marcus westbury

Chairman Rudd’s got a clever strategy going, unless it’s just a coincidence. The usually-secret Red Book warns of approaching “challenges” like climate change, an aging population and the economic growth of India and China. Then we announce the Australia 2020 Summit.

As any management consultant will tell you, develop a shared vision and folks will endure short-term pain — like interest rate rises and having to change the light bulbs.

Actually I’m not that cynical about it. I’m quietly enthused. After a decade of Howard’s backward-looking short-term thinking we seriously need to look to the future. Fast. Of course, back when Barry Jones was science minister we had a permanent organisation to keep watch, the Commission for the Future. Maybe I’ll read Lessons from the Australian Commission for the Future: 1986-1998 [PDF file] when I get the time. But I digress…

If Chairman Rudd wants 1000 of our “best and brightest” in Canberra on 19-20 April, who should they be?

It’s flattering that Nick Hodge and Peter Black nominated me, bless their sycophantic little hearts. And I’ve already gained four votes at Bloggerati. I’d love to be part of this Summit, sure, because I’d be Fighting the Hallucinating Goldfish hands on. However I have a few more modest suggestions…

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If art is about creativity, then why does most of the government funding go to a few relics from the past?

Last night’s exhibition launch at Gallery 4A included reminders that contemporary art galleries struggle to survive: a begging bowl on the bar, and speeches studded with polite requests to become a member or make a donation, and genuinely thankful thank-yous to the private patrons.

Yet as Marcus Westbury writes in the Sydney Morning Herald today, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra gets nearly $9M funding annually — more than all of Australia’s visual arts artists put together. Or all writers and publishers. Or all the dancers.

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