Archive for the 'Government' Category
OWL’S HOOTS No. 12: A TIME FOR ACTION
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Hoots No. 12 – 8 December 2009: Global Climate Change and Museum Advocacy
In some recent commentary on challenges facing museums over the next several decades, the issue of controversy and advocacy has been mentioned. For instance, over at Museum 3.0 in the Forum a post by Lynda Kelly reports item 5 of the nine big themes for 2010 identified by Australian Museum director Frank Howarth as “Increasing our advocacy: taking a stance on things that matter”.
It should not be thought that museums have not been dealing with controversy or been concerned with advocacy though sometimes that advocacy has been rather muted and some controversial issues have been avoided.
Lynda Kelly has posted a very useful brief commentary on this subject and referenced an article “Museum Authority Up for Grabs: The Latest Thing, or Following a Long Trend Line?” by Daniel Spock, Director of the Minnesota History Center Museum program in the Fall 2009 issue of the journal Exhibitionist (p 6-10).
Global climate change is considered by many people to be the major issue confronting human society and the environment though in recent months people in some countries such as the US have put the issue at the bottom of their list of concerns. In this situation museums have the credibility and the responsibility to place in publicly accessible places information which is credible and authoritative.
If museums are concerned about advocacy then this issue – global climate change – is something to communicate about right now.
____________
The Monday 7 December issue of the Sydney Morning Herald contained an article by Deborah Smith referring to a document on climate change put together by Brett Parris who is a Research Fellow at Monash University and Chief Economist for World Vision Australia.
Entitled “University tackles sceptics’ arguments“ it commenced, “As World leaders gather in Copenhagen, efforts to undermine public confidence in the science of climate change have intensified. Sceptics have recently gained traction by exaggerating uncertainties in the research”.
Parris’ full document addresses 21 common objections to the arguments put forward in support of the proposition that global climate change is occurring and that it is due to activity of humans, principally through industrialization and the emissions of CO2. From my reading of documents at realclimate.org and other articles and presentations I would conclude that Parris’ document is as good a summary of the arguments and the evidence and an excellent refutation of the claims of others as I have seen.
One of the major parts of Parris’ document concerns the economic impacts of action to mitigate the effects of climate change. He points out that such action would have an impact of about 0.1 or 0.2 percent decline in income growth compared with “business as usual” (not taking account of an negative impact of climate change which is very important); this translates to a delay of four months or so by 2050 in reaching a certain target level.
(A video of a talk at the “One Just World” Forum in Melbourne 30 July 2008 by Brett Paris can be seen on YouTube (Part 1 and Part 2).
At the end of the document, Parris quotes Nobel prize-winner in economics Paul Krugman: “Writing after the vote on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill in the US Congress, Krugman considered the implications of unmitigated climate change for the US economy and for future generations. He concluded that continued denial of the link between anthropogenic greenhouse gases and climate change, with the aim of thwarting action to reduce emissions, was a form of treason:
“So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement. But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases. And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason “treason against the planet.”
Museums, especially natural history museums have concern for the natural environment and the future of the planet and life on it as a major focus of their endeavours. Whilst objectivity is often promoted as an important feature of the communications of museums, integrity must never be compromised. That includes a responsibility to communicate the latest understandings based on the best scientific research.
The document prepared by Brett Parris is a comprehensive summary of what is known about global climate change and its consequences. The issue of how the threat is to be mitigated is a different matter. But at least as Parris shows various alternative suggestions that climate change is not occurring or that it is caused by factors other than human activity cannot be supported on the evidence. And neither can the assertion that addressing the threat will cause economic disruption of great magnitude!
Over at New Matilda an item entitled “The Global Copenhagen Editorial” published December 7 reports that “On Monday more than 50 newspapers across the world published a common editorial calling for global action on climate change” but you won’t read it in Australia
“The following editorial was published on Monday by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. Most of the newspapers featured it on their front page. But you won’t read it in Australia. According to a report in the Guardian, “The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, pulled out [of the joint initiative] at a late stage after the election of climate change sceptic Tony Abbott as leader of the opposition Liberal party recast the country’s debate on green issues.”
The editorial begins, “Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.
“Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.”
So what will your museum do?
