Put simply – and despite the very excellent work of bodies such as SLAM and State-based music industry lobbying organisations – live music policies tend to sit way down the list of election priorities. There are many reasons for this: as a broad sociological observation, the arts vote tends to go to the more progressive parties; the image of a struggling musician trying to pay rent on a sharehouse from a motley collection of live gigs and a part-time job in a Northcote cafe pales into insignificance compared to the Herald Sun splash of a frustrated family of five battling the rising cost of utilities bills, children’s school clothes and the impact of carbon tax on the family car. A billion dollar injection of support to the manufacturing industry can be linked to a thousand jobs, and illustrated with people wearing hard hats and nodding sagely at machines in industrial suburbs; a few hundred thousand dollars for the live music industry is perfect fodder for tabloid journalists eager to find another government program to wash over with such pejorative terms as ‘junket’, ‘rort’ and ‘bludge’.
Complicating this prevailing electoral indifference is the loose nexus between the responsibilities of the Commonwealth government, and the concerns of musicians, venue owners and the extensive network of supporting players that come together to make up the live music industry. Typically, the concerns of the live music industry are local: planning restrictions, licensing laws, local council and State government touring grants – issues that the Commonwealth government largely has no direct control over. That said, both State governments and local councils are largely dependent on the Commonwealth for funding to operate – the Commonwealth’s ability to offer ‘tied grants’ (money tied to a particular purpose) means that the Commonwealth’s hand is a lot stronger than is necessarily understood.
Perhaps the most telling moment in the ALP’s live music policy campaign came even before the election was called when Rudd returned to the leadership; in the deluge of resignations that followed Rudd’s return to the lodge, Peter Garrett, the one-time high profile ALP recruit who’d been hung out to dry over the so-called Pink Bats program failure, decided his memory wasn’t short enough to weather another Rudd shit storm that was coming his way, and announced his impending exit from politics. Garrett could have been the talisman candidate for live music; as it is, he’s arguably symbolic of the gulf between philosophical integrity and professional political practice.
Fittingly, Rudd chose Melbourne to make his obligatory big policy splash on live music support. Heavy on rhetoric and Rudd-style hubris, and light on practical implementation, the policy incorporated the classic ingredients of an election policy: financial largesse ($560,000), big name supporters (Gotye, Kevin Mitchell) and a big shiny new taxpayer-funded body, the National Office for Live Music. The National Office for Live Music isn’t a pseudo-Australia council, nor a Music Victoria-style advocacy body: in fact, judging by Arts Minister Tony Burke’s reference to its role in “identify[ing] key policy, regulatory and process reforms to better support a robust local live music scene”, you could be forgiven for assuming it’s the hipster wing of the Productivity Commission.
The ALP policy also involves the appointment of State-based live music ambassadors – Katie Noonan (Queensland), Kevin Mitchell (Victoria), Kav Temperley (Western Australia), Stavros Yiannoukas and Dave Faulkner (New South Wales), Leah Flanagan (Northern Territory), Dewayne Everett-Smith (Tasmania) and Matt Lambert (South Australia). The ambassadors’ roles are a mixture of advice, mentoring and ceremony; there was no mention of the perks that often go with ‘real’ ambassadorships, such as immunity from prosecution for violating road laws and parking restrictions, a $10,000 entertainment allowance and a gaggle of locally engaged staffers. Labor has also – belatedly, in the eyes of many in the community broadcasting sector – earmarked a stack of cash for the transition of community radio to digital transmission.
The Liberal’s policy platform is thin on specific arts and music initiatives, and heavy on criticism of the government’s current activities. While Abbott has been on record as challenging the longer-term relevance of the current Federal system – and, by inference, the future of State governments – the Liberals have been careful to avoid encroaching too far onto State government territory. Interestingly, the Coalition’s decision to oppose recognition of local government in the Commonwealth Constitution, has implications for directing Federal funding directly to local government bodies, who’re often better placed to help local artists than State arts bodies.
George Brandis, the Coalition’s shadow arts minister, has waxed lyrical about the need to reduce government spending, while maintaining a level of public support for the artists and musicians. Publicly, at least, the Coalition supports opportunities for artists, though government support (ie. money) will always be subject to a broader budget context – which, peering through the bureaucratic speak – means “don’t be hanging around waiting for a grant”. The Coalition has already put the Creative Young Stars in its sights, arguing the program cannot be sustained in the post-election budget environment.
