Australia has a unique network of regional art galleries which attract tourism, help local businesses thrive and contribute to overall regional development.

Yet they suffer from accusations of being mere playgrounds for the elite, an attitude reflected of afterthought in multi-purpose government departments and the vagaries of local council elections.

When I was writing my book on Victoria’s regional art galleries ( Art for the Country: The story of Victoria’s regional art galleries, Australian Scholarly, 2019), the main theme that emerged was a conflict over spending public money – on roads, footpaths, sports fields, etc versus the so-called “elitist” arts. It was a clash led by those who wanted a quality of life beyond the everyday practical concerns and those who thought local rates would be wasted on frivolities such as art. The latter could not see how a creative city, which welcomed diversity and innovation, would attract tourism, business and population growth. It was the mundane versus the adventurous, a narrow view of life versus the stimulus of challenging ideas and difference.

It is thus with a sense of déjà vu that I now read about reduced funding for many NSW galleries and battles over the proposed building of a new gallery (costing $50 million) at Hamilton in Victoria’s Western District, where the current gallery holds more than 10,000 valuable items, but can display barely 1% of them to the public because of inadequate space. As in the past, some elected local councillors can see the value to tourism and local business such an attraction would hold; others (motivated by populist vote-catching) plug the old line that such spending only benefits the “elite”, that “ordinary people” just want better local services such as garbage collection, childcare centres, improved footpaths and the like. The Hamilton decision to go ahead was made after extensive community consultation, yet people still complain.

Short-term funding means galleries cannot plan long-term for future exhibitions or guarantee continuity of staff.

The underlying problem is the confused nature of funding, some from each level of government and (if lucky enough) from interested philanthropists. Local councils are elected every three years and (as Victoria’s history shows) often lose their arts champions to those who scaremonger about likely increased debt and rate hikes. At both federal and state levels, the arts portfolio is not standalone, but lumped in with sports, regional development of all kinds and suffers from relative neglect. The federal Minister Tony Burke is personally interested in the arts (as, no doubt are most of the states’ Arts ministers), but he also carries the more time-consuming responsibility of Home Affairs, Immigration and Citizenship and Cyber Security, and is Leader of the House of Representatives. Not much time left to devote to the arts!

At both state and federal level, sports funding seems to take priority, even though attendance at and involvement in regional art galleries outstrips that in the major sports. In Victoria, for example, in 2016, its 50 public galleries presented 723 exhibitions, 2152 public programs and 1426 education programs to more than 5.4 million visitors. They held over 753,000 items in their collections with a combined worth of $4.8 billion. As well (an added value not often mentioned in assessing gallery impacts) they collected, commissioned and exhibited the work of some 3505 visual artists, a huge contribution to the sustainability of working artists themselves. All this is done by an average gallery staff of five, a level of “productivity” unmatched by most businesses and other public organisations.

Beyond such monetary arguments lies the inherent cultural value of fostering creativity, education of children in the arts beyond the school curriculum and the challenge of seeing the world through different eyes, the broadening of cultural horizons and appreciation of varied ethnic and artistic approaches to life beyond the mundane.

The most successful galleries are those led by directors with the ability to convince local councillors and their wider community of the gallery’s contribution to social life. They offer free entry, lively children’s programs, often have a café space and do not scorn amateur local artists. They plan for travelling exhibitions, so it’s not just the original collection on show, and proselytise for the importance of the arts in general. They do not present the gallery as an elite, snobbish place to be seen, but build themselves into a wide range of community activities, public meetings and musical events, as broader “arts centres”. Such directors manage to attract interest from philanthropists whose donations help mitigate the fear of increased rate burdens.

This fits well with the stated aims of their overarching federal arts ministry: “connecting Australians; enriching communities; empowering regions”; to “create culturally vibrant communities, a thriving arts sector, protect and celebrate the culture, heritage and languages of First Nations people". But the federal arts budget of $306.6 million compares poorly with the $753.1 million budget for sports. And it includes support for film, literature and special festivals, with a Regional Arts Fund of only $6 million a year. There is no specific focus on regional art galleries as such, even though they hold major collections of historical and indigenous art.

State budgets reflect a similar bias against the visual arts in favour of sport and are, overall, less aware of the key role of the arts to regional development.

NSW, through its inaugural Arts and Cultural Funding Program, seems to have got part of the message. It claims the shift to two-year funding will reduce administrative paperwork, but galleries such as Broken Hill (NSW’s oldest regional gallery) argue it will limit longer-term exhibition planning. The new program will support more than 6000 artists and cultural workers, fund an additional 22 organisation, provide about $600,000 per annum for four First Nations arts and cultural organisations, to deliver powerful and meaningful outcomes for NSW Aboriginal artists and communities; $985,000 per annum invested in eight Western Sydney organisations; $2,985,000 per annum directed to 23 organisations in metropolitan Sydney (an anomaly in terms of regional needs?): fund an additional 104 creative projects made up of 83 individual artists and 21 organisations; support a total of 1296 local artists and arts workers across art forms to bring their exceptional creative visions to life; plus in regional NSW, 268 artists across 31 projects.

Funding for Western Sydney will engage and empower more than 236 artists to connect audiences from diverse communities. As in Victoria historically, the definition of “regional” (at first aimed at restricting proliferation) has morphed into funding areas of outlying suburbia as well.

The unique claims and needs of country areas are in danger of being swamped, reflecting an overall bias towards metropolitan demands. (Victoria’s galleries thrived in the 1960s-70s because its premier — the arch conservative Henry Bolte — listened to his rural constituents who demanded their rights over already well-catered-for city-dwellers.) The fortunes of art galleries depends too much on the fickle attitudes of local government. Distance makes visiting some regional galleries difficult, but if local councils link them to other aspects of tourist highlights, the message is “build it and they will come”. Towns such as Mildura, in the far northwest of Victoria, exemplified this in the 1960s with its Sculpture Triennial events, bringing sculptors into the national picture and thousands of visitors to the city. It had visionary local leaders and a brave gallery director who could see the wider value of the arts to a remote community.

Country people have the right to see and learn to appreciate the best art of the past and present; galleries are not there for a supposed “elite”, but for everyone, an essential part of every child’s education and the cultural enrichment of community life. Arts ministers need to rethink their priorities.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.