Leo Schofield has now apologised for recent remarks declaring the state of Tasmania a home of “dregs, bogans and third-generation morons”. The director of the Baroque music festival, once of Hobart but now relocated to Brisbane, has said that he “should have been sensitive to the feelings” of those stung by his elitist and disparaging comments a week ago.

But amidst outrage that manifested in an Instagram campaign of Tasmanian artists outing themselves as “bogans” and calls to picket the Baroque festival with flannelette shirts and Handel-blasting boomboxes, we should perhaps acknowledge the value of Schofield’s unshackled nastiness in broaching one of the most taboo subjects of the Australian cultural conversation.

That subject is class. This is a country whose two major political parties promote egalitarianism and equality of opportunity in their platforms and where the repeated political rhetoric of the “fair go” is supposedly woven into the fabric of universal healthcare, welfare and education.

Escaping crusty class hierarchies that limited social opportunity were what inspired many of our ancestors to migrate to Australia in the first place. The reality of a capitalist economy, of course, results in winners and losers. There is a welfare class here, as surely as there is a working class, middle classes and a very comfortable ruling class – but it’s something we like to pretend does not exist.

As an artist with a state school education, parents who never made it further than year 10 and an enormous chip on my shoulder, the great revelation of Schofield’s comments was to learn how many of my colleagues, across all artistic disciplines, shared more of my class values than his.

Among the many accomplished artists with state school educations and parents without degrees working in Australia today are: contemporary composers Rachael Dease and David Chisholm, musicians Brendan Maclean and Max Sharam, visual artist Jasmin Carter, comic author Christian Read, theatre designer Jonathan Oxlade, poets Alicia Sometimes and Scott Wings, performance-makers Sam Routledge and Nat Randall, TV writers Alex Cullen and Wayne Tunks, performers Rhys Muldoon and Paul Capsis, comedians Lisa Dib and Catherine Deveny, novelists Krissy Kneen and Julienne Van Loon, filmmakers Jonathan Auf Der Heide, Sarah-Jane Woulahan and Pearl Tan, and mainstage playwrights Rob Reid, Vanessa Bates and Ross Mueller. And they’re just the artists I could contact before filing this story.

The son of a bulldozer-driver and hospitality worker, revered theatremaker Wesley Enoch is currently artistic director of the Queensland Theatre Company. He reacted to Schofield’s original comments with gentle good humour.

“They just forget, these people,” he says. “If your family have owned property in Sydney for four generations, you are automatically a multi-millionaire – they forget that this is privilege. But the bulk of Australians are working-class stock from only one or two generations.

“You don’t need lots of money to be an artist, but you need a confidence in your cultural background to say what you need to say. Not a lot of people who come from working class backgrounds have that.”

Enoch believes he prospered because he had the personal example of his great aunt, the poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, to mentor and inspire him. He also had access to training at the then Brisbane College of Advanced Education (now Queensland University of Technology) and a “strong Aboriginal family”. His father, who left school aged only 10, was a compulsive reader of novels.

“Maybe not the Russians – but he would keep himself abreast of what was going on,” Enoch says. “Let’s not look down our noses at how people are engaging with music or art.”

Performer Maeve MacGregor made her personal horror at Schofield’s remarks public when she started the #leosboganbrigade hashtag, profiling local artists on Instagram. A recent graduate of Nida, she grew up beyond the “flannelette curtain” that delineates the poor suburbs of northern Hobart and has returned there to make art.

“It took someone to say to me ‘you’re a bogan’ for me to say ‘all right then’,” she explains. “How you crush creativity and imagination in small communities is by telling them that they’re not capable of creating art – or of having a cultural identity or cultural value.”

Any conversation about the future of Australian egalitarianism must consider the mechanisms of cultural opportunity. A diverse arts community is a necessary structure for improving cultural communication.

“The notion you can only be middle class to make art, I find terrifying,” says visual artist Jasmin Carter. “A sheltered upbringing where you’re not struggling is going to inform your artistic practice – and maybe you won’t be able to talk to people who need to hear what struggling is like.”

Building a culture that can speak to an entire population demands diversity of educational opportunity, and representation through role models, mentorship, and outreach. It requires local cultural infrastructure and opportunities for elite practice, a welfare net and capital investment. Maintaining that diversity is a cultural challenge Australia has been meeting but it’s one that must be defended vigorously.

Comments like Schofield’s, says Tasmanian filmmaker Jonathan Auf Der Heide, “seed a class divide”. Even working in the industry, he says, class connections can be intimidating, “but when you’re down in the regional suburbs of Tasmania, it can be a daunting trajectory.”

As always, the challenge is political. As Wesley Enoch says: