David Sefton, artistic director, Adelaide festival

The idea that no arts organisation would be able to say no to any sponsor is clearly nonsense. An arts event starts with the artist, and if they’re refusing to come because of some connection to something the artists deeply disapprove of, the organisation has to have the freedom to make the choice [to sever its connections] without the risk of being penalised. If you’re in a situation where the [funding] relationships you’ve made to make it happen means you can’t actually program what you want, you’re starting from the wrong end of the process. If you’re trying to fund a biennial or a festival or whatever it is you want to do, you start with funding what you want to do – you don’t start with the money and then see who will come because of who you’ve made the relationship with.

I have a fundamental problem with the idea that the funding source is going to go, “We don’t like that, don’t do it.” Last year in Sydney, Vivid festival was heavily funded by the tourism board rather than any arts entity, and they had this show projected outside on two screens. [The show included images of warzones and the aftermath of natural disasters.] The tourism board [Destination NSW] decided it didn’t reflect positively on Australian tourism and basically censored the show. I just feel that the relationship between the arts entity and the funding body is supposed to facilitate the work. Transfield have been involved with the Sydney Biennale for a very long time, and I’m sure they must be terribly upset, but on the other hand, if the Biennale is completely restricted as to who will come, that’s not a positive funding relationship.

Emma Webb, creative producer, Vital Statistix theatre company

This is a scary signal of the federal government’s intention to end the tradition of arms length between the Australia Council and funded arts organisations. It’s very concerning to consider where this might lead, if organisations will no longer be permitted to make governance and resourcing decisions based on their own values and their own relationships with artists and audiences.

Invariably, if arts organisations have no agency to genuinely negotiate the terms of sponsorship, for fear of losing government funding, this will have a chilling effect on the important role of autonomous institutions within a cultural democracy. Arts organisations will potentially be placed in a position of being bought by the highest bidder.

Craig Hassall, chief executive, Opera Australia

Craig Hassall says debate ‘should take place onstage, through our artists’ performances’. Photograph: Opera Australia Photograph: Opera Australia

The arts is often a place for debate, politics and passion. This should take place onstage, through our artists’ performances. Opera Australia enjoys a healthy mixed economy of funding from government, corporate and private sources. We happily work with our stakeholders to present the highest quality productions of opera that excite, enthral and challenge our audiences. I would be concerned if the debate moved offstage and made the arts a political football. We have a lot to say and we say it through our performances.

Lyndon Terracini, artistic director, Opera Australia

As an artist I find it very disappointing that a small number of artists would jeopardise the livelihood of many others and undermine the future of an event that’s meant so much to so many over the years. The minister is expressing the views that many in the arts community have already expressed privately.

George Brandis has made a dramatic intervention into the Sydney Biennale-Transfield controversy. In doing so, he has openly attacked the philosophy of arms-length funding that underpins the Australia Council.

The Australia Council Act of 2013 explicitly states that the minister of the day can’t issue a direction on funding decisions. “The Minister must not give a direction in relation to the making of a decision by the Council, in a particular case, relating to the provision of support (including by the provision of financial assistance or a guarantee),” it states.

Brandis, who is also the attorney general, seems to be arguing that he get around such niceties by telling the council to work up a broadbrush policy on the matter, striking out any cultural funding recipients who dare to deny the corporate coin. The act is “plainly wide enough to include matters of policy and funding criteria”, he wrote in a letter to the Australia Council.

That’s an ambit claim that is yet to be tested in court. But whatever the black letter details, Brandis’ intervention is an attack on the general philosophy of arms-length funding.

From a public policy perspective, that’s a real concern, because ministerial meddling is inimical to cultural innovation. When funding bodies have to look over their shoulders to consider what politicians and the media will say about the funding decisions they make, the interesting, the innovative and the risky are likely to be abandoned in favour of the safe and the staid.

The arts minister may find that injecting himself into the Biennale debate is not necessarily to his long-term advantage. One of the happy side effects of arms-length funding is that it also protects ministers from charges of political and ideological bias. The next time the Australia Council makes a controversial decision – as happened during the Howard government, when the agency defunded its entire New Media Arts Board after that board supported a game called Escape from Woomera that commented on immigration policy – Brandis will quickly be drawn in to the controversy.

