Community feedback is open until Sunday 5 July
State and federal arts funding is under pressure nationwide, even as the sector struggles to recover from COVID. Port Phillip Council’s draft Creative Strategy follows the same pattern, asking the local arts community to deliver more with less.
The strategy acknowledges the importance of the creative arts to Port Phillip’s cultural and economic life, but it is also premised on continued reductions to the St Kilda Festival budget to fund the broader strategy.
Readers may recall that the St Kilda Festival 2026 budget was cut by $450,000 to fund other arts initiatives. The new strategy continues that trade-off. It is a little like robbing Romeo to fund Juliet.
The strategy promises to “strengthen flagship festivals by developing and implementing clear, future-focused frameworks for the St Kilda Festival and the St Kilda Film Festival”, while reducing their budgets by $450,000 a year.
The strategy contains a range of thoughtful ideas to foster creative activity, but it is less convincing when it comes to fighting for cultural investment. Like many zero-sum decisions, it risks spreading the Vegemite too thinly to have much impact.
The strategy correctly identifies the scale of local creative employment: “Arts and Recreation Services account for more than 600 registered businesses locally, employ over 2,200 people and generate approximately $570 million in annual sales. Creative activity therefore plays a dual role, contributing to economic output and employment while also shaping the City’s identity and appeal.”
Yet the council still appears to treat support for local creative institutions as a budgetary burden. Well-targeted arts funding delivers more than artistic output: it supports jobs, attracts visitors and strengthens local identity. Small investments can create an upward cycle of economic and cultural value.
Survey reveals the limits of the zero-sum mindset
Readers need only look at the Council’s Have Your Say survey for the creative strategy to see the limits of this approach. The survey asks people to distribute 10 points of support across a long list of options so they can show their priorities. Fair enough. But there is no option to argue for 11 points, or, heaven forbid, 12.
The point may be theatrical, but the underlying problem is real: the arts are trapped in a zero-sum framework and will almost always come second to rubbish, bureaucracy and strategy documents.
As recently as 2023–2026, Port Phillip bundled its creative strategy with economic policy under the banner of the Creative and Prosperous City Strategy. It is worth asking whether this zero-sum approach would look different if creativity were still tied more explicitly to prosperity.
Maybe that is the art of creative strategy naming: you can have the lot, but you cannot have more.
FYI Here is the funding part of the motion carried unanimously by Council to endorse the draft Creative strategy to consultation:
“3.6 Notes that funding to support the implementation of the draft Creative Port Phillip Strategy 2026-2030 will be subject to decisions made through the 2026/27 Council Plan and Budget process but is intended to be funded from business-as-usual activity and the reallocation of $450,000 from the St Kilda Festival per annum.”
FYI Summary: Draft Creative Strategy 2026–2031
The Draft Creative Port Phillip Strategy outlines actions under three main objectives:
1. A creative ecosystem that thrives and grows:
• High-quality council-led creative programs: strengthen flagship festivals such as St Kilda Festival and St Kilda Film Festival, improve the accessibility and reliability of funding streams, investigate multi-year funding, and explore new investment opportunities.
• Critical creative infrastructure: recognise live music venues as critical cultural infrastructure, improve access to affordable creative spaces through grants and shared-space initiatives, complete the refurbishment of South Melbourne Town Hall by Year 3, enhance arts programming there, explore activations for the vacated South Melbourne police station, and investigate upgrades to Shakespeare Grove Artist Studios.
• Sector networks and industry pathways: strengthen professional and economic pathways for First Peoples artists, host forums for the creative ecosystem, build connectivity with groups such as COPPAC and the Port Phillip Film Alliance, advocate to state and federal governments, support organisations to attract additional funding, promote local opportunities, build sector capability through professional development, support the St Kilda Live Music Precinct, and provide opportunities for screen and games practitioners.
• Streamline council processes: improve navigation of council processes for creatives, review artist employment and commissioning practices, and develop a unified Creative Impact Framework by Year 2.
2. Creativity in everyday life:
• Embed creativity into public places and everyday settings: embed visual art in neighbourhoods, integrate creativity into council capital projects, review developer percentages for public art, embed creative activity across council services, host mural-making events, support community festivals, renew the Events Strategy, consolidate aspects of St Kilda Festival to support municipality-wide activities, and help local businesses leverage cultural activity.
• Share and celebrate community histories and stories: activate the City Art & Heritage Collection to support First Peoples perspectives, increase access to the City Collection through outreach programs, implement a Cultural Signage Trail, reinstate the Heritage Recognition Program, introduce annual pop-up art displays, and build Port Phillip’s reputation as film-friendly.
• Connect creative practice with audiences: increase public awareness of First Peoples culture, embed First Peoples perspectives in the strategy’s identity, promote local creative practice through council platforms, work with businesses and state agencies on cultural tourism, support local makers in council-supported markets, use flagship events to promote year-round activity, partner with arts organisations to improve access for community members facing barriers, adopt a unified Creative Port Phillip identity, and increase opportunities for musicians to perform.
• Actively pursue creative opportunities in Fishermans Bend: work with landowners to retain and grow the screen industry, establish early creative activity in emerging precincts, explore interim use of spaces by the creative sector, and incorporate local artists and heritage into developments.
3. A culturally connected and inclusive community:
• Inclusive, representative and culturally safe programming: embed First Peoples leadership in cultural services, apply First Peoples-led approaches in flagship events, evolve council-run festivals to prioritise access and diversity, ensure inclusion and cultural safety in all creative programs, establish a council-wide Programming Policy, implement targets for representative programming, partner with Music Victoria on the All Good program, and implement process updates from the Inclusive Programming Review.
• Reduced barriers and improved access to participation: standardise accessibility details across council cultural platforms, expand free and affordable creative opportunities, monitor inclusion through demographic data collection, and reduce barriers to funding access.
• Strong engagement, reach and accountability: increase participation for priority communities through targeted channels, ensure engagement is guided by the Reconciliation Action Plan, deliver a Cultural Marketing Plan, and give community members greater opportunities to engage on creative inclusion and cultural safety.