OWL’S HOOTS NO. 9
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
OWL’S HOOTS NO. 9 – June 15th, 2009
Exhibitions at museums around the world cancelled or postponed, a review of developments in schools and education and conferences and reports on global climate change highlight urgency of meaningful and immediate response but conference in Bonn makes little progress. And specific initiatives mentioned by President Obama concerning relations between the USA and the Arab World.
Museum exhibitions casualties of recession: In “Eight museum exhibitions you won’t be seeing in L.A. anytime soon†David Ng reports in the Los Angeles Times June 8 2009 that scores of museum exhibitions around the world have been cancelled or postponed. “As the recession continues to inflict damage in the well-appointed halls of the museum world, one of the most noteworthy side effects — on top of layoffs, ticket hikes and reduced hours of operation — is the cancellation and postponement of major exhibitions.â€
They include “Subversion of the Images: Surrealism and Photography,” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston scheduled for spring 2010, “Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia” at the Field Museum in Chicago scheduled for 2009-10, “Imperial Mughal Albums From the Chester Beatty Library” scheduled for July 2009 at the Denver Art Museum and “Indian Contemporary Art” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, postponed from 2010.
Yet more on education and schools: By now it must be obvious to the reader that I think the research on education and all of the related issues in the US is really outstanding. One of the most excellent summaries of the issues was given in the address by Stephen W. Raudenbush, Lewis-Sebring Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Sociology and chair of the Committee on Education at the University of Chicago, at the American Education Research Association (AERA) conference last year 2008. This address “The Brown Legacy and the O’Connor Challenge: Transforming Schools in the Images of Children’s Potential†is truly stunning! It is available as a pdf and webcast .
It is clear to me that there is more than sufficient information available from peer reviewed research to make the right decisions on education and schooling from early childhood to university. The problem is that most people in positions of influence are wedded more to idealogy and belief in the rightness of their own experience rather than to finding genuine solutions.
Best practice does not involve league tables, private schools (or charter schools as in the US – though they are less hidebound by bureaucracy – or academies as in the UK) rather than public schools, performance pay, high stakes testing, closing schools that don’t perform, sacking principals, control by large central bureaucracies or any of the other often mentioned ‘solutions’. In the case of schooling they involve the best possible support for teachers and attention to best teaching practice and the aspirations of students, continually encouraging belief that the students can succeed, peer review of teaching practice and ongoing professional development for teachers as well as respect for the work of teachers within the community. It also involves a focus on schools which are “in need” for reasons such as low socio-economic status.
Global Climate Change: In the last couple of weeks, there were three major events concerning climate change. One conference and a report emhasized the urgency of signficant action but a conference preparing for the meetings of governments in Copenhagen to chart a post Kyoto future made little progress. These events, concerning one of the one or two most important issues facing humanity, received scant attention. Instead, news broadcasts reported the upgrading to pandemic status of swine flu, an illness which presently poses virtually no threat at all!
Global Humanitarian Forum: Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s think-tank, the Global Humanitarian Forum, reported “change is already responsible for 300,000 deaths a year and is affecting 300m people, according to the first comprehensive study of the human impact of global warming. By 2030, climate change could cost $600bn a year. By 2030 there will likely be increasingly severe heatwaves, floods, storms and forest fires responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths. Economic losses due to climate change today amount to more than $125bn a year — more than all the present world aid. You can read more in John Vidal’s article in The Guardian.
UN Climate Conference: The UN Climate Conference in Bonn closed Friday (June 12th) after a “12 day marahon”. As reported by D-W World , “with no deal on CO2 emission targets the delegations failed to achieve any major step towards a successor to the Kyoto Protocol… The goal was to work towards a draft of a new treaty to combat global warming – but many analysts say they’re disappointed with the meagre results. At the end of the negotiating sessions, the rift between industrial and emerging nations seemed bigger than before. And even within those two blocs, there was little agreement except on the fundamental fact that action is needed.”
