"This need not be the case. Writers, like other artists, are the lifeblood of a nation, those bold few who dare reflect us back to ourselves, in all our beautiful ignobility." Singer, songwriter and author Nick Cave turned to work to make sense of the catastrophic loss of his son, "Prime Minister Turnbull, if you are truly, as you claim to be, an agent of democracy, I implore you: heed this petition." A formal announcement of the council's board and terms of reference was made last week when the Minister for Arts, Senator George Brandis, named Louise Adler, chief executive of Melbourne University Publishing, as council chair. Nine organisations have been invited to be represented on the council, including associations of authors, screenwriters, agents, booksellers, publishers and libraries. Among the signatories disappointed by a perceived lack of consultation is the Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee, Miles Franklin award winner Michelle de Kretser, Stella Prize winners Emily Bitto and Clare Wright, the book critic Geordie Williamson, and international bestsellers, Christos Tsiolkas and Hannah Kent. West Australian novelist Joan London, who took out the Kibble Literary Award with The Golden Age, has signed along with Marion Halligan, a former chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts.

On the eve of a cabinet reshuffle, Tamara Winikof​, executive director of the National Association for Visual Arts, has urged the Prime Minister take over the arts portfolio and reverse Senator Brandis' decision to divert $104 million from the Australia Council - which assesses applicants using an arm's length peer review process - to the new National Program for Excellence in the Arts. The new fund was announced in the May federal budget and is subject of a Senate inquiry. George Brandis' data retention scheme has sparked a major grassroots reaction. Credit:Andrew Meares Sam Twyford-Moore, a former director of the Emerging Writers' Festival who helped write the letter and collect signatures, says the Book Council's triennial funding of $6 million comes from the operating budget of the Australia Council and might otherwise have supported individual writers and groups. Most young authors, he said, earned less than $4000 annually. Dr Emmett Stinson, lecturer in English literature at the University of Newcastle and a member of the Book Industry Strategy Group which preceded the Book Council, says it was never recommended by the industry-wide consultation group put together by the federal government that the Book Council take money from the Australia Council or advise the minister on funding decisions. In fact, the strategy group had argued for an increase in funding to the Australia Council. The Book Industry Collaborative Council made similar recommendations. "As a result, I am deeply concerned that some have claimed the current form of the Book Council is the product of wide consultation," he says. "This is simply untrue."

The lack of consultation on the Book Group - as well as the disregard for recommendations made during previous consultations - has me and many others worried about the future of national funding for literature. I want to see this money restored to the Australia Council, where it belongs."



The signatories want the Book Council transferred to the auspices of the Australia Council for the Arts, out of the Ministry for the Arts, the appointment of a new independent chair and wider consultation with the literary community. "Given the incredible international sales of works like Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap and Hannah Kent's Burial Rites, it is disappointing to discover that current literary funding models are unable to adequately support the professional trajectories for upcoming authors who have the potential to follow in Tsiolkas's and Kent's footsteps," the letter reads. "We will no longer stand, under any government, further cuts being made to what is already the smallest amount of funding, when we are delivering quality work to the largest audience in the nation. We will not stand by as the Minister for the Arts continues to wreck a fragile yet essential part of the Australian people and sense of nationhood." As the "poor cousin" to theatre and the visual arts, writers received $9 million of the Australia Council's total funding pool of $199 million, yet 87 per cent, or around 20 million Australians, read some form of literature in any given week. "We call for George Brandis to be moved out of the Arts portfolio, but we must also the question the intentions and conflict of interest of inaugural chair Louise Adler, and communicate that we do not support her in this role."