Although the 1950s and early 1960s are often described as a ‘cultural Ice Age’, a number of elite national cultural organisations were set up during this period, including the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, National Institute of Dramatic Art, Elizabethan Opera Company, the Australian Ballet, Union Theatre Company, Old Tote Company and the federal division of the Australia Council for the Arts (1964). This latter body was to become the key cultural organisation as a statutory authority in 1968, supported by various federal and state cultural organisations, while the states generally preferred using departmental arrangements to manage culture. These cultural agencies were both the product of vigorous interest representation and the symbol of a new moment of national culture, elevated in some cases, by the royal imprimatur. Australia was coming of age culturally, but still could not, or would not, sever its umbilical ties with England.

The importance of politically well-connected and persistent cultural lobbyists became a feature of Australian cultural policy both at federal and state level, a feature detailed by Rowse (1985) and Macdonnell (1992). These lobbyists were assisted by the formation of bodies representing sub-sectors of arts and culture such as writers, visual artists, Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander (ATSI) cultural producers and so on. So, the polarisation of pro- and anti-arts and cultural interest groups persisted and has flavoured subsequent debates about national culture, cultural education and training, cultural development, multiculturalism, indigenous culture and cultural export.

It was at this point that things heated up on the cultural front and an energetic period of growth was facilitated by the Coalition governments of Harold Holt, John Gorton and William McMahon, and capitalised on by the cultural invigoration of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government (1972-75) (see Rowse 1985; Macdonnell 1992; Gardiner-Garden 1994). This period saw the combination of an expanded role for the Australia Council, the emergence of specialist artform bodies, inquiries into performing arts, new innovations in the visual arts, film, television, crafts, museums, and in music. This panoply of energetic innovations set the scene for the later focus on access and equity that dominated cultural discourse well into the nineties.

As noted above, the idea to establish an arts council had been proposed much earlier, based on the perceived success of arts councils in Britain, Canada and New Zealand. They were heralded as a way to avoid idiosyncratic forms of patronage and determine cultural support on the basis of peer evaluation and excellence. It was considered that an arts council would be well-positioned to foster the development of national culture based on ‘artistic merit’ and democratic extension by providing assistance to cultural organisations and practitioners (Johanson and Rentschler 2002). Accordingly, the Australia Council for the Arts was composed of artform boards that evaluated applications for funding on the basis of peer review.