A reminder: culture is worth 5% of the GDP, $111billion. More than agriculture. The arts are central to culture and alone are worth $4.8billion. They employ hundreds of thousands of Australians.

The current “rescue package” for the arts is a pathetic $5m scraped from the bottom of the Australia Council’s coffers. I keep thinking of the $715m Qantas received just for asking, and how they immediately stood down 20,000 staff.

Money into the arts would keep people employed. A visionary would echo the legendary Federal Art Project the US ran through the Great Depression. But we have no visionaries here. https://www.theartstory.org/definition/federal-art-project-of-the-works-progress-administration/