St James’s Palace Memorandum: Prince Charles recently hosted a meeting of 20 of the World’s Nobel Prize Winners including the heroic Kenyan Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. The St James’s Palace Memorandum calls for a global deal on climate change that matches the scale and urgency of the human, ecological and economic crises facing the world today. It urges governments at all levels, as well as the scientific community, to join with business and civil society to seize hold of this historic opportunity to transform our carbon-intensive economies into sustainable and equitable systems. “We must recognize the fierce urgency of now.â€
The statement also says this: “The robust scientific process, by which this evidence has been gathered, should be used as a clear mandate to accelerate the actions that need to be taken. Political leaders cannot possibly ask for a more robust, evidence-based call for action.â€
And this: “Decarbonising our economy offers a multitude of benefits, from addressing energy security to stimulating unprecedented technological innovation. A zero carbon economy is an ultimate necessity and must be seriously explored now.†You can read more in another article by John Vidal in The Guardian.
President Obama in Cairo – the future of relations between the West and the Arab World: In the reportage of President Obama’s address from Cairo University much has been made of the six issues he raised – violent extremism, relations between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world, nuclear weapons, democracy, religious freedom, women’s rights and economic development and opportunity.
In pursuit of these he specifically said, “On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create jobs. We will open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new Science Envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, and grow new crops. And today I am announcing a new global effort with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio. And we will also expand partnerships with Muslim communities to promote child and maternal health.â€
I didn’t hear any mention of these promises in any of the commentary. David Frost on Al Jazeera (“Frost over the Worldâ€) features interviews on reactions to Obama’s speech. There is a huge amount of superficial clap trap on various blogs and websites in response to this speech!
OWL’S HOOTS NO. 3
Friday, April 10th, 2009
Owls Hoots No. 3, 10 April 2009: John Florio on scholars, the dangers of inequality arising from neoliberalism, the superorganisms known as ants, museums in North America coping with financial turmoil and museums in London expanding. Museums as Happiness Pioneers. And the British Government’s enquiry into the invasion of Iraq and possible consequences for the BBC.
The scholars angry quill: Here is a further quotation from John Florio (1553 – 1625), linguist, lexicographer and translator of Montaigne, which comes from “Giordano Bruno Philosopher Heretic” by Ingrid Rowland:
“Be circumspect how you offend schollers, for knowe,
A serpents tooth bites not so ill,
As dooth a schollars angrie quill”
More on the impact of “the market”: Last week, under the heading of managerialism buried, I referred to the ABC Radio National Background Briefing program on MBAs. Managerialism is a flow on from market fundamentalism: small government, privatisation, deregulation, efficiency, acountability and so on. The result has been, along with the well known reductions in social welfare, health and education, increased inequalities as the “˜top end of town gained huge increases in wealth whilst the poorer sections of society, if they were employed at all, gained little or even stood still. In the so-called “developed world” the USA and UK show the greatest inequalities whilst Scandinavian and some European countries and Japan show the least.
Reviewing “The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better” by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (Allen Lane), Lynsey Hanley (in the Guardian, 14 March), quotes the authors, “inequality causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; it increases the rate of teenage pregnancy, violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction; it destroys relationships between individuals born in the same society but into different classes; and its function as a driver of consumption depletes the planet’s resources.”
The promised essay on managerialism and related matters is now posted. Included are a number of important conclusions concerning museums and organisations generally!
Ants ” Superior Civilisations: Two fascinating articles on ant societies ” super civilizations – have appeared recently. In the New York Review of Books, Tim Flannery reviews a new book by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson (and with line drawings by Margaret C. Nelson), “The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies” (published by Norton) and in the Guardian Alok Jha has a review of the views of Wilson and Holldobler (“Six legs good”, 9 March 2009).
Jha writes, “They developed architecture and built farms millions of years before we did. They work together so seamlessly that colonies are known as ‘superorganisms’. And they could hold the secret to working out how our brains evolved.”
US and Canadian Museums reduce budgets and staff: Martin Knelman (“Gallery endures a second, unwelcome transformation”, Toronto Star March 23, 2009) reports that the Art Gallery of Ontario has not received the visitor numbers anticipated with the recent expansion designed by Frank Gehry. Budgets will have to be slashed and staff numbers reduced.
