Review of Childers Group 2025

Just a quick post to fill you in on Childers Group activities for 2025. Once again, we have had a busy year meeting and advocating for the arts with our local politicians at the Assembly. We met with Labor, Greens, Independents and the Liberal opposition.

We had meetings with new ACT Assembly members, Caitlin Tough (Labor), Taimus Werner Gibbings (Labor), Thomas Emerson (Independent), and Fiona Carrick (Independent)

We had three meetings with the Arts Minister Michael Pettersson,  and with new Treasurer Chris Steel with whom we discussed our ACT budget submission for 2025/2026.

We also had good discussions with Jo Clay, Greens Arts Spokesperson and James Milligan, Liberal Arts spokesperson.

On the federal level we had meetings with our local MHR’s David Smith (Bean), Alicia Payne (Canberra) and Andrew Leigh (Fenner).

We met with Independent ACT Senator Pocock and his advisors.

We will continue our lobbying work with our local politicians in 2026.

FORUMS 2026 : We are hoping to organise forums over the next 12 months. If you have any particular ideas of any gatherings you would be particularly interested in then please let us know.

Is the impact of AI on the arts sector something that arts practioners are interested in??

childersgroup@gmail.com

Cheers Michael White Convenor The Childers Group