Arts Funding

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (14:40): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation representing the Minister for Tourism on the subject of arts cuts.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: This council would be well aware that South Australia is the Festival State; indeed, the City of Adelaide's strategic plan for 2016-2020 boasts of the vibrant city goals of the capital city of our Festival State, Adelaide. I note that Adelaide has long been recognised as one of the world's greatest festival cities—the Adelaide Festival being a jewel in that crown—and that the 10 major festivals inject some $75 million into the local economy as of the 2014-15 calendar year. Yet that festival and the arts sector are facing quite significant cuts.

Most recently, it has been reported that the Adelaide Festival of 2017 will be receiving a $949,000 cut and, more broadly, the arts sector in South Australia will lose $8.5 million over the next three years. Of course there have been some in the arts community who have been quite critical of that. Mr Rainer Jozeps, who headed the ASO for six years, told the Sunday Mail that this figure hardly touches the sides in respect of the state's budget, yet the impact on the agencies affected would be crippling. He went on to say:

Arts organisations are afraid to speak out against proposed funding cuts, no-one wants to bite the hand that feeds them. The savings benefit (for the Festival of Arts) is wildly disproportionate to the damage it will do to the event.

My questions to the Minister for Tourism are:

1. What economic modelling has been done on the impact of these savage cuts to the Adelaide Festival of Arts on our tourism into the future?

2. How will his department interact with the arts minister to ensure these savage cuts do not have a significant damaging impact on tourism money coming into this state in the coming years?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:43): I thank the honourable member for her most important question about arts funding and our state's outstanding support for the arts sector, particularly our support for the festivals. I undertake to take those questions to the Minister for the Arts in another place and seek a response on the honourable member's behalf.