The arts needed a champion – it got a package to prop up the major players 100 days later
Yesterday’s $250m arts support package is welcome news, although long overdue, says Jo Caust in this crossposting from The Conversation. And it prioritises big organisations, which means small and medium arts organisations could miss out.
It is now over 100 days since the country went into lockdown as a result of COVID-19. Overnight, all arts venues had to close, and arts activities essentially ceased because of the need for social distancing.
On March 19, three days after the lockdown, the Federal Arts Minister Paul Fletcher convened a meeting with state arts ministers to talk about the dire situation facing thousands of unemployed arts workers.
In late March, we waited for an announcement that the federal government would be offering targeted forms of support. We knew already that the sector provides enormous economic value to the country because the government published figures saying so.
