
Returning to Table 6.2.1.7 for other indicators of arts funding trends, Australian government funding for total performing arts remained static like its principal component, music. In fact, performing arts other than music remained static between 33 and 35 million from 1999-2000 to 2004-05 before a slight upward kick to $39 million in 2005-06. State and government funding of other performing arts showed a strongly falling trend from $65 million in 1999-2000 to 42 million in both 2004-05 and 2005-06.
State and territory government funding of performing arts centres, which covers almost all this funding apart from the unknown component of local government funding, showed a generally rising trend. Levels fell in the first three years before rising to a peak of $197 million in 2001-02, then returning to a lower level in 2002-03 but gradually building up to $192 million in 2005-06. The annual trend rate over the full period was 4.3% with a fairly low R2 of .444 due to the fluctuations over the first four years.
The trend for broadcasting (funding of radio and television services) was positive at 2.2% and fairly consistent (R2=.861), though it stagnated around $1.05 billion over the last four years. Almost all of this was funded by the Australian government.
Funding of film, video and multimedia increased at the faster rate of 5.2% pa (R2=.710). Most of this was due to strong growth in Australian government funding in 2004-05 and 2005-06 in particular, reaching $147 million in the latter year. State and territory funding of film, video and multimedia was more intermittent: it rose to over $100 million in 2002-03 but fell back thereafter. The 2005-06 level of funding was about $80 million.
Total arts funding by all governments other than local grew at modest rates (1.8% pa) over this period, but reasonably consistently as demonstrated by an R2 of .879. The total got close to $2 billion ($1.95 billion) in 2005-06, compared with $1.73 billion in 1999-2000. As already indicated, three-quarters of total arts funding comes from the Commonwealth (and 80% of this goes to radio and television services). Total arts funding by the Australian government grew from $1.3 billion in 1999-2000 to $1.47 billion in 2005-06. Arts funding by state and territory governments showed less consistent growth: it fell in the first years before rising to a spectacular peak in 2001-02 ($496 million). It stagnated at slightly lower levels over the next four years, reaching $480 million in 2005-06.
The last general trend analysis is shown in Table 6.2.1.9, which compares the current and previous statistical classifications in more detail than in Table 6.2.1.6. As far as music is concerned, this comparison suffers by music theatre and opera not being separately available in the previous classification, so we can identify only the 80% or so that is non-opera/music theatre music. Furthermore there is an evident break in the latter statistics between 1996-97, when the Australian government funding level was stated as $27.7 million, and 1997-98, when it suddenly jumped to $67.8 million, the level it then more or less maintained to the present time. We have not yet found an explanation of the jump in 1997-98.
Music funding by state and territory governments did not display the break shown by the Australian government statistics. We can actually put a time series together for music excluding opera starting at $12.2 million (at 2006-07 values) in 1988-89, and reaching $30.8 million in 2005-06. The trend is quite strong at 5.4% pa over this 17-year period, with a very respectable R2 of .894. This contrasts with the relatively static trend in Australian government music funding over the period these statistics are known.
Other indicators from Table 6.2.1.9 concern broadcasting services and film, video and multimedia, which appeared to show largely downward trends in the nineties before some recovery taking place in the new century.
Professor David Throsby has made a useful contribution with
an article in the Australian Bureau of Statistics Yearbook Australia 2001 , pp 548-561 (ABS Cat 1301.1), detailing the
development of arts funding in the 20th century. The article concentrates on the ‘core’ arts, largely
excluding activities such as broadcasting and film. The following is based on Throsby’s article
to which the reader should refer for comprehensive detail.
Some public funding through the various state governments
existed before Federation in 1901. This is manifest in the art galleries in
The beginning of direct grants to artists was the Commonwealth Literary Fund in 1908, starting as ‘compassionate’ support but greatly enlarged in 1939 to encourage the development of Australian literature through writer fellowships and other devices. The fund was finally replaced by the newly formed Australia Council Literature Board in 1973.
In the decade following World War 2, there were three significant developments:
·
The forerunner of the Arts Council of Great
Britain set up during the war gave rise to state arts councils in
· The Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust (AETT) was formed in 1954, presenting drama, dance and opera funded by all three government levels. The Elizabethan Trust Opera Company (1956) was also the forerunner of the Australian Opera, founded in 1969.
· The Sydney Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1946 under the auspices of the then Australian Broadcasting Commission and was quickly followed (by 1950) by symphony orchestras in all six states.
The period from 1968 to 1990 has been called
The boards still represent the basic structure of today’s Australia Council, though film and television were quickly transferred. The Australian Film Commission was founded in 1975, followed by the Film Finance Corporation in 1988. Meanwhile, in 1978 the federal government introduced tax concessions under the Tax Assessment Act to encourage investments in the Australian film industry (‘Section 10BA’ concessions).
In parallel with the development of the Australia Council
from its genesis in 1967-68, the states moved to establish their own s funding
bodies.
