Australian Indigenous art at risk

The booming Australian Indigenous art industry is facing a crisis. The ‘intervention’ into Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory has put the production of art at risk and has sadly made the future for Indigenous art centres uncertain.

On the 21 June 2007, the former Coalition Government introduced measures to combat the sexual abuse of children in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. These policies have become known as the ‘intervention’. One of the key policy changes made under the ‘intervention’ was for the Community Development Employment Project (CDEP) to be phased out by June 2008 in favour of the work-for-the-dole program.

The Community Development Employment Project offers Indigenous Australians, including Indigenous artists, a chance to develop workplace experience with a CDEP registered organisation. Participants receive a base payment for the casual work they perform and extra for additional hours worked. As thousands of Indigenous Australians have been shifted onto work-for-the-dole, they have found that their welfare is cut if they receive any additional income.

The phasing out of the CDEP program has been met with an onslaught of criticism.

Central Land Council Director, David Ross, said that Indigenous Australians who have been shifted onto work-for-the-dole feel ‘humiliated’. ‘They have to register with Centrelink, register with a Job Network Provider, have their hours restricted and have their hard earned income reduced and quarantined.’

The election of the ALP in November gave hope to CDEP advocates that the Coalition’s policy would be reversed. However, the new federal Indigenous Affairs MinisterJenny Macklin, has indicated that the ALP will most likely reinstate the program but will make some modifications. Some fear that these changes will steer the CDEP program closer to the work-for-the-dole scheme.

The unique risks for the Australian Indigenous art industry

Most independent Indigenous artists rely on CDEP payments as a supplement to art sales. Work-for-the-dole will lessen the incentive for artists to create art given the potential for their welfare to be cut. Artists will also have less time to produce art given their work commitments under the program. Unfortunately, creating art is not considered ‘work’ under the program.

This could force art centres to close—most art centres in the Northern Territory currently employ artists and workers under CDEP and will have to either let workers go or pay them a full income, which they can’t afford.

Judy Lovell from Keringke Arts at Santa Theresa argues that the unique and high standard of work that has been produced over the years under CDEP is under severe threat.

‘Anybody in a normal mainstream business would be appreciative of what this small, singularly incorporated art centre has achieved through its excellent, creative workers …. Now it seems that this is to be lost because it is directly threatened by the removal of a base pay rate….If that survival money is taken away then the art centre business will shrink, people will not be able to attend the studio and work there legitimately under the proposed new government rules,’ she said.

Alan Murn, Manager of Julalikari Arts, fears that the cut to artists’ incomes may mean that artists will be forced to sell their work to ‘carpetbaggers’—buyers who come into communities and offer small amounts of instant cash for artworks. Carpetbaggers exploit artists’ need for additional income (a problem which is even more pressing under the conditions of the intervention), and will even offer cars, gifts or alcohol in return for artworks.

The scrapping of the CDEP has also compounded the broader challenges the industry faces in relation to forgery. Forged or fake Indigenous art undercuts the value of authentic Indigenous art, reducing the proceeds Indigenous artists receive for their work. As the production of Indigenous art drops under changes to CDEP, and the demand for Indigenous art continues to be high, forgers will likely step in to meet the demand.

Indigenous leaders, art centres and other CDEP organisations have banded together to promote the reinstatement of the project in its original form. For the sake of the Indigenous art industry and the lives of thousands of Indigenous Australians we can only hope that they are successful.

How do I know this?

‘NT Intervention - the Wedge that Couldn't’, New Matilda, http://www.newmatilda.com/

‘Media Release 21/06/2007 - National emergency response to protect Aboriginal children in the NT’, Australian Government, http://www.facsia.gov.au/internet/Minister3.nsf/content/
emergency_21june07.htm  

‘Media Articles – January 2008’, Women for Wik, http://www.womenforwik.org/media.html

‘Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) programme’, http://www.workplace.gov.au/workplace/Programmes/
IndigenousProgs/Community+Development+
Employment+Projects+(CDEP)+Programme/

‘Federal Labor To Create Up To 300 Rangers As Part Of Indigenous Economic Development Strategy’, Australian Labor Party, http://www.alp.org.au/media/1007/msenhiaNA050.php  

‘Reform And Improve CDEP, Not Scrap It’, Australian Labor Party, http://www.alp.org.au/media/0707/msNA270.php  

‘Macklin to make 'minor changes' to NT intervention’, ABC Online, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/17/2140873.htm  

ALP commits to Indigenous Intervention, ABC News, accessed at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/17/2140873.htm  

Macklin signals changes to NT Intervention, PM, Radio National, accessed at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/17/2140873.htm  

‘Aboriginal art under threat’, The Australian, http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/aboriginal-art-under-threat/2007/09/16/1189881342944.html

‘Changes kill off incentive to work’, The Australian, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22461027-5013172,00.html

‘It’s not really your art centre: Life today in ltyentye apurte’, Aboriginal Art & Culture: An American Eye, http://homepage.mac.com/will_owen/
iblog/C2062160667/E20070909114737/index.html  

‘The Northern Territory Aboriginal Art Industry welcomes the findings and recommendations of a Senate Inquiry into the sector’, Stateline, ABC Online, http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/nt/content/2006/s1972380.htm  

Scrapping CDEP a disaster: NT Minister, PARIAH, http://www.pariahnt.org/news/content/view/59/1/