Actors to urge govt for Arts support

Actors Nadine Garner and Helen Dallimore, musician Ruth Hazleton, and production designer Fiona Donovan will address a Senate inquiry into the government’s response to COVID-19 today.

They will appear by video link with Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance chief executive Paul Murphy to urge for a multi-faceted response to get the sector back up and running.

They will argue for financial assistance for arts organisations, income support for freelance and casual workers, and regulatory incentives in the screen and media sectors.

MEAA will give evidence that the public health measures taken in March brought the arts and entertainment sectors to a standstill and threw tens of thousands of people out of work virtually overnight. More than 100 regional and community newspapers ceased printing, with significant redundancies at major media employers because of sharp declines in advertising revenue.

“The arts and entertainment sectors were among the first and hardest hit by COVID-19, and they will be among the last to get back to work as we knew it before coronavirus,” Paul Murphy says.

“A lack of immediate government assistance and the inadequacies of JobKeeper have placed the entire sector in a precarious position from which it may never recover without extensive support on a number of levels.

“Employment in the sectors has shrunk by at least 20% and incomes have dived, and this has been worsened by the tight criteria which have ruled many freelancers and casuals ineligible for JobKeeper.

“The devastation to the arts and entertainment could have been reduced if the Federal Government had responded to pleas from the sector for targeted assistance two months ago.

“Instead, workers in the sector feel they have been abandoned by their own government Minister.”

A petition to Arts Minister Paul Fletcher has been signed by almost 15,000 people requesting government support to get the sector back to work.