There’s been a lot said about sport funding this federal election but not much on the arts in west and south west Sydney.
And that’s a shame, according to the umbrella organisation for some of the local councils in the west of the city.
Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (WSROC) says that of the 200,000 people from the west who travel outside the region for work every day 30,000 are in the creative and cultural fields.
So now WSROC has called for greater federal investment Western Sydney arts in order help the region tackle its rising jobs deficit.
Its president, Tony Hadchiti, says that while the importance of addressing Western Sydney’s jobs deficit has been acknowledged, there’s been no commitment to building cultural and creative industries.
“In 2015 a report revealed that the federal government invests just one per cent of its federal arts budget in Western Sydney,’’ he said.
“This is despite the west being home to one in 10 Australians who spend just as much on cultural activities as their eastern counterparts.
“Since this report was released, there has been no noticeable change in funding at the federal level, except cuts to the Australia Council for the Arts.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“As a result, we continue to see tens of thousands of residents leave the region on a day to day basis and invest their talent elsewhere,” Cr Hadchiti said.[/social_quote]
Almost all of Western Sydney’s cultural venues are largely funded by local councils, says WSROC. But lack of federal assistance puts an unfair burden on local governments, which are not, at their core, arts bodies.
“Councils can only afford to offer small project based grants, which give little certainty to artists and cannot facilitate the ongoing, strategic development our local creative industries need to grow and flourish in the long term,” the WSROC president said.
“With the funding to retain and nurture home grown talent, Western Sydney would have the opportunity to build its creative industries, generating local employment for the 30,000 arts and cultural workers who leave the region each day.
“Starving the West of funding to develop its arts and cultural industries is not only a failure to tackle the region’s jobs deficit, it is a failure to recognise one of the region’s most significant and largely untapped resources,” he said.
