The damning report calls for all the money seized from the Australia Council in the Federal Budget to be returned.

The Senate inquiry that has been gathering data in recent months as to the impact of Former Minister for the Arts, Senator George Brandis’s now defunct National Programme for Excellence in the Arts has released its findings. The 182 page report explored the testimony of representatives of the Australian arts and entertainment sector gathered during a national roadshow that visited every State capital in Australia as well as a number of regional arts hubs, as well as thousands of submissions made online.

In total 16 senators from the Liberal, Labor and Green parties, as well as Independents conferred on the vast dossier of evidence before making 13 recommendations that unequivocally slam the establishment of the National Programme for Excellence in Arts, rebranded two weeks ago by current Minister for the Arts Mitch Fifield as the Catalyst Fund.

The report also strongly criticised Senator Brandis’s lack of consultation with the arts community and his decision to siphon money from the Australia Council to fund the NPEA. Senator Mitch Fifield announced on the November 20 that $8 million a year would be returned to the Australia Council from the reappropriated funds. However the Senate Inquiry committee felt this gesture was insufficient, recommending that the full sum seized by the Ministry for the Arts in the Federal Budget – over $104 million dollars – be returned to the Australia Council.

If the Catalyst Fund were to continue the report recommended that the funds be sourced from elsewhere in the Government’s coffers and that the current duplication of funding streams between the Catalyst Fund and the Australia Council’s programmes be reevaluated. One possible area where the Catalyst Fund might provide better support is to replace some of the cancelled programmes the Australia Council were forced to cut in the wake of the Federal Budget announcement in May, the report recommended. However, should the Commonwealth government be “unwilling or unable” to find funds to support the Catalyst Fund it should be disbanded, the report says.

The recommendations also called for the government to provide an “emergency transition fund” in 2016 to repair some of the damage caused to the small to medium sized arts organisations most severely impacted by the arts funding crisis. The report also identified areas of the Australia Council’s activities that it felt should be improved, including a closer collaboration with the Ministry for the Arts and an “increased equity in the arts” to provide more opportunities for artists working outside the major metropolitan areas of Australia in rural or remote locations.

The report also called for a restoration of funds to Screen Australia and that funding opportunities for digital creatives, including those working within the gaming industry, be reestablished.

The damning report will be a moment of vindication for the #FreeTheArts movement, who have fiercely opposed the changes to the arts funding infrastructure since the Federal Budget announcement earlier this year. One of the movement’s high-profile figures, Tamara Winikoff OAM, Executive Director of the National Association for the Visual Arts also acknowledged that while the report was a step in the right direction the fight was far from over. “Sadly, the Government has become trapped by the embarrassment of having made a big mistake and causing probably unintended chaos in an industry that is the soul of innovation; something which the PM Malcolm Turnbull trumpets as the new mantra for the party,” Winikoff said. “The Government needs to be confident enough to admit its mistake and make a properly considered, appropriate investment to enable Australia to become a really great arts nation.”

“What has been made patently clear through the Senate Inquiry process is the extent of the corrosion caused both to the financial sustainability of the sector and to important matters of principle. The Government needs to make good its lack of any evident vision for Australia’s cultural future and seeming disregard for proper process,” Winikoff continued.

The full report is available to read online.