Political journalist and facilitator Gabrielle Chan began a recent conversation at the Creative Regions National Summit in Canberra by quoting award-winning critic and writer Alison Croggon:
‘One of the ways we cope with the complexities of contemporary life is to silo issues, but it’s also how connections become invisible; we cease to see how the large patterns and the small reflect and influence one another.’ (The Monthly, 2019).
Chan expressed her frustration that ‘the arts is really seen in this building [Parliament House] as just the fluff in between the important stuff; and it is the first to fall of the budget.’
How then, as a sector, do we speak to our politicians more effectively to ensure culture stays on the agenda?
How do we talk to politicians?
Sue Middleton is no stranger to talking to politicians, having lobbied from a board position for many rural and regional renewal organisations, and now as Chair of Regional Arts WA. ‘It is critical that the language [we use] is in their language, and that is economics. They understand infrastructure, so we need to package up the intangible into the tangible,’ she said.
‘Arts does not work. It is absolutely what you do, but for them the language that is working is creative industries,’ Middleton continued. ‘Today we are all about jobs creation, and if you cannot describe the jobs that you will create from something, then you are just not in the room.’
It is a view shared by Ian Kew, CEO for Airport Development Group (Darwin International, Alice Springs and Tennant Creek Airports), and Chair of Darwin Festival.
‘I think you need to work on the Opposition and every Independent so they also see the value of what you are promoting. You need to be very mindful that it is their constituency that, at the end of the day, will influence them, and so if you can communicate value through the public, then they go to politicians and they will listen,’ said Kew, adding that in smaller communities we are much closer to our governments and we should maximise that proximity.
Middleton added that one of her greatest lessons as a rural women was, ‘to learn how to walk in the corridors of power to convince people that these things really mattered back in [my] community and needed some investment, or a better policy environment, or just for the government to get out of the fricking way, because sometimes that’s all you want from government.
‘So if you don’t have a person who can do that, or help train our communities to do that, you are not in the room – and they will never get it,’ she added. ‘My goal is to make sure we are not separate, that we are embedded and that value is understood.’
Moderator Gabrielle Chan, Ian Kew and Sue Middleton at Creative Regions National Summit. Photo ArtsHub.
Finding your pitch to government
The Northern Territory is losing its population; it’s a place where people go to work for a few years and then leave.
‘We are going through the back end of the resources boom. And while the Federal Government has had a Northern Australia agenda now for about five years – lots of fancy papers but not much action – they have a common need [with the Territory Government] to get people to go north – to go and live and stay,’ Kew explained.
‘You have to have more than just a job to do that, and that is where arts and culture come into the pitch. They need to think about the brand of the Top End and what attracts people.’
He noted that Darwin Airport is currently spending $600M on new aprons for the military, and yet the contribution to the city is just $92M in the same deal.
‘The money going into infrastructure in the Top End is not being matched by making Darwin, and other places in the Top End, liveable,’ he added.
Middleton stressed the importance of framing our pitches more successfully.
‘I can tell you this: as an agriculture chair we are trying to explain how you package up and build resilience in farming families instead of building dams – because the view at the moment is that we need to capture more water. No! There are a whole heap of other things far more important and that will have a far more profound impact, both on the current situation of people in drought, but also in how you build a more resilient community for the future,’ she explained.
Her lesson was instructive for the arts and culture sector.
‘My pitch for the government going forward is you have 20 regions in Queensland, five in WA and two in Tasmania that won you the election. Outside those regions the government lost. So you need to have a really clear picture; what is the opportunity for those regions? If you can explain how you can create value in those regions, and deliver the outcome the government needs in those regions – especially jobs and economy – than you have the answer,’ Middleton said.
Finding stability outside the political cycle
The political cycle has become largely disruptive and unpredictable, making it difficult for arts organisations to rely on it.
Chan has witnessed a growing tendency in regional communities to bypass government, to get stuff done outside of the bog of political process, because they are no longer sure how it will work out.
Both Middleton and Kew acknowledged that while it is necessary to diversify strategies, you don’t necessarily have to throw the “baby out with the bathwater”.
Kew said: ‘If we can get a major organisation to [agree to] 3-4 year funding it is a much easier ask if you can say the government is doing a similar funding [deal]. The corporations are much smarter with their money and they won’t commit if there is uncertainty. You need to have your corporates and government talking along the same time frame.’
Middleton’s advice was to find a way to cope with the big swings. ‘For example, we are two years into a new state government and we still don’t have clear programming or a sense of what we are working with. In that two years, we have had a drop in funding from $6M to $1.2M over four years, so you have to be able to move really fast and nimbly and recreate yourself.’
She likened it to running a race where you have to stop, turn yourself on your head, and then right yourself and get going again.
She continued: ‘Fundamentally, the one that thing that never changes is that you are still working with the same communities. I call myself a broker. You have to normalise it as much for communities as you can. I don’t want to go out every two years and say “Now we are not doing that, we are doing this.” Even though things might be volatile, you have to try to make it so they have some certainty and some capacity to work long term.’
Boards need to move beyond small town thinking
Chan quoted Kew from an earlier interview, saying ‘The strength of our Board is to help open doors and close deals.’ Chan pushed the idea that effective boards are about ‘shaking people down’.
Laughing, Kew absolutely agreed but added that a Board’s role is to also shake down governments.
Kew said that when he came in as Chair for Darwin Festival, as it rolled out of Statutory Administration, the Festival was provided with $1M to open an office, noting that the funds barely covered staffing let alone a program.
The lack of funding didn’t allow the festival to grow and prosper, but as it is hard to keep going cap-in-hand to government departments for money, he went out to the corporate sector instead.
‘We set up as a corporation, which removed the fingers of the government, and doubled our corporate sponsorship in three months, from $300,000 to $750,000. We said to the government, if you give us money we will match it dollar for dollar in the corporate sector,’ Kew explained.
‘Yes, we shake the government down as well; they need to understand what the value of something like the Darwin Festival is to its community – not only for just visitor tourism. While they are the buttons for them, they have got to do more. The local value is immeasurable.’
Middleton took a softer approach – well, perhaps a velvet glove in an iron fist, to use a cliché.
‘I use the word “love”. One of the things people find it hardest to talk about is money. Money is the flow of love – to get money to flow to you is to get love to flow to you.’
She continued: ‘The principals are the same; you need to be really in the other person’s world and you need to sell value, and they are uncomfortable prospects. First thing I do is walk in screaming “Oh my god you are extraordinary, but you are delivering so much for nothing – you are crazy! You have to stop doing this”.
What you do is really valuable and you cannot afford to give it away.
Sue Middleton
Middleton said her journey with Regional Arts WA has meant becoming a shape-shifter. ‘If you give everything away you can’t choose what to sell and what to give, and people get used to you giving so they assume you will give it away,’ she said.
‘You need skills-based boards, so get your matrix out and work them hard because a small not-for-profit is as difficult to run as a large for-profit company.’
Kew added: ‘I think what happen in not-for-profit boards is that passion gets in the way of smarter decision-making.’
Across the Summit, a distinction was made about the perception of ‘capital A arts’ for the cities while a ‘lower case a’ mentality was reserved for what was happening in regional and remote centres.
Middleton expanded on this idea: ‘The way I describe the difference is that arts in regions is about process, and what changes in that room when you are doing the process is as important as the product, whereas in urban art it is more about product and audience, and numbers through the door.
‘That makes it really hard to package up regional arts. You have to get really good at packing up the intangible into the tangible,’ she added.
The 2019 Creative Regional National Summit was presented by Regional Arts Australia at Parliament House Canberra in November.
