Tuesday, 5 March 2024

Victorian arts funding

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (13:35): I want to say more about the state government’s plans to attack local history, the state government’s plans to cut funding to history and the arts. The state government is clearly in a very serious position with respect to finances, but they have launched an attack on the arts more broadly. We have seen a number of the youth orchestras, which we have just talked about, affected but also a number of the smaller groups that have a really critical role in the arts. If the state government’s idea is that as they come towards the budget they are going to take an axe and swing the axe on arts funding, I think it is disgraceful.

Labor members should stand up on this. They should say that this is wrong, and they should be quite clear that the reason the state government is swinging the axe on arts funding is because of their incompetence and inability to manage money. They have allowed the budget to sweep right out of control. They have wasted squillions of dollars, if I can use a colloquialism – at least $40 billion in cost overruns on major projects. These are projects which may or may not be worthy in themselves, but the huge cost overrun – more than $40 billion – has gone straight to the bottom line, and now we are in serious debt. Arts funding is suffering because of Labor’s inability to manage the budget, and the latest attack on the Public Record Office Victoria is part of that serious attack.