David Throsby recorded the earliest proper statistics of
arts funding in
The general impression is that there was a great burst of core arts funding up to 1974, but there was then a lull in real terms over the next nine or ten years. There was a second burst in the second half of the 1980s in which music somehow didn’t share. The main beneficiaries of that second expansion according to these statistics were theatre and dance, Aboriginal arts, community arts, and visual arts and crafts.
One of Throsby’s most important observations is how the Australia Council acquired its decision-making structure (p 556). Funding of the arts basically follows three models, so the founding fathers and mothers in the sixties and seventies could consider:
-
A program of tax concessions to encourage
private philanthropy to support the arts, as in the
- Establishing a ministry of culture to dispense funds to arts organisations and individuals, as in some European countries
- Adopting the British Arts Council model where an independent public body allocates funds free of direct political control.
Opting for the third choice,
The central role of the major federal arts funding body is well established, which is not meant to belittle the important contributions each of the state and territory arts authorities make in their respective areas. The two levels of government (and local government) evidently complement one another, and cater for artistic requirements in different ways.
The two remaining statistical tables highlight some of the
contributions of the Australia Council towards the development of the arts in
Table 6.2.1.11 shows trends in Australia Council funding in constant dollar terms from 1995-96 to 2005-06 from the grants list of the most recent annual report. We have already established that funding to music other than major orchestras or opera companies has been largely static in real terms. The statistics for major performing arts and the share of music thereof show when the Australia Council took over the task of determining and dispensing these grants.(7)The table shows, generally, that the board structure remained reasonably constant until the middle of the first decade of the new century. Some activities appear to have been receiving decreasing amounts of funding such as theatre, literature, visual arts and community cultural development, others have remained reasonably static.
There are some statistical indications, however, that the Council may be changing some of its arts funding strategies. The main one is the jump in funding through the portmanteau heading of ‘all other programs’ in 2005-06. While council programs have existed through the duration of the period covered by Table 6.2.1.11, these increased greatly in 2005-06, the major components being community partnerships and market development (acting under a committee and developing into a board with associated peers), and government initiatives.
It remains to be seen whether these developments will strengthen or weaken the peer review and arm’s length funding principles which have existed for so long in the Australia Council. One indicator would be the proportion of total grants associated with boards and peer review.
In 2006-07, further changes took place in the grants structure of the Australia Council, but information was provided to made it possible to make a two-way matrix to indicate where grants for particular art forms originate (Table 6.2.1.12). This is important in the process of making the changes more transparent to the reader of grants lists. For music, for example, the table shows that the traditional Music Board total remained static at slightly below $5 million, there was a minor amount based on cooperation with the Community Partnerships Board, and $3.5 million from government initiatives mainly associated with implementing the 2005 Orchestras Review with various orchestras. The vast majority of music sector funding continued to originate from the Major Performing Arts Board. The presentation of this information, which is general across the grants list, provides some reassurance that the Australia Council’s original principles are being kept.
(1)
The inclusion of the natural heritage in cultural policy provokes further
perspectives in this era of climate change. Preservation of ecosystems is
increasingly seen as vital not only to particular areas such as coral reefs and
mountains, but also to the broad economic viability of areas such as the
(2)
Public halls and civic centres were merged in 2002-03 with community cultural
activities to form community cultural centres and activities, because halls and
civic centres perform a function as local performing arts venues (dedicated
administrative centres are not included in the definition). It may be noted in
passing that art museums are in the heritage category, though they might be
regarded as ‘venues’ for the visual arts in parallel with the performing arts
venues which are part of ‘the arts’.
(3)
The pioneering work to develop cultural funding statistics in
The initial estimate for local government
funding (1987-88) is low compared with subsequent statistics. The detailed
table in Hans Hoegh-Guldberg, The Arts
Economy 1968-98 (Australia Council 2000, p 148), suggests that funding of
public halls and civic centres may have been underestimated in that year. It
proved to be a major component of local government funding in subsequent years.
Twenty years later, there is little that can be done to substantiate this.
[4]
The published statistics distinguish between recurrent and capital funding.
Since in 2005-06 only 0.5% of arts funding through the Australian government,
and 6.2% of arts funding through the state and territory governments other than
performing arts venues, was classified as capital expenditure, we have
concluded that the overwhelming part of arts funding in
[5]
While the statistics distinguish between music generally and music theatre and
opera, the 2005-06 statistics shows a similar total for the two groups as in
previous years, but only $0.7 million of this was shown as opera and music
theatre. The Australia Council’s Major Performing Arts Board appears to account
for almost all the figure shown in Table 6.2.1.7, and its grants to opera
including the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra totalled $17.1 million in
2005-06 according to the Australia Council’s annual report. There is no
explanation of the figure of only $0.7 million in the published funding statistics
for the year, either in the original ABS publication or in the Three Tiers of Government publication by
the Cultural Ministers’ Council’s Statistics Working Group.
[6]
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra,
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, The Queensland Orchestra, Sydney Symphony
Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Western Australian Symphony Orchestra,
and the pit orchestras the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra and Orchestra
Victoria.
[7]
We have not been able to establish previous funding levels for major performing
arts in this period of transition from the departmental structure existing
under the previous Coalition government, to the new Labor government.
Leave A Comment
Email This Article
