The Australian Voice?
It’s thankfully only a few days to the election and I have been reflecting on the last few weeks of campaign promises, squabbles about debates and town hall meetings, and the inevitable bidding war comprising various programs and payments intended to win our vote.
On Monday night, I heard the first mention of Arts Policy and it wasn’t from the mouth of a politician. Perhaps I missed something in the all the interviews, debates and media reporting but I’ve heard absolutely nothing about the arts from those who want to lead our nation. The first mention came from a male, 20 something who posed a question about support for the arts via an internet question to Tony Abbott during the ABC’s Q & A program on Monday evening.
Arts policy IS important to our profession – it’s most often the policy area at both the federal and state area that includes publicly accessible library services. The National Library is the only federally funded publicly accessible library with the vital role of collecting, preserving and making accessible Australia’s documentary heritage.
If you check the Arts policy for the three main parties, only one makes any reference to the importance of our national collecting institutions and has a policy of safeguarding and prioritising funding for them.
One of the ALIAs election lobbying issues was support for the development of a national digitisation strategy to make available the rich and unique collections from
A national digitisation strategy, appropriately funded, is critical. We know that in Europe and other parts of the world, hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in digitisation so that local stories can be told. These materials are being used for research and repurposed through all sorts of creative endevours that we can’t even begin to imagine.
Without digitisation of our rich and unique collections where will the Australian voice on the internet come from? Will our collections remain locked away in storage, only available to those who can travel to access them?
Why is it politicians at all levels don’t see this as important to our identity as a nation? Why did recent advertising around the NBN boast that Australian children would be able to access cultural collections from overseas? Does this mean our our own stories and collections and inferior or not so important?
ALIA works to raise these and other important matters with our politicians, but we need more individual voices advocating for what we believe to be important. The ALIA election advocacy material can be easily translated to a state and local government context to continue the lobbying – there is almost always an election somewhere. Regardless of the outcome on Saturday and the lack of policy position from the major parties, remember the next federal election is only about 3 years away – so lets keep our voices strong.
Margaret Allen
Vice President