• Amanda Smith, Julianne Schultz
• ABC Radio National, Artworks

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21 June 2010How well do we look after our artists? This was one of the big questions coming out of the Prime Minister's 2020 Summit in 2008, and just this week a proposal for far-reaching change in arts funding was handed to the Arts Minister.

It seems such a long time since the Labor government swept to power in Australia in late 2007, and symbolic of the bright-eyed optimism that accompanied this change was Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit -- a bold attempt to think above politics, cross ideological boundaries and tackle big issues of broad national concern. One of the major areas for examination was Australia's cultural life, and of real concern was the precarious life of our artists. We claim to value the arts, but very few individual artists enjoy any sort of financial security, and only the most devoted try to turn their creative ambitions into anything vaguely resembling a career.

Well, a new proposal from the working group that emerged from the 2020 Summit has delivered a set of ideas that builds on the existing models and finds new ways to blend public and private money into a more sustainable source of income for individual artists.

One of the authors of the proposal, and a co-chair of the committee, is Dr Julianne Schultz, whose busy life also includes editing the Griffith Review and sitting on the ABC Board. Michael Shirrefs spoke to Julianne about the questions that prompted the proposal.