Brandis isn’t a big fan of the current government’s Creative Australia initiative, accusing it of a multitude of sins, all of which are consistent with opposition parties’ tendency to criticise on the basis of expansive rhetoric, rather than precise policy detail. A national cultural policy should, Brandis says, have a ‘thematic coherence’ – which sounds great, unless you it is the thin of the wedge that prises open the box labelled ‘cultural hegemony’. Expect the Arts Council to come under its usual conservative scrutiny – now’s not a good time to put in an application for your industrial-ambient noise project.
Abbott has also made a big point about ‘reducing red tape’ – apparently public service managers will be fiscally rewarded for eliminating such bureaucratic hurdles, which makes for an interesting post-election time – and it’s possible to read into this a desire to deal with complex, and often contradictory State and council regulatory arrangements. Couldn’t simple and reasonable liquor licensing arrangements be part of the red tape reduction? Planning laws that don’t require venues to invest in millions of dollars of sound proofing because a cashed-up punter has bought a new terrace house in hipster-central? There’s an argument there to be made.
The Greens are always going to be the local artist’s friend, albeit with significantly less political power than their major party acquaintances. The difference with the Greens’ policy is that it’s targeted at the local level. Learning the subtle political commentary in the We’re Living On Dog Food documentary – in which the interviewed artists referred to the importance of dole payments in providing the Melbourne punk scene with a satisfactory economic foundation – a keystone of the Greens’ policy is amendment to Centrelink arrangements to “allow artistic activities that provide community benefits to be eligible for Centrelink mutual obligation requirements.” Critically, this policy focuses on the many, and varied periods of unemployment that live musicians tend to face in the volatile live performance environment.
There’s a smattering of government funding policies as well, including $3m to enable payments for artists performing, exhibiting or speaking about their works and an additional $3m investment into the ArtStart program to provide business training and financial support to new and emerging artists. In contrast to the ALP and the Coalition, the Greens recognise the arts as both a potential career in itself, and a genuine sector of the economy – rather than a nebulous aggregation of activities that are divorced from other ‘productive’ pursuits, and for which the major political decisions are funding, and national and cultural identity.
The Australian Sex Party has gone beyond the titillating focus suggested by its name to do some serious thinking about the arts and censorship. The Sex Party supports the establishment of a National Peak Body for the Performing Arts – a concept presumably close to Music Victoria, rather than the ALP’s mooted organisation – and the recognition of live music venues as part of Australia’s cultural heritage. In the Victorian State election in 2010, the Sex Party took a pragmatic approach to liquor licensing laws for live music venues, arguing for a reduction of the licensing fees to reflect the low risk nature of those venues.
Unsurprisingly, the Sex Party also strongly advocates a restriction in censorship laws – laws which have caused some grief for visual artists in the past, and the existence of which may yet create drama for live musicians who’re tempted to push the boundaries of community taste. Given the historical symbiotic relationship between musicians and illegal substances, the Sex Party’s proposal to radically tackle restrictions on the supply and use of illicit drugs would surely resonate with a proportion of the live music demographic.
As for the other parties, nothing seems to jump out. The Shooters and Fishers Party neglected the opportunity to recruit Ted Nugent to join its campaign; the Bullet Train for Australia Party could have enlisted Johnny Casino to adapt his cover of Expressway to Your Heart in the cause of high-speed rail. And why hasn’t the Coalition wheeled out a picture of Johnny Ramone as proof that punk rockers can be conservatives?
So where does this all leave us? Well, live music policy – and arts policy generally – has never been, and probably never will be, an election game changer. It’s part of the independent musician’s raison d’être to operate outside, and occasionally in contravention of the dominant political system. But if you don’t vote, you can’t complain (well, you can actually complain, but you’re cutting your nose off to spite your face), and if you don’t tell local candidates what actually matters – which is usually a lot more important than a large policy announcement surrounded by celebrity musicians – policies will lack sophistication and practical merit.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Pictured: Graveyard Train, photo courtesy of SLAM
