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Regional Arts Fund

What is the Regional Arts Fund?

  • The Fund was established in 1996 and renewed in the 1999-00 and 2001-02 Budgets to provide more equitable access by regional, rural and remote communities to arts and cultural activities in their local area.
  • The programme supports sustainable regional cultural development by funding high quality community arts projects, assisting the professional development of regional artists and encouraging the formation of partnerships with a range of groups such as private sponsors, state and local governments and community groups.

Has the funding been changed?

  • Since 1996 the Fund has provided an average of $2.5 million each year in support of over 1000 regional projects.
  • Over the past three years the Minister for the Arts and Sport has announced over 360 grants to cultural and community groups. In addition there have been a number of major strategic development projects in different States and Territories, and hundreds of small skills-development grants of under $1,000 each.
  • It is being continued for a further four years, with the funding indexed over that period.
  • The funding is:
    • 2004-05 $2.6 million
    • 2005-06 $2.7 million
    • 2006-07 $2.7 million
    • 2007-08 $2.8 million
  • Total funding over four years: $10.7 million

Will the administration of the Fund change?

  • No, recognising the success of the existing arrangements, the programme will continue to be delivered by the regional arts organisations located in each State, and by the Territory arts Ministries.
  • The regional arts organisations in each State are:
    • Country Arts WA
    • Country Arts SA
    • Regional Arts Victoria
    • Regional Arts NSW
    • Queensland Arts Council
    • Tasmanian Regional A

Who benefits from the Fund?

  • Regional and remote communities and artists benefit from the Fund.
  • A recent review of the programme found that the Fund is achieving significant cultural, social and economic outcomes in regional and remote Australia.

What sort of projects have been funded under the programme?

  • The Spark Up project in Burnie, Tasmania, involved 400 community participants led by five professional artists, culminating in a performance for the 2003 Ten Days on the Island festival. The project built community capacity, attracted cultural tourism and boosted a number of small cultural businesses in the town (Regional Arts Funding $3,000).
  • From 1997, the RAF programme provided seed funding of $183,540 over three years to fund an arts officer position in the Central Desert Pitjantjatjara region of SA. This formed the basis for the successful Ananguku Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation which now has a turnover in excess of $400,000. Further RAF funding of $2,000 in 2002-03 towards The Rope Story project resulted in a huge sand sculpture telling an Indigenous story that attracted an audience of 60,000 at Womadelaide 2003 and is likely to form the basis for a new Indigenous cultural enterprise.
  • The Skate project in an outback town in NSW enabled young people to express their grief over an unsolved murder and empowered them to tell their story to the rest of the community by means of a theatre production (RAF funding of $26,000 over two years). The young actors subsequently performed the play to large audiences in a number of regional towns in western NSW.
 
Document ID: 12629 | Last modified: 6 February 2008, 9:47am