Senate Committee demands government return funding to Australia CouncilNew arts minister Mitch Fifield to wind back funding cutsRebranding NPEA to Catalyst: the same program by another name
The nation's peak arts body, the Australia Council, "is one major cut away from no longer being able to operate", a leading arts industry figure has said in the lead-up to a federal budget that offers a real prospect of such a fate.
Esther Anatolitis, director of Regional Arts Victoria, told Fairfax that such a cut "would be disastrous for the nation's arts and culture. And yet, you can't help but wonder whether that's been the intention of the government all along: to shut down the Australia Council and replace strategic arts investment with discretionary funding, where politicians instead of artists get to determine what art is ... if you join the dots, this is where they lead." 
Ms Anatolitis said the Australia Council, which is due to announce its multi-year funding for mid-size arts organisations in   May, following the federal budget, had been crippled by funding cutbacks in recent years.
The 2015 budget contained a $105 million cut over four years from the Australia Council for the Arts in order to bankroll a new funding body, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts.
New Arts Minister Mitch Fifield later partly reversed that cut, restoring about one-third of the funds - $32 million - to the Australia Council. He also renamed the NPEA as Catalyst.
Pre-election budgets are usually filled with sweeteners, but leading arts figures do not hold high hopes for the first budget to be delivered by Treasurer Scott Morrison on Tuesday.
The executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, Tamara Winikoff, said she hoped the budget would restore funding to the Australia Council to at least 2013 levels, but she was not hopeful. "My fear is that funding will stay as it is or worse."
Winikoff was also critical of the Catalyst funding program under which $1 million was granted in   April to buy the home of painter Hans Heysen in the Adelaide Hills. The unorthodox grant to a Liberal-held seat ahead of the federal election in   July has led to accusations of pork barrelling.
"There is no strategic plan or framework for decision making, the assessment process is crude and completely opaque, the decisions don't follow the program's own guidelines, and decisions and their announcement are being used politically," Winikoff said. 
The director of western Sydney's Urban Theatre Projects, Rosie Dennis, said ongoing investment in the arts was vital to achieving the federal government's innovation agenda.
"We know that Prime Minister Turnbull is an advocate for the arts," she said. "However, aside from his decision to replace George Brandis with Mitch Fifield last year, there has been very little change."
A spokeswoman for Mark Dreyfus, the shadow Minister for the Arts, said: "Labor is committed to returning funds to the Australia Council, and would like to see this government do the same in next week's budget.
"If Mr Turnbull truly cared about the arts he would abolish the Catalyst fund and ensure the arts in Australia is properly funded and administered from now on."
The newly-formed Arts Party called for a restoration of Australia Council funding as well as a tripling of funding to $124 million to artists and mid-sized arts organisations.
"We do not believe [the Australia Council] is now able to fulfil their charter obligations in any significant way," said Arts Party leader PJ Collins. 
He also called on arts grants to be exempt from income tax and for a suspension of cuts imposed on  Australia's national cultural institutions by the efficiency dividend.
A report commissioned by the Community and Public Sector Union claims budget cuts will reduce public access to the collections held by Canberra-based institutions such as the National Film and Sound Archive and National Gallery of Australia through shorter opening hours, less frequent exhibitions and fewer touring exhibitions to rural areas.
The 3 per cent efficiency dividend announced in last   December's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook cut funding to the institutions by $36.8 million, in addition to cuts of almost $30 million since 2013, according to A portrait of Failure: Ongoing cuts to Australia's cultural institutions report.
The NGA announced the closure of its contemporary art space in   April as a cost-saving measure made necessary by the efficiency dividend.
A spokeswoman for Senator Fifield said: "The government does not comment on speculation in relation to what may be decided in the budget."