WA pushes for more arts cash in budget

With the 2011-12 federal budget due to be handed down tomorrow, Western Australia’s major performing arts companies and the newly formed Chamber for Arts and Culture are pushing for more arts funding for WA.

The chamber recently released a statement saying WA “deserves” more funding for its major performing arts companies, which included WA Ballet, WA Opera, WA Symphony Orchestra and Black Swan State Theatre Company.

The chamber, which is led by Rio Tinto boss and arts supporter Sam Walsh, said based on population WA should be allocated at least 10 per cent of the $91 million Australia Council for the Arts national funding.

That would amount to $9.1 million but, according to the state’s major performing arts companies’ funding model review, WA receives $7.2 million.

The review calls for an increase in funding of $2.6 million. WASO will get $2 million, with $100,000 going to WA Opera, $400,000 to WA Ballet and $118,000 to Black Swan.

WA Ballet’s general manager, Steven Roth, said the funding request would give WA’s arts companies the ability to significantly improve their offerings to consumers.

“$400,000 gets us our full troop of dancers and we’re happy and the public are happy,” Mr Roth said.

“It is a question of audience equity. If we go back to that premise that there is a vast array of things to access on the east coast, the audiences there have the depth and breadth and amazing array of art and here we get a limited number of productions.

“WA audiences deserve the same quality and breadth and array of art at the highest level as anyone else in Australia does.

“For a very small extra amount of money we can do that, but the federal government is just not interested.”

With a decision on the triennial funding structure already having been delayed since 2009, a budgetary increase for ACA funding is not looking good. Any increase to WA’s funding would most likely come at the expense of another state’s major performing arts company.

Asked how the money can be equitably distributed, Mr Roth said: “That’s the million-dollar question … we keep hearing over and over again that there is no money, so what do you do?

“The draft (funding model review) has come out at the moment and there is a meeting in a couple of weeks. It is not looking good for WA, it is basically saying we will leave everything as it is. If it has to be a redistribution of the funds, someone is going to miss out. I would hate to be the one making that decision.”

In the chamber’s statement last week, Mr Walsh said the tighter budget did not completely rule out more funding for WA.

“While the Commonwealth has talked about a tight budgetary environment and spending restraint, the chamber believes there is still scope through mechanisms such as the Australia Council to provide a fairer distribution of funding to WA’s peak performing arts companies,” he said.

WA Opera general manager Carolyn Chard said the chamber was pushing for an equitable share for WA because the arts were “critical to the health of our state”.

“Enhanced support of the state’s major companies is important to ensure WA’s state opera, orchestra, ballet, and theatre companies contribute to the cultural life of the city,” Ms Chard said.

“It enables the broad range of talents that exists in this state to be nurtured and provides employment opportunities for artists to keep them in the west,” she said.

If WA’s major performing arts companies received the funding they were after, teamed with increased state funding, WASO would introduce a commissioning program and would attract musicians with competitive salaries.

The WA Ballet would introduce six more dancers and a world-class repertoire, WA Opera would gain a fourth main stage opera season and Black Swan would increase its programming from six to eight productions by 2013.