The overall space of the AGO increased 20 per cent, gallery space increased 50 per cent and the size of the collection doubled to more than 73,000 works of art. Practical operating costs ” security, maintenance, utilities ” have almost doubled ” and the annual budget went up to $52 million (more than $30 million of which is salaries). “Attendance has been running 20 per cent below projections for the past four months”. One factor perhaps is the $18 adult admission: the place is jammed every Wednesday night, when the entry fee is waived.”
(Last month it was reported – by James Bradshaw in the Globe and Mail March 3 -that buckets line the AGO’s staircase, while condensation blurs view from windows.)
Christine Kearney reported in YahooNews for March 13 that the Metropolitan Museum of Art was closing 15 of its merchandising stores across the United States, leaving only eight stores open in New York and will cut about 250 jobs, or 10 percent of its workforce, before July 1.
The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia has announced a hiring freeze will cut salaries by 5 percent. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles almost had to close until billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad came up with a $30 million rescue plan in 2008.
In other US cities there are also reductions in budgets and staff losses. Endowments have dropped by around 20 per cent. Faced with a dramatic drop in revenue, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will cut its staff and budget by 6 percent, and reduce exhibitions and programs by as much as 20 percent next year. The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis has also cut its budget by 5 per cent and may lose another 5 per cent later.
Museums in London expanding: Meanwhile in London, Tate Modern and the British Museum are expanding. Jonathan Glancey (The Guardian, 1 April 2009, “Why Tate Modern’s extension stacks up“), informs us, “When Tate Modern opened in 2000, visitor numbers were expected to be 1.8 million a year at tops. Almost a decade on, the figure is 4.6 million. Even though Tate Modern’s home, the former Bankside power station, is a colossus, the sheer number of people visiting throughout the year has made an extension almost inevitable.”
Tate Modern 2, “a dramatic origami-like unfolding of brick and glass” designed by Herzog and de Meuron, the Swiss architects who transformed the redundant power station to the new Tate Modern is expected to open some time between 2012 and 2014. The British Government has subscribed £50m towards the anticipated £215m total cost.
ArtInfo announced April 2 that “with the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate Modern, and now the British Museum all touting expansion plans, it seems the global economic downturn hasn’t taken the London art world with it. The British Museum announced this week an ambitious £135 million ($198 million) extension intended to accommodate blockbuster exhibitions. It is expected to open 2012.”
Meanwhile the Museum of Modern Art has dramatically redesigned its website: check it out!
New York Arts consultant Adrian Ellis reviews the recession and US museums in the Art Newspaper Issue 200 of 11 March and discusses how to compensate for the loss of philanthropic, endowment and visitor incomes.
School visits to museums and museums as happiness pioneers:The March-April issue of Museum (published by the American Association of Museums) has two excellent articles, “Fun is no joke” (by Mary Ellen Flannery) reviewing school “ field trips to museums in the USA and museums as “happiness pioneers (“Fiero”, an exerpt from the Center for the Future of Museums lecture by Jane McGonigal). McGonigal’s lecture is available on the Future of Museums site along with other interesting items.
McGonigal says there are four things which seem to be “pretty universal” for people: satisfying work, the experience of being good at something, time spent with people we like and the chance to be part of something bigger.
Iraq and the BBC: British Foreign Secretary David Milliband announced last month that there would be an inquiry into the invasion of Iraq and the reasons for it.
“The pressure for an inquiry has been intense because many people believe that the war was illegal under international law and that Tony Blair, the then prime minister, twisted intelligence evidence in order to justify the invasion.”
When BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan reported the views of Dr David Kelly on the “intelligence” justifying the British Governments decision to join the US invasion of Iraq the Government forced his resignation which was followed by the resignation of Director-General Greg Dyke and Chairman Gavyn Davies. Kelly later committed suicide. An inquiry into the death of Dr Kelly by Lord Hutton was denounced by critics as a kangaroo court.
Dyke was hugely popular. The incoming Chair and Director-General oversaw considerable downsizing which was protested by strikes. The responsible Minister talked of difficulties with funding. There is no indication that the BBC has managed to avoid slip ups in its broadcasting.
Will Millibands inquiry bring back David Kelly, repair the damage to the BBC, put Tony Blair on trial? Of course not!
This page, which should appear weekly, is an addition to the blogs page.
A Future Australia?
