Senate Chamber. Source: Parliament of Australia.

Richard Watts, Push for Senate Inquiry into Budget AusCo cuts, ArtsHub, 2 June 2015

Australia’s peak arts bodies have called for a Senate Inquiry into cuts to the Australia Council budget, a push backed by both Labor and the Greens.

Shadow Minister for the Arts, Mark Dreyfus, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and ArtsPeak Co-convenor Tamara Winikoff all made the call this week, saying a Senate inquiry was needed into the new National Programme for Excellence in the Arts.

The inquiry is needed to investigate why it is necessary to create a new arts bureaucracy under the control of Senator Brandis, said the Shadow Arts Minister in a statement.

On Monday, concerns over the abrupt decision by Federal Minister for the Arts, Senator George Brandis, to cut $104.8 million over four years from the Australia Council budget, led to ArtsPeak (the confederation of national peak arts organisations) calling for a Senate Inquiry into the Minister’s actions.

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