With Eurovision upon us (not to mention the grand final of the all-important Museum Dance Off), and yesterday’s news about funding cuts to the arts, the time is clearly ripe to review the policies of The Arts Party!
Their front page is pretty active right now, what with the aforementioned cuts, but their mission statement is front and centre:
The Arts Party exists to encourage a more creative, cultural, educated and prosperous life for every Australian.
I am in favour of this.
The first thing that strikes me about the Arts Party policy page is that in addition to a brief blurb about what they are about, they tell us that they have forwarded their policy ideas to all the major parties ‘in the hope they will consider new creative ideas to improving the future of Australia’. This is an approach that I have never seen before from a minor party, and I think it’s a very good idea. The Arts Party is, by and large, a single-issue party, and single-issue parties traditionally exist to raise awareness and give voters a chance to show the government what issues they would like to focus on. There is nothing wrong with this, but if a party has formulated good policies in an area they care about, wagering them all on the lottery that is our Senate voting system is not the best way to get them implemented – encouraging larger parties, with more chance of forming government, to consider adopting these policies is a pragmatic approach, and turns the party into both a party in its own right and a well-organised lobby group.
They also invite suggestions and critiques (because of course they do, they’re the Arts party).
