The arts bring us joy, and inspire deep thinking and connection with each other.
Melbourne is known for its thriving arts and festival culture.
Yet the arts and artists are chronically underfunded in Victoria. Creative organisations continue to struggle with funding uncertainty, forcing artists to leave the industry because they can’t make ends meet.
The arts should be treated as a public good, with public funding.
My wins for the arts include:
- Helping to secure a new home and ongoing support for the Sticky Institute – a Melbourne institute of Zine culture – after they were forced out of the iconic Campbell Arcade by the government’s Metro Tunnel Project
- Advocating for Government support to rebuild the LaMama theatre after it sadly burnt down in 2018
- Advocating for and securing emergency funding for live music venues and artists during Covid lockdowns
- Successfully campaigning to keep Federation Square for the community, arts and cultural events, instead of being taken over by an Apple megastore
I’m fighting for:
- Ongoing funding for small and medium arts organisations to support artists and art projects and events
- Sick pay for artists and creative workers, to provide them the same rights as other casual and contract workers
- A Living Wage for Victorian Artists pilot program to provide artists a living wage to give them the freedom to develop, create and present work
- Support for dedicated arts spaces, including protecting significant existing spaces, as well as providing affordable new artist spaces and support for pop-up creative spaces in vacant premises
- Increased funding for festivals, especially for arts events in Melbourne’s CBD and inner city, to provide ongoing security and stability for festivals
- Calling on the government to protect the cultural use and heritage of the Nicholas Building, ensuring the current artistic tenants can stay in the building, and that the building isn’t sold and turned into apartments, offices, or something else equally as soulless.
For more detail about our plans to support the arts in Victoria, click here.
