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PRIME MINISTER
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE MON P. J. KEATING, MP
AWGIE AWARDS PRESENTATION DINNER
MELBOURNE, 10 JULY
Ladies and gentlemen
I am very grateful for the opportunity to address you
tonight at Australia's most prestigious awards for
_ playwrights and qcriptwrit-ers meaning the people who
work at the creative edge of the arts and entertairnent
inuty value-adders to the nation's life.
I think you will understand me when I say that in view of
the economic setbacks of the last couple of days and the
human cost which those unemployment figures spell, this
occasion might not seem on the face of it a place to
address national issues.
And I can tell you without reservation that for the next
couple of months or for as long as it takes, every
government effort has to be directed at turning the tide
of unemployment.
Fundamentally that means turning the economic tide and
getting investment and growth back and with It, newlos
It also means making new jobs and making the best
possible provision for those without Jobs.
This is not to say that the arts and entertainment
industry does not have a role to play in creating jobs
and generating wealth,.
On the contrary, the arts and entertainment industry is
one of the industries that Australia always has been good
at and which has an excellent future.
But your role is broader than simply generating income
and employment.
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You are engaged with the fundamentals of Australian life
the way we see ourselves, the way we are seen, the
things we value, the things hope for.
Just as these things are at the centre of our lives, they
will be at the centre of reoery because, as much as
anything else, recovery depeias n our confidence, our
faith In ourselves. It depends on our spirit.
In no small measure the future of Australia is a cultural
Issue.
so I'm pleased to be here among those who work in one of
Australia's great industries and one of the industries of
the future.
I like to believe, some occasional evidence to the
contrary notwithstanding, that those who work in the
realms of Australia's culture and identity continue to
recognise that the Australian Labor Party is their
political ally.
My faith In this was reinforced by the letter which came
from your President.
In it he talked about the way in which the writers
gathered here express in their work some of the qualities
we badly need which any nation needs from time to time
namely a heightened sense of identity and a revival of
spirit. He also said that these writers had achieved significant
levels of excellence, and that excellence was important
to Australia.
I have a feeling he thought that I would be moved by
these sentiments and beguiled into coming and I suppose
my presence here, after a flight from the Solomon
Islands, is evidence that his instincts were right.
Although I am always a little bit cautious about
discussing such things.
Over the years I have come to accept a bit of
sensationalism and distortion.
Although even I was surprised at the media's recent
response to my remarks about Australia's image abroad and
my supposed slight on Paul Hogan.
All I wanted to say on that occasion was that we should
be increasingly building our image overseas on the
subtleties and diversity of Australia, on the wide band
of our achievements as well as that easy-going, droll
and likeable side of our character and lifestyle.
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My point, of course, was never the ludicrous one that the
Paul Hogan campaign was somehow damaging: it was that we
need to broaden the canvas which really means nothing
more than doing justice to the reality.
In truth, as Treasurer in the 1980s, there can be few
people who know better than I the value of the Paul Hogan
tourism campaign, anld I doubt if anyone is more
appreciative of Paul Hogan's role in it.
If Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address in 1992
the chances are the journalists wouldn't report the
speech but the so-called " doorstop" interview that
followed it.
And the first question they'd ask is, " how come you're
talking about democracy and freedom when there's a war
on? And there'd be learned articles at the weekend about
whether it had been 8 lapse of political judgement for Mr
Lincoln to deliver the Gettysburg address in Gettysburg
instead of Philadelphia.
It is not easy to assert principles or ideas in the
Australian political culture.
It's certainly very difficult to express more than one
idea at a time.
It is not easy for politicians to have views on history,
even if it is their own history.
One historian said recently politicians shouldn't
meddle in history giving those of us in politics the
impression was that he was content for us to make history
but not to discuss it.
That is why your President's letter of invitation was
welcome. it is good to see that Australia's writers want an
enlivened and enlarged public intellectual life.
I hope so because those of us in politics who want to
see Australia fulfill its very old hopes of being a great
society and a great democracy, and who are determined to
have a go, need the support of all good hearts and minds.
