Arts Sector

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (15:19): Our arts, culture and entertainment sector has been decimated by the arrival of coronavirus and the necessary restrictions that have come with it. On the final weekend of the Fringe and the Adelaide Festival, news filtered across busy venues spanning out across our city and our state that by Monday there would be restrictions on gatherings of 500 people, then 100 people, then no public events at all.

Over the following days and weeks, operas, plays, musicals, concerts, recitals, events, festivals and exhibitions across our state regretfully issued statements making the heartbreaking decision to cancel their shows, seeing years of effort by artists go to waste and disappointing eager audiences. With every cancelled show went jobs, the jobs of creatives, such as: artists, performers, actors, bands and singers, and also the people behind the scenes: producers and directors, stage makers, costume designers, lighting experts, promoters, marketers and ticketing and front-of-house workers, to name a few.

Working in the arts is not generally a lucrative career, but many people working in the sector have planned their financial affairs well. Many are used to on-again off-again work, but such a sudden shock with such immediate financial consequences and no fresh employment in sight is proving impossible for even the most prepared arts worker. The majority of artists are not eligible for the JobKeeper payment. They often have not worked for their employer for a continuous 12 months, and they may not even have been formally employed at the time, with work coming up that was cancelled.

It has also been terribly disappointing to see that the 200 casual staff at the Festival Centre have been stood down without pay. As staff of a government enterprise, they have not been able to access JobKeeper payments either. That is an oversight that our leader and the Labor team have been working hard to publicly highlight. We have called for our arts minister, who is also the Premier, to appeal to his federal friends to recognise that staff of government enterprises such as the Festival Centre, as well as the Convention Centre, the Entertainment Centre and Coopers Stadium, are in a different position from that of public servants.

Their wages are paid through the earnings of the government enterprises they work for, so if School of Rock is cancelled there is no job for the front-of-house worker at the Festival Centre and no money to pay him or her. That is a different situation from that of a public servant, whose wages are paid from government coffers by the taxpayer. We have even suggested that these workers might be gainfully re-employed plugging the gaps in manpower that our state is now experiencing, especially in the charity sector. Unfortunately, so far in this place the arts minister and Premier's response to that constructive suggestion has been no.

While some arts organisations have in part or in full honoured payments to artists despite cancellations, not every organisation can do that, but I thank those who have. It is indeed a very tough time for artists and those working in the culture and entertainment space right now. Our thoughts on this side of the house, and I am sure on the other side, are with you. We on this side will continue doing our best to highlight the situation that you find yourselves in.

Although some additional arts grants have been brought forward and the rules for complying with existing grants have been relaxed—and the government should be commended for that—much more needs to be done to help sustain the sector. This is a sector that injects millions and millions of dollars into our economy each year and employs 16,000 people. It generates significant income for other industries as well, like hospitality, tourism and accommodation.

It is incredibly important that our creative sector is well supported now so that artists and arts workers can survive through the deep dark winter they are experiencing but also so that they are ready to emerge into the sunshine of a post-coronavirus world and contribute to our economy and our broader emotional and psychological recovery as a state. The arts, culture and entertainment sector has been one of the first industries to suffer from the social distancing requirements and is one of the hardest hit sectors of our economy. Sadly, the arts sector is also likely to be among the last to emerge from restrictions.

National and international travel restrictions, which will be among the last controls lifted, are also critical to the arts sector in terms of both the logistics of bringing people and artworks to our shores and drawing international audiences. There is certainly an irony in the fact that this sector will be the last to recover but creative expression lives on and is right now critical to individuals and families surviving this crisis. For all that art gives us, surely it is time we also turn our minds to what we can do for the arts in this state both now and in its long recovery.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Cowdrey): The member for Flinders.