A new National Cultural Policy

This new National Cultural Policy is a crucial opportunity to focus the Australian Government’s convening power and leadership on profound challenges and opportunities facing Sydney’s creative sectors.

Many factors are contributing to the long-term viability crisis facing Sydney’s creative sectors, including chronically unaffordable housing and the cost-of-living, which are putting pressure on creatives and their audiences’ ability to participate.

The spaces where creative projects once worked are being squeezed by increasing demand for industrial land and by increasing densification of housing. Remaining spaces are vulnerable due to site fragmentation, and limited ownership and control, which lock users out of growth opportunities — leaving them stuck in a cycle of ‘staying afloat.’

Yet culture is also flourishing in Sydney. As one of the world’s great multicultural cities, with a deep and abiding First Nations culture, a metropolitan area being transformed by public transport connectivity and increased density, and a city with along and proud history of creative culture, there is a real flourishing of new creative talent across the city.

And culture offers far more than simple entertainment, as wonderful as that can be.

The evidence shows this powerhouse sector can and does play an important role in addressing government’s most pressing challenges:

• Building the shared understanding that shapes social cohesion and connection
• Making higher density living viable and politically sustainable by enabling thriving communities, not just housing
• Underpinning national competitiveness, with the magnetic influence of a globally distinctive culture that drives economic growth and attracts people from around the world.

The impact of aligned federal Revive and state Creative Communities plans over the past four years has demonstrated the potential for effective coordinated governance across the system. Indeed the federal government’s convening power has never been stronger than it is now, with the Arts Minister able to play conductor on a national stage where every state has a creative/cultural strategy.

This new plan has the potential to build on that platform to address and unlock the potential of the creative sector. It should address systemic failures that have kept creative and cultural sectors in survival mode, and prioritise actions to enable innovation across the sector — to enable long-term sustainability, support economic growth and prosperity where relevant, and set the sector up for the coming waves of technologies.