Advocacy

Dr Brian Crozier, Senior Curator, Social History, Queensland Museum

Museums Australia (Queensland) and Advocacy

Museums Australia (Queensland) is the representative body for the museum industry in Queensland. Our mission statement says that we “serve, develop and promote the interests of Queensland’s museums, galleries and keeping places”, and one of the ways we do this is to advocate for the museums industry to government and other people in a position to influence our development.

Since Museums Australia is a national body, MAQ’s responsibility is limited to Queensland. Museums Australia’s National Office carries out a parallel role with the Commonwealth Government and other national agencies. Obviously, if MAQ felt strongly about a national issue we would refer it to National Office. As it happens we have the national President of Museums Australia, Sue-Anne Wallace, here with us at this conference so any national issues can be discussed directly with her.

MAQ is also party to a Partnership Plan with the Regional Galleries Association of Queensland. This includes provision for us to join with RGAQ to advocate on particular issues of concern to both organisations. But we can also advocate separately about things which are only of concern to us.

MAQ has been carrying out its advocacy role since it started, but on a relatively informal basis. It may be that something comes up, or someone refers something to us, and we act on it, or we may act ourselves on issues arising from our own corporate plan.

A number of ground rules have become clear to us as we have carried out our advocacy role which you might like to bear in mind when referring issues to us:

  • We don’t advocate for things which are not in the interests of Queensland museums
  • We refer national issues to National office, perhaps with a recommendation or comment
  • We take account of the partnership plan
  • We need to confirm the facts of a situation before weighing in

And we do have a system for acting on issues as they arise, which is through the approval of our Operations Committee, in effect the executive of the executive, and if necessary and time doesn’t allow us to consult the full Operations Committee, with the approval of the President acting on behalf of the Executive Committee.

I asked for this spot

  • because the nature and purpose of our advocacy role seemed to me to need a public airing;
  • because a lot of our work in advocacy isn’t the sort that gets wide notice, (a lot of it is things like letters to the Minister or local councils and never gets into the public domain);
  • and because in my work for the new Executive Committee I want do what I can to develop advocacy as an area of MAQ activity.

Current Issues

Having said all this, I thought I would spend the rest of the time going through some of the issues we have being pursuing over the last few months.

GST: grants and “grossing up”.

The issue here is whether grants will be adjusted for any GST payable. This is still uncertain, the more so since accounting for Arts Queensland is now no longer done inhouse. This is an issue across the Arts sector, as I discovered at a meeting of Arts groups convened by the Minister, Matt Foley, only a couple of days ago. There is still no resolution to this one.

Statewide Museum Plan.

You may remember that in 1994 Arts Queensland commissioned Jane Lennon to write the “Hidden Heritage” report which has been the main policy document for museum policy in Queensland ever since. Things of course have moved on since 1994 and there has been a need to review the situation again. There was therefore a review of “Hidden Heritage”, and a draft Statewide Museums Plan was developed, on which MAQ commented. Unfortunately the draft plan didn’t survive the consultation round which preceded it being placed on the list for Cabinet approval and a new Plan will need to be drawn up. MAQ expects to be involved in this process.

The Queensland Cultural Heritage Centre.

You may have heard that it was planned to build a Queensland Cultural Heritage Centre which would incorporate the Queensland Museum and parts of the State Library of Queensland. Museums Australia (Queensland) has supported this significant expansion of the Queensland museum industry. In particular we have urged that in considering the functions of the Centre a significant regional role be defined for it to enable it to play its part in providing specialist assistance to community based museums. The future of the Centre is so far unclear and we are hoping to hear soon what the Government is going to do about it.

Heritage Trails.

MAQ has been concerned that while large sums of money are being made available for a range of capital projects, none is available for ongoing maintenance of these projects. The proposed Railway Technology Centre in Ipswich is a case in point. $15m has been committed to building it and Queensland Rail are prepared to commit $5m to the development of its displays, but no-one is prepared to accept responsibility for the estimated $800,000 annual shortfall in its operating revenue. I understand there is a proposal to run a Community Grants scheme through the Heritage Trails Network program from 2002, which may be a response to this issue.

Grants.

This is a question close to everyone’s hearts, so it is useful to know that Arts Queensland are carrying out a review of its Programs of Assistance. I have made some copies of the information sheet relating to this: feel free to take one or look for it on the Arts Queensland website ( We are particularly interested to hear what you think of the existing grants programs and the ways in which they are administered. Do they do what you want them to do? Some of you may have been at the Remote Area Museums Conference at Longreach a few years ago at which very frankly worded motions were passed regarding the funding system as it was then. MAQ communicated these to Arts Queensland and there were some useful and valuable results. You may feel there is still some way to go, so we would like to hear what you think. If you’d like to send in your own comments you’ll see the contact details in the package, except that the person to send it to is in fact Brett Mannison, not Gillian Gardiner.

Government cultural statement.

In the same package of material you will also find information relating to a round of consultations which the Minister Matt Foley is carrying out to arrive at an updated version of the “Building Local, Going Global” cultural statement adopted in 1995. This review is looking for overall perspectives on arts policy. MAQ expects to make a submission to this. If you’d like to make your own you’ll see the contact details in the package.

Conclusion

During this term of the Executive Committee we hope to proceed more systematically with advocating on these and other issues affecting the development of the museum industry in Queensland. You may like to talk about some of the issues I have raised, and raise others. There is only limited time to do this at this session, but you may like to talk more about this at the AGM.