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.

The Australian arts community did a pretty good job on the opening and closing ceremonies at the Sydney Olympics and the Commonwealth Games. Well, I was impressed anyway.

If we withdraw support for the people who make those things happen we'll likely end up having to ask others to do it for us. Americans probably. Or miss out altogether.

It' the nature of arts projects that some turn out to be duds, but if you don't risk funding the duds you don't get the good stuff either.

Yep, arts people have had many jokes at the expense of rednecks, Kath and Kim types, Edna Everages, but they've also celebrated that stuff. Bryan Brown wouldn't have had a career otherwise. Reg Mombassa has done really well out of suburbia with his Mambo stuff.

Geez Australia, lighten up. Whatever happened to our famous ability to have a laugh at ourselves?

HasBeen - hairdressers are one of the skills we desperately need and it is a profession cited frequently by the government as needing more people.
Just because a profession isn't building bridges or slaving over a microscope doesn't mean it isn't an integral part of the economy.

I agree with the last three posts. I think we can laugh at ourselves and comedy is also a valid part of the film and arts industry.

It is only in recent years that the arts are growing up to realise the framework also includes the audience or market. This is the same framework principle as the one used in advertising. I would not be against the principles of marketing and advertising being taught in film and art schools.

Some artists are learning to apply for Church grants to decorate Churches with some magnificent murals and new arts technology. Artists like Dr Paula Dawson's holography at St Brigid's Church in Coogee South has placed a holographic area for prayer. It is now on the tourist map.

http://www.artnews.com.au/details.php?e=425

Once the creatives think on the lines of good business and balance this with their artistic integrity, then there will be more spinning, less money being wasted and more reasons to stay in Australia. The arts can challenge the media, be provocative, interesting and exciting, but some how the community, including Government, Church, and Corporations, also would benefit from considering how this can make life so much more interesting.

It is similar for science, although for purely scientific integrity, there is an ethical arguement for some of the sciences to be fully Government funded. Private corporations too often use science for profit rather than the betterment of humanity and the earth.

I think artists can meet half way in business practice and Australian Scientists have never let us down anyway. Its a matter of mending good faith and a belief in Australia. Surely this is a key in nation building.

Whenever I hear this stuff about arty elites wasting the honest battlers tax money I'm reminded of Blue Poles. When Australia bought that there was much fury and consternation over wasting so much money on a piece of work many doubted could even be called art.

What's the current value of Blue Poles? I have no idea, but it was a worthwhile investment that accumulated value for the country's portfolio as a whole. Whether honest battlers like Blue Poles or not, they now have a stake in a very valuable piece. It was worth the risk, no?

Good point Chainsmoker, in the overall picture, the Blue Poles didn't cost that much money. It was a bold statement from a world known artist. It is now worth a fortune and is one of the most famous works in the Australian National Gallery.

Some trivia about the Blue Poles, about 5 years ago, the ANG moved the painting to the new wall and it didn't fit. In their wisdon, they cut about 2 feet off the bottom of the painting so that they didn't have to find another wall. There were plenty of other walls to put it. Australian curators have this habit of cutting paintings.

Just like the tapestry in the Great Hall at Parliament House Canberra. Someone in their wisdom decided to cut a piece out for the top of a doorway to fit along the bottom. No one thought of moving the artwork up. They just cut.

Utzen who designed the Opera House who is too sicked by the way his masterpiece was cut by former Premier Asken to actuall return to Australia to see it. Imagine how the artists of the Blue Poles and the tapestry in the Grand Hall of Parliament house feel. A gallery or your customer buys the work, you lose control over their propensity to destroy or cut up the work.