And good hearts and minds I think will recognise that to
solve our social and economic problems we'll need a
renewed sense of national purpose and new levels of
national cohesion.
To go successfully into the Asia-Pacific and the rest of
the world we'll need new levels of confidence and mature
self-esteem. TEL:
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But despite the enticement in David's invitation, that is
not what I want to talk about tonight. Not specifically.
I want to talk about the arts or, perhaps more
accurately, the arts and our-cultural development.
I'm starting from the proposition that if we are to make
those economic, political and social advances I have just
spoken of, we have to make a parallel cultural advance.
I think the time has come to recognise that however we
define it narrowly or broadly our cultural
development cannot be left to merely follow in the wake
of the nation's economic progress.
I think It might be the best way to develop a better
understanding of ourselves and the rest of the world. It
might help give us the direction we need.
The truth is that ideally we should not need to have
these debates about identity and nationhood.
They are understandable historically, but they are
regrettable. It's regrettable that we lack to some extent a knowledge
of our history and our political and social system an
unselfconscious cultural dimension.
Those who still reach for their gun when they hear the
word culture, might be more easily persuaded if they
think of it as an extension of the argument for valueadded
industries.
Value adding to bauxite creates aluminium and adds dollar
value to it. But the process also adds cultural value.
You've made something something useful which adds
more depth and a self-esteem.
The economic imperative and the cultural one are not
capable of separation they have the same conclusion.
We need to make things. And we need to export them
whether it's a ballet troupe, or an Olympic Team or a
brand of tennis shoe.
We need to send these things of excellence out into the
world with our imprint on them.
That's why in the 1990s I think we should be seeing our
cultural development as an integral part of national
development. Resourcefulness, prizes in achievement and identity woven
into a strand of national endeavour.
What I say tonight, however, remains a general view.
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I'm in no position to say just now what specifically the
government should do to best help the development of our
culture. Nor is it up to me or the Government for that matter to
prescribe how Australia should develop culturally.
That is something that has to grow naturally from within
our society.
The role of the Government is to ensure that that process
happens and is not left to wither in isolation.
As you probably know, the Department has published a
discussion paper on " The Role of the Commonwealth in
Australia's Cultural Development".
There are already in motion a number of review processes.
Submissions have been received. Wide consultations are
about to commence.
I don't intend to pre-empt the expert opinions these
discussions will produce.
But we know that Somewhere between the receipt of this
advice and the creation of policy a great deal of sifting
and judging will have to be done.
And the best way to do it is not, I believe, by the
Government. Bureaucratic assistance will be essential, but to do the
work of assessment, to gather the necessary additional
information which will inevitably be required, to help
the Minister shape and finally formulate policy, Wendy
Fatin and I have decided to establish an Advisory Panel
drawn from the arts and the wider cultural environmentincluding
film, television and broadcasting.
Wendy Fatin will be announcing the composition and terms
of reference of this Advisory Panel shortly.
We want to treat all these submissions in the context of
a Commonwealth strategy.
As far as simple principles are concerned all I want to
establish tonight is that the Commonwealth government has
a clear and very important responsibility to maintain and
develop Australian culture.
This means, among many other things, that on a national
level, innovation and ideas are perpetually encouraged;
that self-expression and creativity are encouraged; that
our heritage is preserved as more develops, and, Just as
importantly, that all Australians have a chance to
participate and receive that we invigorate the national
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1 think these sorts of questions cabou1. d engage us now.
I think good policy in this area needs to both set goals
and re-assure us of our achievements.
The last is as Important as the first in a prolonged
period of radical change I think people need to be
reminded of achievements as often as they are reminded of
those things which have still to be achieved.
That seems to me a function of culture it provides both
the stimulation that comes from the new and the
reassurance that comes from the familiar.
Now, however we decide to go about doing it, what we need
is a Commonwealth strategy for cultural development.
