Govt Announces $250 Million Creative Economy Package For Arts & Entertainment Industries

The Australian arts and entertainment industry will be given a boost through a $250 million creative economy package. 

As The Sydney Morning Herald reports, businesses and workers within the creative industries will share in grants and loans due to the huge impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on music, arts and film. 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to announce the package today, which will include $75 million in grants to assist production and event businesses put on festivals and tours and $35 million in direct financial assistance to musicians, theatres, dance groups and more.

"These measures will support a broad range of jobs from performers, artists and roadies, to front of house staff and many who work behind the scenes, while assisting related parts of the broader economy, such as tourism and hospitality," Morrison said on Wednesday.

"This package is as much about supporting the tradies who build stage sets or computer specialists who create the latest special effects, as it is about supporting actors and performers in major productions."

Peak body APRA AMCOS welcomed the news, with CEO Dean Ormston saying it comes "at an urgent time not just for the music sector, but the broader creative economy".

"This package will provide a necessary and critical lifeline to many music businesses and organisations to ensure they can get through the next 12 months," Ormston said.

"It is also an important accompaniment to the Government’s previously announced $10 million funding of SupportAct, Australia’s only charity delivering crisis relief services to artists, crew and music workers.

“The package also recognises the vital role the creative sector has on the broader economy. Live music alone contributes $16 billion of value to the Australian community providing vital commercial, individual and civic benefits.”

Live Performance Australia's Chief Executive Evelyn Richardson said that the package is a "vital injection" for the creative sector. 

"[This] will help live performance companies reopen and start to rebuild after the impact of the overnight loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue over the past three months," Richardson said.

Shadow Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke, who has been consistently campaigning for arts workers to be included in the JobKeeper scheme, said that the Labor party will consult with live venues about how the Government's announcement "interacts with them".

"If venue don’t make it to the other side of this crisis, there will be no recovery," Burke said.

"We will work through the details of the package in the coming days and we will continue to advocate for a better deal for these workers. If the Government decides to do more, Labor will support it."

However, Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) Chief Executive Paul Murphy was not as pleased with the package announcement.

"While any form of assistance is welcome, this package is another slap in the face for the thousands of arts and entertainment workers who are not eligible for the JobKeeper income subsidy scheme," Murphy said.

"The grants and loans will help arts organisations begin to recover from the coronavirus shutdown, but there is absolutely no relief for freelance and casual workers who have lost their jobs and suffered significant reductions in income."

He added, "It is essential to provide capital injections and financing and investment incentives to the bodies that provide employment in the industry, but there is no point in doing that if you don’t have a workforce.

"The stark reality is that we are in danger of losing a generation of creative professionals in this country without an adequate income support scheme."