Actors, Artists, Teachers and Proffessors at the moment are questioning whether or not we still want to stay in Australia. There are less and less reasons for creative people and scientists and academics to stay here.

I only had to apply to a few jobs in the UK, Canada and the US and all of them replied with not "if we can employ you" but "how fast can you get here, we don't have anyone here with your skills". The income is three times what we earn here. We have skills that are in shortage in these countries.

Meanwhile, Russel Crowe and his underground Eastern Suburbs syndicate friends fund the new film "The Bra Boys". This film glorifies the thugs and bigots of Maroubra beaches. One of these bogans, even admitted to being a murderer in court. He got away with it because he was just a "bloke". Now parading with Hollywoods glamour, Russell Crowe's "tough" friends are gorified. He once publicised his old film "Romper Stomper". You guessed it, another film about neo-Nazis in white power. Everyone found excuses here, it was banned in the US.

Australia loves it bigots and literally lets them get away with murder. Even Ian Thorpe went grovelling to them. This is getting intolerable.

The Australian Film Commission and State counterparts are cutting Australian Film and the arts industries to the bone. There are less tax incentives now in Australian Film and new technologies. Now, even New Orleans and Louisiana film studios are growing faster than Sydney's shrinking in film industry. Louisiana is third only to Hollywood and NY in the US. That is where the business is going.

So why would artists stay in this backwash where we are unwanted? Do Australians really just want to see bogans, gum trees or soapies on televsion? The new antipodeans are getting serious about leaving, as much as they did in the 1960s. It is not just the Government, is it what this culture became.

What the culture has become is seemingly everyone demanding as their right a handout from other tax payers via the government. In this respect, those complaining about the lack of handouts for the arts are quite decidedly within the Australian mainstream.

Personally, I just can't take these people seriously. The basis of their argument is that the Australian populace is collectively composed of philistines. Perhaps it is. Maybe it's just too small a population to support such industries. Another idea might be that the artistically inclined in this country engage in all the wrong kinds of navel gazing rather than asking if what they're producing is unwatchable.

I'm sorry, I forgot to put in some references to show what some journalists and critics are saying about the issue of the Australian Film Industry in decline, for various reasons, and the rise of the Lousianna Film Industry at the same time.

The Film Industry is not exactly airy fairy navel gazing. It employs many people, can be a good export, a money spinner and make life more interesting if only real tax incentives are given.

In the US, they have worked it out that every dollar given to help the industry generates 50% back in profit or interest, and over $900 million dollars in local employment including crew, extras and catering and so on. This is what our economy is missing out on.

OK, with references, its always good to start with the Age. An old one but still relevent.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/The-crisis-the-Australian-film-industry-refuses-to-see/2005/02/06/1107625057175.html

Of course Kerry O' Brian for the ABC's 7:30 report is good to chuck in for his comments:

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s992077.htm

Then on the Louisanna side:

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070306/NEWS01/703060326/1002/NEWS

http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=6181863

This site shows La snatching their film industry back to the US from "foreign" countries like big bad Canada. British Columbia was taking away their business for a long time. Now there is competition again favouring the US. Their stategy has payed off well.

Hurricane Katrina didn't even change the profit margins. Their movie industry just keeps growing, even in a State rebuilding itself after a world natural disaster. If anything, more land is available to build a new southern Hollywood in New Orleans. This could have happened in Sydney but our Governments refused to have any imagination.

So do you think the strategy works? The Americans do.

http://www.lafilm.org/about/index.cfm

Just make sure you take the hairdressers, dress designers, & the rest of the twits with you, thanks.

I may be a saint Hasbeen but I'm not a God. (I'm joking David). People vote with their own feet and I doubt what I say in OLO will make much difference to what they do.

Be careful, however, what you wish for. It may happen, lol, you never know.

More seriously, the point is not to encourage talented Australians to leave with the brain-drain but to find out why this is happening. There are skilled people in this group and sadly, many maths and science teachers and scientists too.

Be careful what you wish for. This country can't survive on the sheep's back, and the resources boom does have a time limit.

I really don't want to leave this country after 7 generations, and a little Aboriginality but we all have to survive somehow. This posting is not meant to be snobbery.

I think it's important to differentiate between scientists and artists. Most people in this country would probably agree that the future does lie in technological and scientific innovation, and that we seriously need to address this side of things at all levels of education and funding.

However, most people would not agree that we need more funding of an arts scene per se. A lot, maybe even most, might like to see more of an arts industry here, but based upon a few conditions:

1. That it's actually relevant to most people, rather than being somebody's ego-trip/therapy writ large;

2. That it's not completely contemptuous of ordinary Australians and their values. Maybe the arts industry isn't/wouldn't be like this, but the perception in the general community is that these guys are only too happy to label the average Australian some redneck bogan, yet can't understand why said redneck bogans don't want to pay to be called such;

3. That it doesn't become a massive funding black hole. Of course, if you want to argue that Australians don't have any problem with sporting events being a major funding black hole, then I'd be only too inclined to agree that they're hypocritical on that matter.