Some had predicted that he might even announce some funding for the arts or a new initiative.

Yet after 90 minutes of talking, interspersed with the odd jeer, gasp of disbelief and some applause for his opponents, the hundreds of people who filled the the Wheeler Centre were left none the wiser about the Turnbull government's arts policy.

Labor's Mark Dreyfus​, the opposition spokesman for the arts, and Greens arts spokesman Adam Bandt,​ spoke in detail about their own respective policies, both released in the past week.

Reversing cuts of more than $105 million to the Australia Council, abolishing the Catalyst "slush fund" administered by the minister's office with money diverted from the Australia Council and returning any unspent money from the fund to the arts funding body were first among them.

Instead, he seemed to antagonise those in the crowd – filled with hundreds of people who work in the industry, including many whose organisations had lost recurrent funding from the Australia Council in recent weeks – by refusing to directly acknowledge the damage done to the arts by his government.