Federal Government – Mind Journeys

From today until Christmas Eve, my poem ‘The Disappearing Arts’ will be printed on patrons’ printouts when they borrow from Bargoonga Nganjin, North Fitzroy Library in Melbourne.

The Federal Government has moved responsibility for the Arts from the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet to a new super Department (Infrastructure, Transport, The Regions), where the Arts do not even feature in its name.

The Disappearing ARTS

The ARTS are so subversive now
(for we are young and free)
They lock them up in ‘Infrasport’,
and hide away the key.

The ARTS can set the people free
(our home is girt by sea)
So smother them in red red tape
and tangle into braid.

The ARTS nerve our loath bravery
(Advance Australia Fair)
but we are not afraid
to speak the truth so to disempower.

The ARTS cause us to laugh at rules
(of beauty rich and rare)
to denigrate the canny clown
and turn them all to fools.

-Ted Witham

On December 6, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that the Department of the Arts (then part of the Prime Minister and Cabinet PMC), would come under a new mega-‘Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications’. No mention there of the Arts.

There has been widespread dismay at this change. A petition has gathered 10,000 signatures asking that all art and music be withheld from Parliament House. That’ll show them – literally.

Here is my response to keep the issue alive:

Australians, they have made their choice,
That fruit hangs low on tree,
We now recall that Arts for all
Have gone from PMC
To Infrastructure’s hieroglyphs
To Transport’s slipshod care.
Off off the stage into a cage,
Dispatch the Arts nowhere,
Our trust so strained then let us sing,
Dispatch the Arts nowhere!