‘Where's The Money?’: Govt Slammed For Arts Funding Delay Three Months Since Announce

Shadow Minister For The Arts Tony Burke has slammed the Federal Government for ongoing delays in distributing must-needed emergency funds to the arts and entertainment sector amid the COVID pandemic.

Tomorrow marks three months since the Government announced its $250 million creative economy package and Burke has called out Scott Morrison, stating “they still haven’t actually delivered a single dollar” and that the Prime Minister is “all photo-op and no follow-up”.

“The COVID-19 crisis began in March. Labor first called for a support package in March,” Burke said in a statement today.

“For more than three months the Government stubbornly insisted there was no problem and that a sector completely shut down by restrictions was somehow doing okay. After more than 100 days they finally relented and announced a support package on June 25. So where’s the money?

“For much of the promised support - $90 million in concessional loans - we still don’t even have guidelines. Businesses and workers in this struggling industry still don’t even know whether they will be eligible to apply. While guidelines have been published for the RISE grants component of the package Government officials are telling applicants they shouldn’t expect to see any money before December.

“It could even be 2021 until any money actually starts flowing.

“A huge number of arts and entertainment workers missed out on JobKeeper because of the way the Government designed the wage subsidy scheme. Those workers who were able to access JobKeeper will have their payments cut next week – but they’ll have to wait months to get the targeted support they were promised.

“This is a sector that employs hundreds of thousands of Australians. These are workers who are hurting and they need help. They deserve better than this hopeless Prime Minister, who cares more about headlines that actually helping people.”

Yesterday, NSW Labor announced it would introduce a Bill in Parliament that aims to promote jobs for musicians, as well as remove bans and restrictions on live music in venues across the state, following on from the launch of the Save Our Stages NSW campaign earlier in the week.