On the upside, at least we live in a country where we have funding from the state to support our cultural development, and sponsorship obviously is an important part of that equation. You can’t separate sponsorship from political interest. For example a lot of the Aboriginal arts industry is supported by mining. The Aborginal Cultural Institute where I work doesn’t receive money from mining companies but we wouldn’t rule it out, because that’s actually where the most philanthropy for the arts is available. We would want the mining companies to demonstrate real and meaningful consultation with Aboriginal communities and evidence that they’re providing jobs and land maintenance and a whole lot of good environmental measures.

More recently, BHP Billiton, a major mining company, put $4m towards an Indigenous arts festival here in South Australia, but of course that has strings associated with it too – they’re expanding their mining in South Australia. But it’s a good opportunity to support artists to create new work and to pay them professionally, and results in [arts] acquisitions [for galleries], but of course they always have that tag associated with it.

Brandis’s intervention is a strong reminder that politics is embedded into everything. I don’t agree that there should be legislation preventing artists or institutions from accepting or declining private sponsorship – it should be on a case-by-case basis depending on their values. A piece of legislation to force those relationships is a really dangerous one. Artists should be able to express themselves in every which way possible, and to have this other barrier that creates a framework for you to be able to express yourself in a particular way is very, very dangerous.

The artists weren’t wrong to boycott the Biennale, and also the Biennale could have just accepted that and got different artists, so they made a choice as well. But artists are entities unto their own and they have every right to stand up and align themselves with institutions that support their values.

Chris Drummond, artistic director, Brink Productions

What happened with the Biennale is a unique set of circumstances with a long-term partner. They already had a relationship, they had all those things in place, so to draw any kind of general conclusion from what’s happened there is a mistake straight away.

Every arts company is constantly thinking about the relationship they have with potential sponsors. It’s not just about the money, you’re looking for a like-minded ethos. A children’s festival is not going to take sponsorship from a soft drink company. I think everybody would accept that. So already there are subjective decisions that come into funding. But also I suspect the Biennale have got lots of relationships with corporates whose politics are to the right, so it’s not an example of something that happens very regularly.

Brand is paradoxically politicising something that’s a very rare event. That’s why the Australia Council was set up, to depoliticise and to separate arts funding. Ironically for a government that defines itself as deregulating things, Brandis would have to then have a means of arbitrating what is reasonable in terms of a rejection of opportunities for funding. You’d have to have panels, and so he’s bringing in a whole bureaucratic process that I think would just be impossible to navigate.

There are deep structures in place in terms of the Australia Council to stop ministers having a direct say in the delegation of funding, and Brandis’s proposal would go to the core of the structure of the Australia Council. If it were to have an effect that would be extremely concerning, but I think it has to be seen in terms of a conversation between the arts community and the minister.

You have to ask the minister to look at the broader context. I’m sure the Biennale situation is painful for everyone involved. It’s complex and nuanced and I don’t think that Brandis’s response is complex and nuanced. The Australia Council is a vital bridge between industry and government. Brandis is a minister early in his term trying to make a statement about what he claims is a depoliticisation of arts funding but which I think is exactly the opposite.

Eugene Ughetti, artistic director, Speak Percussion



Eugene Ughetti: 'Government funding should be about supporting excellence in the arts, not encouraging art that is politically aligned with the government of the day.' Photograph: Melbourne Recital Centre Photograph: Melbourne Recital Centre

It’s always disappointing when creative and commercial relationships break down.

Artists have a responsibility to respect funding agreements and government policy, however I think it’s absolutely impossible for an artist to ignore their political convictions. Engaging with one’s humanity and one’s ethical beliefs are at the very core of what it means to be an artist.

Artists need to be able to make commercial decisions that have creative implications and a connection to one’s moral and ethical beliefs, and I think if we start to limit that we’re in an impoverished position.

Whether the art has a political message or not should be totally irrelevant to whether that artwork is supported. Government funding should be about supporting excellence in the arts, not encouraging art that is politically aligned with the government of the day.

If an artist or arts organisation is willing to take money from a corporate sponsor there needs to be a clear agreement and this agreement can be completely unique to the context. The sponsor could say “We like you and trust you, here’s half a million dollars, do whatever you want.” Any kind of commercial private sponsor should be entitled to have any level of involvement that they and the artist deems appropriate, however restrictive or liberating this may be.