The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) has released a comprehensive National Cultural Policy submission to the Government, outlining a long-term vision to rebuild Australia’s battered arts and cultural sectors and improve conditions for workers.
The policy is the union’s response to a sector in crisis – marked by years of low incomes, insecure work, underinvestment, declining participation, and growing pressures from global platforms and artificial intelligence.
MEAA Chief Executive Erin Madeley said the submission proposes a long-term, comprehensive policy framework to implement a whole-of-government approach to cultural policy, strengthen working conditions, expand cultural participation, and address the threat of artificial intelligence.
“The government’s current Revive policy set out welcome reforms to Australia’s cultural policy, but a more ambitious approach is needed.,” Ms Madeley said.
“COVID-19, monopoly multinationals, big tech and artificial intelligence have compounded problems that have been brewing for the past two decades – higher ticket prices are reducing audience sizes and increasing costs are crippling smaller organisations and venues – excluding most of the cultural workforce from good jobs and stable careers.
“Culture is an essential component of Australian identity. Artists deserve a living income, and every Australian deserves access to enriching cultural experiences and a chance to participate in the arts.”
As part of its platform, MEAA is calling for cultural policy to be elevated across government and embedded as a whole-of-government priority.
Key recommendations include establishing a National Cabinet Ministerial Council on cultural policy and improving coordination across portfolios such as education, communications and transport to remove barriers to participation.
The submission also proposes increased and more stable public investment in the arts, including indexing funding to both population growth and inflation, and ensuring funding arrangements support organisations of all sizes.
The policy submission also emphasises the centrality of First Nations culture, including by expediting progress on Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) laws, better protections against fake Indigenous art, and the development of a cultural safety framework across the sector.
It also proposed measures to lift cultural participation among Australians. Cultural and civic activity are fundamental to a good democracy and our way of life, and Government action needs to support lifelong engagement in arts and culture. Improving working conditions and wages is a central pillar of the submission, which recommends a cultural sector incomes taskforce, extending the government’s Closing the Loopholes reforms stronger protections for freelancers and contractors, and the introduction of portable entitlement schemes to provide access to leave and superannuation.
The union is also calling for big tech to ‘Pay Up’ through Equitable Remuneration – the inalienable right that ensures original creators receive payment whenever their work is broadcast – to be legislated in Australia and extended to digital and AI uses.
Ms Madeley said the policy provided a roadmap for a sustainable, inclusive and globally competitive cultural sector.
“Arts and culture are fundamental to how we understand ourselves as a nation and connect with each other,” she said.
“This policy submission is about ensuring that creative and media workers are supported, that Australians can participate, and that our culture continues to thrive.”
