Why all the GLOOM?

Why all the GLOOM?
The NSW government through Events NSW is producing a new Festival- Vivid Sydney. This Festival is hypocritical in that the NSW Government through Events NSW is celebrating how wonderfully creative Sydney is and at the same time the NSW Government through Arts NSW is increasingly not supporting the Arts, especially the small to medium independent sector and that sector is really struggling.
The small to medium independent sector is vital to the arts culture of Sydney. It breeds innovation and is the cultural undergrowth that sustains and nourishes the arts sector as a whole. How can you celebrate something you don't support at a grassroots level? The marketeers and the spin-doctors at Event NSW can talk up how wonderfully creative Sydney is but their rhetoric is clearly transparent hype; that arts prosper despite not because of the NSW government.
The NSW Government has summarily lumped the arts in with design, fashion, advertising, architecture, television, film and publishing and branded it “creative industries”. This cannot deflect from the Government’s responsibilities towards each of these individual industries or hide, in this convenient amalgam, its failures in the arts sector behind successes in other more commercial industries.
The labelling of all these industries as “creative” diminishes the word creative beyond its’ meaning and so renders it banal. That is not to say practices in these other industries do not involve creativity, they do. There is a long tradition of philosophical discussion on the definition and distinction, of what is the difference between art and other utilitarian industries? That is to say that some of the above industries do involve some degree of art and some art practices do involve commercialisation. My answer cannot be complete within the small confines of this article. However to me, within the arts there is a greater imperative that transcends the everyday and the utilitarian, beyond any economic rationality.
There is always a tension between the respectable legitimisation of the artist and artist keeping their sense of irresponsible illegitimacy. The basis of this tension is economic. Artists have to survive economically in a society that it often critiques. How much can artists bite the hand that feeds it? But the artist’s role is often seen as saboteur of society. Artist’s aim is often alienation of its audiences; an act of defiance that at once marks their individual freedom and announces the limits of societies capacities of inclusion, acceptance and understanding.
This underlies a greater cultural problem in the arts in Australia, of the overly paternalistic attitude towards artists. Artists cannot be trusted: to self manage, to self-assess, make their own decisions, to run their own spaces and create their own festivals. This has created an overly top-headed arts cultural beast, where funding is centered on the top - in management, or over-management, and little trickles down. By the time funding reaches the artists there is not much left. Artists generally don't get paid in NSW. Artists are relegated to 'hobbyists' in NSW.
Diverse cultural experiences that originate locally, beyond what is piped from elsewhere is also important in encouraging a sense of community and identity in Australia, it also allows young people here to make their own culture rather than be merely passive consumers. This is a privilege available to young people in most countries and one that Australian governments must provide its citizens. This is a democratic dividend- people as makers of culture not just consumers.
This distinct lack of imagination and creativity in Sydney is due to State Government back sliding on arts agendas, its’ distinct lack of vision. Why can’t we provide Sydney and its children vibrant cultural experiences and opportunities to build a new 21st century arts industry, get skills to participate and gets jobs in the arts and be competitive on the world stage?