Mitch Fifield did not design the National Program for Excellence in the Arts, but since taking the arts portfolio in   September he could not have avoided it. Opposition to it was loud and organised - especially in response to the reallocation of $105 million from the Australia Council - and a Senate inquiry into Coalition arts funding generated more than 2200 responses. 
The minister got the message. Fifield has not entirely scrapped the NPEA but he has rebranded it, tweaked the details and returned $32m across four years to the Australia Council.
The renamed program, called Catalyst - Australian Arts and Culture Fund, will be an assessed grants program over which the minister has responsibility. It will have $12m a year to support three funding streams: partnerships and collaborations; international and cultural diplomacy; and innovation and participation.
The move is telling: the NPEA, as devised by former arts minister George Brandis, had become unpalatable. Fifield has steered a course between maintaining the policy intent of the NPEA - to offer arts producers an alternative to the Australia Council grant programs - while reducing the potential harm to individual artists and smaller organisations.
His changes, to be announced in full today, will not satisfy those who demand Australia Council funding be returned entirely. Its annual allocation has been cut by $34.2m since 2013.
The "rebalancing" will return $8m a year.
Catalyst is intended to work in tandem with the Australia Council, Creative Partnerships Australia and other programs funded through the arts ministry. It will be available to organisations that "demonstrate innovation, increase access and participation in the regions, and enhance our international reputation". Individual artists are not eligible but will continue to be supported through the Australia Council.
Fifield's partial return of Australia Council funding is recognition that the cut to that agency was too severe. Chief executive Tony Grybowski, speaking at the arts round table in Sydney a fortnight ago, said if funds were returned they would flow into the present grant round.The Coalition has maintained throughout this year's sometimes hostile funding debate that it has not reduced its overall support for the arts - but neither has it increased the pie. The message, louder than ever, is that government and the arts sector must work to develop new funding models to support the nation's creative endeavours.