Aus Federal Budget 2026, did the arts get stiffed again?
Bob sure thinks he did. You've obviously read about the capital gains and negative gearing changes, with the Herald Sun referring to the Federal Treasurer as 'Jim the Reaper'. Of course these changes just mean that everyone who benefited from them in the past will continue to do so but no one in the future will get to, ensuring that housing market stays fucked until that generation dies.
As you read this though, pour one out of for The Australian's Bob Conkey, the Porsche driving, investment property owning and share market trader who was robbed in this budget (pictured above).
But did the arts get stiffed again? Is Labor still 'Reviving' or have they moved on since rebranding The Australia Council to Creative Australia and touring a few works out to the regions from the National collection. To keep this brief yes and no.
According to many press releases as part of 2026 budget Labor has committed $1.1billion to the arts in the 2026-27 Financial Year. There's an attached graph that makes up the billion but here's some key changes below;
- $10.1 million over two years for the Australian National Maritime Museum in addition to an extra $1.5 million core funding ($26 million total)
- $1 million extra for core funding ($43million total) and $9.9 million over three years for the National Film and Sound Archive to improve storage of 'dangerous nitrate-based film material' but their cutting their staff down from 257 to 216.
- $3 million extra for the National Library ($80 million total).
- $3 million extra for the Museum of Australian Democracy to celebrate 100 years since the opening of Old Parliament House ($23 million total).
- $2 million extra for the National Museum of Australia ($57 million total).
- $326.5 million to Creative Australia, a bump of $14.7 million from 2025-26, plus a lil staffing boost of four extra people up 163.
- Creative Australia includes continued funding for Music Australia, Writing Australia, First Nations Arts and Creative Workplaces as part of the 'Revive' national cultural policy.
- $25 million instalment toward The Fox contemporary art museum within Melbourne Arts Precinct.
- $5 million contribution toward a new Aboriginal Cultural Centre in Perth.
- $113.6 million for Screen Australia, down from $114.3 million in 2025-26
- $3.5 million for Queensland Holocaust and Education Centre
- $1.4 million for a Tasmanian Holocaust Education and Interpretation Centre
And my favourite, $900,000 for the Office for the Arts to begin developing a potential new National Arts and Culture Strategy ahead of Revive’s expiry in 2027.
Ultimately not a lot has changed, while the funding has bumped up a little bit its barely in keeping with other portfolios. And as we near the end of Australia's first national arts policy in over a decade, arts and culture in so called Australia couldn't be in a more fraught position.
So for the love of god if you work in the arts, enjoy the arts or can type an email please make a submission to the National Cultural policy review. It's due on May 29. NAVA has done an amazing job collating responses and notes from its NAVA-led sector discussions to help inform National Cultural Policy submissions. You can read them here.
Unfortunately I'm not holding my breath as The Office of the Arts has stated that they'll be using 'AI' as part of the process to do the following;
- administrative processes including management of submissions consistent with standing Australian Government naming and storage conventions
- creating summaries
- the identification of common themes and issues.
Three things the slopAI is notoriously bad at and definitely won't completely flatten the ideas in the submissions of hallucinate completely fabricated ones. I guess the Fed's have to justify their deals with OpenAI, Anthropic and Palantir somehow, I wonder how much of $900,000 for the review is going to AI tokens?
Cynicism aside, its important to continue engaging regardless of the short term outcomes, the arts and more broadly cultural life erodes when everyone gives into apathy. So slop bot use aside, go make a submission if you care about arts and culture in this country. At the very least take a leaf out of Omar Sakr book and make a similar submission about your disdain for their use of AI in this process.
Oh and if you feel so inclined you can read the full budget here, its only 602 pages. I do hope Bob will be okay. More broadly Charlie Lewis at Crikey has done a great round up of 'extremely normal one over the budget'. and shout out to Nick Miller at The Guardian for bringing robbed Bob to my attention over on Bluesky.
References:
https://visualarts.net.au/news-opinion/2026/navas-2026-27-federal-budget-response/
https://www.arts.gov.au/have-your-say/new-national-cultural-policy