Thursday, December 11th, 2008
Museum people, I hope, are taking careful note of the announcements, assertions and debate of the last three weeks in Australia about education policy and funding, the assertions that our public education sytem is a disgrace, that what we need is greater accountability, that the latest international tests are a wake up call for Australian educators and that Australia is failing in the standards of its child care institutions. Because all of this has implications for what museums will do in the next few years.
Fourteen months ago (on 19 September 2007) I gave an invited talk to a small audience at the South Bank Campus of Griffith University’s College of the Arts as part of their Lunch Box talks. As I am writing an essay on education and schooling at the present time I thought it might be time to publish the text of that talk.
The three weeks from the last week of November through mid December have been times of substantial developments in education and schooling in Australia. “Experts” told us again that if schools are to improve, and they must, then we need a culture of performance and accountability. In his fourth Boyer lecture, expatriate Australian Rupert Murdoch reminded us that “The unvarnished truth is that in countries such as Australia, Britain, and particularly the United States, our public education systems are a disgrace. Despite spending more and more money, our children seem to be learning less and less””especially for those who are most vulnerable in our society.” I doubt the veracity of Mr Murdoch’s assertions as they relate to Australia.
New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, brought to Australia by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education Julia Gillard, told us of the great successes of his program to replace a culture of excuse to a culture of performance. Careful consisderation of the time since Mr Klein has been Chancellor have led some to claim that there have been anything but advances in student achievement in New York.
At the end of the week, it was announced that very substantial funds were to be granted by the Commonwealth to education and schooling through the Council of the Heads of Government (COAG) for some extremely important strategies.
This month (December) we have seen arguments in the Australian Parliament about the provision of funds to Independent schools and whether that funding should be tied to a national curriculum. On December 9 the results of TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) for 2007 (tests conducted in 2006 in Australia) were announced and some newspapers pounced on the results to claim they were a wake up call for teachers since the results were not as good as they should be.
On December 11 a UNICEF sponsored study found serious problems in the early childhood sector in many countries, especially Australia and England. As always the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Adele Horin had a very good article about the issue. Much of the consideration of this issue will unbdoubtedly be placed in the context of the ongoing consideration of the collapse or the ABC Learning Centres and child minding which is doubtfully where it should be placed.
And on December 12 Prime Minister Rudd announced substantial funds for infrastructure including funds for training and development in TAFE institutions .
In my view the vitally important issue of ensuring the highest quality of teachers, through recruitment, training, mentoring, appropriate pay and conditions, gets submerged in pointless arguments about accountability and league tables for schools, accusations that public schools are failing and so on. That is also the view of experts in the field!
Similarly, the vitally important issue of early childhood education, especially in respect of children from less well off parts of the community which is where the greatest gains are to be made, get submerged in issues about child minding so working mothers can go to work to make enough money to cover the mortgage and buy the food and the failure so far to put in place a paid maternity (and paternity) leave scheme which equates with that of many advanced economies.
As always with these essays, none of this is irrelevant to museums. Increasingly, early childhood education is recognised by museum people as an area where they can make substantial contributions, as shown by the Queensland Art Gallery and the studies of Barbara Piscitelli and by some other museums including the Australian Museum.
The drive for accountability and testing severely cramps the time of school classes for other activities which give substantial complementary experiences outside the classroom, such as visits to museums: the children are too busy practising for their tests! And the arguments about curriculum can end up constraining the kinds of experiences offered by the museum to visiting school groups through a focus on learning facts ““ the dreaded “˜worksheet’ – rather than experiencing the joy of stimulating experiences when the children are able to be in charge of their own learning, making their own creative connections between things and events previously unconnected in their minds.
In all of this is the influence of certain special interest groups, amongst whom are the “˜economists’. As a friend of mine, a distinguished educator said the other day, “I’m sick of economists running the system, and I’m sick of schools being so filled up with audits of various kinds that there is no space for teachers to inspire kids.”
In my talk, I started by saying “Education is one of the three or four critical issues for all peoples and communities and investment in it leads to increased wellbeing as well as economic growth. It requires investment. Recent economic policies have instead steered us toward an education and work environment more suited to a low wage economy: learning and creativity are being undervalued. The solutions are to be found in recognising the positive outcomes of self determination and encouragement of creativity, not centralised control.” (Reember that this was written in mid 2007!)
