Ms Anatolitis said the Australia Council, which will announce its funding for mid-size arts organisations following Tuesday's federal budget, had been crippled by cutbacks in recent years. Urban Theatre Projects director Rosie Dennis said the change in Prime Minister and Arts Minister had delivered little change in the arts. Credit:Wolter Peeters The 2015 budget contained a $105 million cut over four years from the Australia Council, in order to bankroll a new funding body, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts. New Arts Minister Mitch Fifield later restored about one-third of the funds – $32 million – to the Australia Council and renamed the National Program for Excellence in the Arts as Catalyst. Leading arts figures do not hold high hopes for Treasurer Scott Morrison's first budget.

National Association for the Visual Arts executive director Tamara Winikoff said she hoped the budget would restore Australia Council funding to at least 2013 levels. "My fear is that funding will stay as it is, or worse." Federal Arts Minister Mitch Fifield at the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra in March. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Ms Winikoff was also critical of the Catalyst funding program under which $1 million was granted in April to buy the home of painter Hans Heysen in the Adelaide Hills. The unorthodox grant to a Liberal-held seat ahead of the federal election in July has led to accusations of pork barrelling. "There is no strategic plan or framework for decision making, the assessment process is crude and completely opaque, the decisions don't follow the program's own guidelines, and decisions and their announcement are being used politically," Ms Winikoff said. The director of western Sydney's Urban Theatre Projects, Rosie Dennis, said ongoing investment in the arts was vital to achieving the federal government's innovation agenda.

"We know that Prime Minister Turnbull is an advocate for the arts," she said. "However, aside from his decision to replace George Brandis with Mitch Fifield last year, there has been very little change." The newly-formed Arts Party also called for a restoration of Australia Council funding, and a tripling of funding to $124 million to artists and mid-sized arts organisations. "We do not believe [the Australia Council] is now able to fulfil their charter obligations in any significant way," Arts Party leader PJ Collins said. He also called on arts grants to be exempt from income tax and for a suspension of cuts imposed on Australia's national cultural institutions by the federal "efficiency dividend". A report commissioned by the Community and Public Sector Union claims budget cuts will reduce public access to the collections held by Canberra-based institutions such as the National Film and Sound Archive and National Gallery of Australia through shorter opening hours, less frequent exhibitions and fewer touring exhibitions to rural areas. The 3 per cent efficiency dividend announced in last December's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook cut funding to the institutions by $36.8 million, in addition to cuts of almost $30 million since 2013, according to A portrait of Failure: Ongoing cuts to Australia's cultural institutions report.

The NGA announced the closure of its contemporary art space in April as a cost-saving measure made necessary by the efficiency dividend. A spokeswoman for shadow arts minister Mark Dreyfus said Labor was committed to returning funds to the Australia Council. A spokeswoman for Senator Fifield said: "The government does not comment on speculation in relation to what may be decided in the budget."