"No amount of largesse can guarantee that a genre will thrive.."

Christopher Pearson: Culture needs cultivating
February 18, 2006
Does Australia need a cultural policy? David Throsby, a Sydney economist, has posed the question in The Weekend Australian Review, and in a larger essay just published by Currency House.
My initial response, like that of Imre Salusinszky and Janet Albrechtsen, who've both canvassed the issue in recent columns, was to say no. After all, when you take into account the documents developed by the federal, state and territory arts ministries andeducation departments, it's obvious that the nation is awash with cultural policy, muchof it contradictory, ill-considered or, worse, a charter for Hansonite "cultural protectionism".
There are limits on what state patronage and intervention can accomplish, and this holds true not just for low budget genres such as writing or painting, but also for expensive collaborative forms such as the performing arts. No amount of largesse can guarantee that a genre will thrive, as Salusinszky and Albrechtsen are quick to point out and anyone who has sat through much recent Australian film will know all too well.