In 1992, the Commonwealth Government appointed a Cultural Policy Advisory Panel of eminent Australians from diverse walks of life to advise on the formulation of a Commonwealth cultural policy.[3] The panel wrote a preamble based on the belief that ‘democracy is the key to cultural value’ in a world undergoing major changes in technologies, values and ideologies shaping the expansion of ‘homogenised international mass culture’. Australian culture was defined as the sum of mode of life, ethics, institutions, manners and routines that has ‘flourished’ into ‘an exotic hybrid’. While this should be encouraged, cultural policy makers faced a dilemma between reconciling egalitarianism with artistic excellence.
The panel concluded that culture should be placed higher among the government’s policy priorities, both as a separate portfolio and across all areas of government. It also recommended that a Charter of Cultural Rights be adopted to guarantee all Australians: the right to an education that encourages creativity; the right to access cultural heritage; the right to new artistic works; and the right to community participation in cultural life.
The Creative Nation document that followed this preamble was premised on the assertion that culture defines national identity and preserves Australian heritage. As the ‘first national cultural policy’, Creative Nation aimed to link everyday life with cultural enrichment and the pursuit of cultural excellence.
It recognised the complex, multicultural and urban society that Australia had become as well as acknowledging the contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture to national identity. Several aims underpinned its recommendations:
to shore up our cultural heritage in national institutions;
to adapt new technologies for cultural preservation and dissemination;
to create new avenues for artistic and intellectual growth and expression; and
to support artists and writers.
The policy was also grounded in the belief that ‘this cultural policy was also an economic one. Culture creates wealth.’
Creative Nation canvassed a wide range of measures to enhance the role of culture in Australian life. This included expanding the role of the Commonwealth in managing culture through: increased federal funding; enhanced roles for DCITA and the Australia Council; establishing a Major Organisations Board within the Australia Council to support elite performing arts organisations; and establishing new cultural support programs and incentives to develop private sector cultural sponsorship.
As well as enhancing the role of cultural agencies and organisations, Creative Nation also proposed a range of strategies to address issues in the film and media sector; provide development funding for multi-media centres; introduce a range of measures to protect creative copyright; expand cultural heritage provisions; offer incentives for cultural industry development; redress cultural education provision; introduce incentives for cultural investment and export; and expand cultural tourism in Australia.
Although only some of the recommendations were introduced before the Keating Labor Government lost office in 1996, Creative Nation set the terms of arts and cultural policy in the early years of the Howard coalition government and influenced international models for cultural policy, most notably, in the United Kingdom.