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National Portrait Gallery exhibition

The Prime Minister, John Howard has launched the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection, exhibited in its new permanent home at Canberra's Old Parliament House.

The exhibition is a unique blend of historic and contemporary portraits of people who have helped to shape the nation, and includes images of explorers, sporting heroes, scientists and musicians - from Captain Cook to Kylie Minogue.

Subjects for the Gallery's first commissioned portraits, chosen for their contributions to Australia's social and cultural identity, were also revealed at the launch. They are athlete Cathy Freeman by Kerrie Lester, cricketer Mark Taylor by Bill Leak, scientist Sir Gustav Nossal by Peter Churcher, and musician Nick Cave by Howard Arkley.

The Gallery will continue to purchase, loan and commission works for collection and exhibition as well as featuring temporary exhibitions of portraits from around the world.

The National Portrait Gallery is part of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts.

Contact

National Portrait Gallery 02 6270 8211 or email portrait.gallery@dcita.gov.au or visit www.portrait.gov.au

Australia's Cultural Network

Australia's Cultural Network (http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/), the online gateway to Australian cultural organisations, websites, resources, news and events is celebrating its first birthday and much is happening online:

• it is receiving over a 1000 visits a day;
• the number of websites indexed is now more than 900; and
• the range of services and resources offered to its users are expanding.

The pathfinders resource has been expanded. Subject-specific pathfinders (http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/) have been created to help find information on the site and beyond, relating to particular areas of Australian culture, such as visual arts and crafts and Indigenous resources.

The articles in the News section (http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/news/) help you keep abreast of cultural happenings. Topics range from the millennium bug to Anzac Day.

The Copyright and intellectual property resource (http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/) has always been popular. To enhance access to the wealth of information, a copyright search facility enables you to search the content of Australian copyright and intellectual property websites.

Search services are an exciting area of development for Australia's Cultural Network.

Free cultural search engines are offered at (http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/). These search engines are easily installed in an organisation's website for free and provide a search facility of its own site or a combined search of all Australian cultural websites indexed by Australia's Cultural Network. Examples of organisations that are already taking advantage of the free cultural search engine can be found at (http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/). Other Search services are being significantly upgraded to offer features such as: Search Related Sites' (SRS); 'Search Part of a Site' (SPS); and 'Search Parts of a Site' (SPSS).

Contact

Judy Hiscox, New Media on 02 6271 1280 or email editor@acn.net.au

Australian content decision

The Government has announced it will amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to protect the level of Australian content on free-to-air and pay-TV.

The amendment will ensure that foreign access to local content quotas will be explicitly confined to New Zealand, responding to industry concerns.

The Project Blue Sky judgment effectively required the Australian Broadcasting Authority to treat New Zealand-made programs as Australian-made, because the Australia/New Zealand Closer Economic Relations (CER) trade agreement accords equal treatment to New Zealand programs.

The Government's amendments will ensure that a similar situation does not arise with TV programs from other countries. The revised standard for free-to-air commercial television implemented on 1 March 1999 provides safeguards for categories of Australian programs considered vulnerable to substitution by cheaper New Zealand product, while complying with Australia's CER obligations.

The ABA will closely monitor and review the revised standard after two years to assess how well it is addressing cultural objectives.

The Government will now proceed to make the 10 per cent Australian content expenditure quota for pay-TV enforceable and will tighten the rules under which Australia or New Zealand programs qualify for the pay TV quota by making them consistent with the definitions for free-to-air television.

Contact

Caroline Greenway, Film and Online Content 02 6271 1711 or email caroline.greenway@dcita.gov.au

Centenary of Federation update

With its publicity campaign underway to boost public interest in Australian history, the National Council for the Centenary of Federation has announced the first round of grants under its $10 million History and Education Program.

The program is designed to increase knowledge and appreciation of the development of the Australian nation since Federation in 1901, and leave a lasting legacy of resources for future generations.

Through one of the grants, significant documents relating to the founding of the Australian colonies and the Commonwealth, will be released from protective storage around the country. Using state of the art technology, the nation's 'birth certificates' will be digitally photographed and mounted on a new, educational website.

The Founding Documents Website is a joint project of the National Archives of Australia and government archives across the country. The technology they'll employ represents a world first-and a fascinating convergence between old and new.

There will be two further grant rounds under the History and Education Program during 1999, and a final round in the first half of 2000. A full list of grants can be found at www.centenary.gov.au

Contact

Claire Tedeschi, Centenary of Federation Public Affairs 02 6270 8152 or email claire.tedeschi@dcita.gov.au

Mission Australia

Mission Australia, the latest Australia on CD title, is being distributed to schools and libraries.

Produced by Garner MacLennan Interactive in consortium with Environment Australia, Landcare Australia, Institute for Coastal Resource Management and the Murray Darling Basin Commission, with additional sponsorship from North Ltd..

The Mission Australia CD-ROM is based on a series of environmental challenges at eight locations. An Australian animal takes the player around each environment (estuary, coast, city, farm, mountains, arid rangelands, rivers and wetlands) and introduces some of the problems found there. The mission is to solve these problems by balancing natures needs against peoples needs.

The aim is to educate children about what they can do to help the environment, and to provide a realisation that solutions to environmental problems are often long term and require compromise.

Contact

Martin Miles, New Media 02 6271 1054.

• Document ID: 11483 |
• Last modified: 5 February 2008, 6:05pm