The Childers Group

What exactly do the arts do for us: for our society, for our economy, for our health and wellbeing, for innovation, for education, for self-expression – and for the creation of beautiful and useful things? How do we understand, express and measure the value of the arts? Leading experts and practitioners in health, economics, culture […]

In the days before Christmas last year, the ACT Government announced the lowest level of funding for arts projects in living memory. From around $1.1M in 2005, artACT’s Project Funding category has been reduced to just $300,000 per year. After action taken by the ACT Arts Community the new Minister for the Arts, Gordon Ramsay, […]

The Childers Group coordinator, Jack Lloyd, posed 5 questions to 3 of the potential candidates for the Arts portfolio in the ACT. See their responses on our public Facebook page. It’s great to see arts and culture being thought about, discussed, passionately defended, and ideas flying about in social media and in the news. Go […]

The Childers Group thought it was time to re-share this info to sharpen our focus as we lead up to the ACT Election. (Bravo and a big thank you to Jack Lloyd for this work.) The Childers Group put together an analysis of the past 12 years of arts grants in the ACT and the […]

We are sharing the letter the Childers Group sent to Dr Andrew Leigh MP on 29 June 2016. The letter is in response to comments by Dr Leigh in a recent radio interview.

The Childers Group has put together an analysis of the past 12 years of arts grants in the ACT and the trends within different funding types. This analysis shows that over this time, stretching over three full electoral cycles, there has been a significant decline in ACT arts grants on a per capita basis, and as a […]

Following the success of ArtsPeak’s election debate in Melbourne last week, the Childers Group invite you to be involved in a new lobbying strategy in the lead up to the federal election – an Arts Day of Action on 17th June 2016. Facts: The arts and cultural industries employ more people than agriculture, construction or mining, and […]

We are sharing a copy of a letter sent to our PM by the Australian multi-arts peak body, ArtsPeak. The letter expresses their consolidated view of the status of Federal Government support for arts and culture in Australia, and suggests some ways forward in relation to recent changes in policy direction. A good read. ArtsPeakLetter […]

… in case you missed the Childers Group’s pre-Budget arts forum! We’ve had some very positive feedback about our pre-Budget arts forum on Wednesday 24 February, with calls for a follow-up pre-election forum later in the year. As one participant put it: ‘It was a terrific night, one of the Childers Group’s best’. With expert […]

We are closely following the impact on our Canberra-based national institutions by the efficiency dividend. Read the letter that has been sent to our Prime Minister as of today. Add your voice to the conversation.   Letter from CG to PM