By the question “Is there a future for an Educated Australia?” I meant, “do we, or more particularly those with influence and we as those who influence them, recognise that our common future depends on our investing in learning and understanding. And I am not going to argue that we learn certain things rather than others, math and spelling rather than Indonesian or the classics. To a very large extent engaging in educational experiences, no matter the content, leads to a more enriching life.”
I talked about three gains from education:
- intrinsic – the gain to us as individuals, and sometimes to those around us, from reading, from listening to music, from appreciating science, history, art and creative activities of any kind,
- civic ““ the gains flowing from investment in early childhood education particularly but from lifelong education indeed and
- economic – increases in productivity, decreases in unemployment, economic growth.
Continue to “Is there a Future for an Educated Australia“
Decay in a Time of Penury
Sunday, September 28th, 2008
Recently, I wrote in On Line Opinion of 19 September 2008 about the controversy swirling around the budget situation in New South Wales which contributed to the resignation of the Premier the Hon Morris Iemma who later resigned from Parliament. A new government was formed by the Hon Nathan Rees as Premier and he appointed a cabinet which did not include the former Treasurer, the Hon Michael Costa, who also later resigned from the Parliament, but not before an extraordinary media conference.
The summary of my article follows: “New South Wales is asserted to be facing a financial crisis necessitating a mini-budget. In fact the revised estimate of NSW State debt, at just under $8 billion, is miniscule and the overrun of $900 million in the recurrent budget – anticipated as a result of the shortfall in stamp duty on property – is near inconsequential. Cutbacks will drive the State further into real crisis in transport, schools and hospitals. The assertion that the State’s credit rating is threatened is mere intimidation.”
This article is not simply another venture in political controversy. There are substantial implications for museums and other cultural activities in the actions which might flow from the view which the former Treasurer and Treasury spokespersons have taken. A mini-budget which would substantially reduce recurrent and capital funding could see further reductions of staff at museums and other negative impacts. It is imperative that museum people and those interested in and supportive of museums understand that the statements on government budgeting by economically conservative politicians and media commentators fail to give an accurate picture of the situation.
As I say in the article, “Since the adoption by governments of the market or business model – in New South Wales by Harvard MBA graduate Premier Nick Greiner – there have been ongoing reductions in the operating budgets of government agencies through across-the-board cuts, non-funding of awarded salary increases and the notorious “efficiency dividendsâ€.
I also say, “While over the longer term, sustained imbalances in recurrent expenditure are clearly unsatisfactory, there surely can be no risk assumed for occasional deficits. Indeed they are appropriate occasionally to even out overall performance. After all, reacting suddenly to declines in the budget position leads to retrenchment of staff who take with them skills and corporate knowledge which have cost a great deal to acquire. It is likely that the reductions have already gone too far in some areas.”
The details of any mini-budget to be presented in November 2008 are yet to become apparent.
Across the continent, it is possible that the new Western Australian Museum development on the site of the former East Perth Power Station, announced18 February this year by the then Premier Alan Carpenter, could be deferred. In his announcement Premier Carpenter said, ” the massive, half-a-billion dollar infrastructure project would be a stunning cultural and social institution for WA, which would tell the amazing stories of the State and its people in a building that would bring new life to a major heritage site.”
On the ABC Radio National Program, “The National Interest” of 26 September, new Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett mentioned that some capital projects – and he specifically mentioned proposed new museum, approved by the former government, would have to be reviewed. As the program’s presenter Peter Mares says, “And he’ll need all of the mining tax revenue he can get his hands on, if he’s to live up to his promise to up spending in regional WA – a non-negotiable commitment in his bid to keep his minority government in office.”
The Western Australian economy is booming because of the substantial resource projects; one could suggest that this is an appropriate time to invest in things like museums. It would be odd if Australia defers and downsizes its cultural projects when cities such as MedellÃn in Colombia are building libraries and art galleries in order to address poor education, poverty and crime amongst young people. Last year a number of media reports described these strategies by which mathematician and city mayor Sergio Fajardo was “turning blight to beauty“.