Put one way that means establishing the best way for the
Commonwealth to deliver funding and other forma of
assistance to all those activities which presently come
under the aegis of the Australia Council, and the film
and television bodies, and all those which are placed
under the heading of " Cultural Heritage" Including the
National Library, the National Gallery and the National
Museum. In that way we can throw in such cultural organisations
as the ABC and its of fshootsf the orchestras; and the
Australian War Memorial.
We need to know what is the best way to fund these
organisations, and what is the proper relationship
between the Commonwealth, the States and Local
Government. That will be the kernel of the task for the Review Team
over the next year.
Put another way, it is to find the best way to gather in
our heritage and our ideas and deliver them to the people
of Australia.
Until now, of course, we have adopted a European model
meaning our ideas about delivery have come from
relatively geographically small and much more populous
nations. if we are serious about a national cultural policy, we
need an Australian model one which takes account of our
geographic and demographic peculiarities.
Obviously, establishing those relationships between the
tiers of government io an essential component in this,
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I mean it might lead us to place a very strong emphasis
on touring. A principal component of a national cultural
policy could be touring.
We might decide that we have to be very good at taking
excellence to the provinces delivering the nation's
arts and heritage to people remote from the big cities.
Visiting the nation's life upon them, if you like.
It should be, after all, as much a right as a railway
line or a road.
There is nothing unnatural about drama or orchestras
performing in Mount Isa, Broken Hill, Kalgoorlie or Alice
Springs. On the contrary there should be more of it.
The much mooted National Museum is also a case in point.
I cannot conceive of a way to justify building another
expensive mausoleum filled with inanimate things under
glass. But a museum housed imaginatively if unpretentiously, a
uniquely Australian museum, has a certain appeal.
I mean uniquely Australian in that it would tell the
Australian story by taking the ideas and heritage it
houses out to the people.
A strategy which obeys these imperatives geography and
demography, access, education, stimulating public
discussion, developing national networks, encouraging
Ideas and intellectual life.
This is something I would expect the Advisory Panel to
address. Perhaps something like the American Endowment for the
Humanities, or a second Australia Council for the
Humanities, or as Donald Horne has suggested, a
Foundation for Australian Cultural Development might also
have its place.
The name we call it by, like the eventual shape it might
take, is not as important now as our thinking about a
national cultural policy and what role such a body might
play. It might, for instance, be the principle vehicle of
Australian cultural diplomacy: for promoting Australian
culture including Australian science and education
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There is no doubt that we need to do this. How do we
measure the Importance to this country of a Booker Award,
or a tour of the Australian Ballet, except, perhaps, to
say that it is immeasurable?
We can say the same about film and television including
those soaps which we now so successfully export or indeed
the popular music industry of which we are the third
largest producere.
I'm not talking simply about image, but about income.
I'm talking particularly about the services we can
provide in Asia and the potential that exists for such
industries as publishing, arts and entertainment.
In all this we are talking about a role for the
Commonwealth, and by implication for State and local
governkments$ Yet I believe that one of the keys to our cultural
development will be a new culture of non-government
funding. I would expect that in the formulation of a new strategy
we would want private individuals and companies to invest
more In the creative life of the nation that generally
has been no case to date.
In summary, I think the overall object should be to
create a role for the Commonwealth government which at
once stimulates our national creativity and returns it to
the people.
I imagine a cultural policy which raises both the level
of participation and the level of excellence.
I see this policy as an integral part of building a
better and more secure Australia.
Indeed I believe the essence of our cultural policy
should essentially be interwoven with the philosophy and
spirit of the nation.
This country is poised on the edge of extraordinary
opportunity. We have unparalleled advantages.
We must not let the recession cloud our awareness of
that, or of the great strides we took in the eighties.
There is no doubt that we can get back to economic growth
and general prosperity that must be the overriding aim.
But the prosperity will be more secure and the effort to
secure it more worthwhile if we also realise our culture
is tied in with it and becomes part of it.
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I mean that creating things, all manner of thingsincluding
of course the things that people here createshould
be the nation's commnon purpose.
Creativity should be a word we value above all.
It is because I know that you value it so highly that I
ami grateful for the chance to speak tonight, and honoured
to pay tribute to your work through the presentation of
these awards.
Thank you.