Wednesday, 9 September 2026

 Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (19:12): (1835) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Creative Industries. Minister, last week more than 100 people from across the arts came together to discuss the state of the sector. These people define our collective identity and they bring colour and joy and deep connection to Victorians. Making and experiencing art in all its forms is part of what human beings need to live a decent life. If economics is your language, let me put it in this way: the arts employ more people than there are teachers in Victoria, they generate more income than the mining sector and they attract bigger audiences than the AFL. Our governments have a responsibility to fund the arts as a public good. But I have heard from across the sector that the arts in Victoria are in deep crisis. It is becoming harder to make work, let alone a living, and it is no surprise. The state government has cut key funding for the arts by 35 per cent in real terms in the last five years, and Victoria is now the second-last of all states and territories for per person expenditure on the arts and culture.

These cuts are not because Victoria cannot afford to fund the arts; budgets are about choices. Labor cut funding to arts organisations to just $59 million over four years. The same government spent six times that upgrading the corporate building at the grand prix for lobbyists to watch the Formula One. Exhibiting spaces are shutting down all across Victoria, but do you know which exhibition the government spent $30 million on? The Land Forces weapons expo. For the sum of $130,000 the Victorian Labor government created a new taxpayer-funded part-time role for a weapons lobbyist for a former Labor MP. It is hard not to look at Labor defunding Writers Victoria for a similar amount and wonder if that is where the savings went. Melbourne used to be the cultural capital. Now it has declared itself the defence state.

The Greens want different choices. We want to tax the big corporations their fair share to pay for the things that we all need, because everyone deserves to have rich cultural experiences. That is why we are pushing for a living wage for artists, to increase and index funding to the arts, to protect our art spaces and venues, to keep live music alive and to protect artists from censorship and AI. Industry leaders are telling me that the Victorian Labor government has nothing to offer for the arts this election. The action that I seek is a concrete plan to make us once again the cultural capital.