The newly appointed Queensland premier is not off too a good start by cutting the Queensland Literary Awards from the state budget. This cut will only save the government $250,000 (244,000 to be exact) of a $47,000,000,000 budget but will have a huge impact on the arts though out the state.
Queensland’s premier Campbell Newman promised cost-cutting during his campaign but to focus on cutting the arts during a national campaign for promoting reading is sending the wrong message to the rest of Australia. The Queensland Literary Awards have helped many new Queenslanders breaking into the industry, spreading $230,000 in prize money over 14 different categories, including two for unpublished writers in an effort to recognize well-known and aspiring Queensland writers.
Past Australian authors that have benefitted from this award inlcude; J.M. Coetzee, Tim Winton, Christos Tsiolkas, Peter Carey, Paul Jennings & Markus Zusak.
That’s disappointing.
Is there any kind of petition to get it reinstated? I don’t understand why the arts are always seen as irrelevant by politicians. And it’s such a tiny drop in the bucket, how much good can it really do? Let us know if they reverse the decision and reinstate it.
We will see how things go but from what I can see Twitter is not pleased.
It’s very disappointing news, but the Twitter uproar has had some good come of it–there’s now an online petition, and the debacle has made the news. Fingers crossed that the award will be reinstated.