Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes has vowed to keep fighting for the city’s art gallery redevelopment, despite the NSW Arts Minister Don Harwin confirming there are no current plans to provide state funding for the controversial project.
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Council representatives, led by Cr Nelmes, last month met with Mr Harwin in the gallery, in a bid to revive the stalled project. The proposed expansion would double the gallery’s exhibition space, increase storage and education areas, and provide commercial space.
After that meeting, the council submitted a revised business case for the project to the state government. Cr Nelmes said the council sought state government funding of $26 million, the estimated full amount of the redevelopment.
While the Art Gallery of NSW received $244 million in the state budget for its extension, and the government announced a $100 million regional cultural fund, the Newcastle project is still getting nothing. The council’s latest business case has been rejected, with a spokesman for the minister saying the government has no current plans to fund the redevelopment.
In a statement to the Herald, the spokesman said the gallery was run by the council and therefore “they are ultimately responsible for their own funding”.
“The NCC should look at a range of funding options instead of solely looking to the NSW Government, as discussed with them at the minister’s meeting in Newcastle,” the spokesman said. He stated the government could not support a bid that requested it to fund 100 per cent of the expenditure.
“It is a shame that the NCC is not willing to explore other funding options or indeed invest in arts and culture in Newcastle by at least part-funding the project themselves,” he said.
Cr Nelmes said it had been made clear to the minister that the council would contribute funds amounting to several million dollars to the redevelopment project. She pointed out that in an earlier proposal, the council and federal government had each committed $7 million, but the state government would not commit any funding. That plan fell over in 2013, the federal money was returned, and the council’s contribution was to be used for debt reduction.
With this latest proposal, Cr Nelmes hoped the state government would have contributed money under its $600 million cultural infrastructure fund from its ‘poles and wires’ privatisation, because “this is a one-off opportunity because they [the government] have sold off public assets”.
“I think this is a very poor excuse for us missing out time and again,” she said.
The council has also said it invested heavily in the city’s arts. According to the council’s interim chief executive officer, Jeremy Bath, more than $18 million would be spent on cultural facilities and activities in the coming financial year.
The art gallery’s annual operation costs the council about $3.6 million.
“Sydney City Council doesn’t have to fund the Art Gallery of NSW … it’s all funded by the NSW state government,” Cr Nelmes said. “So why does Sydney get funding and we miss out time and time again?,” she asked.
Former lady mayoress and a main driver of the gallery redevelopment project, Cathy Tate, said this was “a sad indictment on the NSW government”.
Mrs Tate refuted the Minister’s statement that there had not been other funding options. She said the community had already raised more than $1 million through several years of fund-raising, and that money was in an account “waiting to be used on the redevelopment”.
“Whether you support the gallery or not, Newcastle deserves its fair share of the arts budget,” Mrs Tate said. “We contribute more than most areas in the state to the state government, and we deserve our fair share back.
“If there is no money at the moment, then when is the state government prepared to contribute something in the future?”
In parliament just last month, the arts minister was full of praise for Newcastle Art Gallery.
He described it as “a fantastic example of a facility owned and operated by the local council”.
“It provides a significant contribution to the cultural fabric of New South Wales,” Mr Harwin said in the Legislative Council on May 24.
“The Newcastle Art Gallery has the second-most valuable and comprehensive collection in the State after the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It contains over 6,200 artworks as well as the most significant collection of Japanese ceramics outside of Japan.”
The NSW parliamentary secretary for the Hunter, Scot MacDonald, said he toured the art gallery with Cathy Tate and her husband, former Lord Mayor John Tate, about six months ago.
“I was a bit surprised,” Mr MacDonald said. “It was bit smallish, a bit tightish. I thought Newcastle might have a bit more of a substantial art gallery.”
“I think the only advice is Newcastle has to keep pushing its case, and it has to be a collaborative case; local, state and federal funding would be the best.”
Jeremy Bath said he would be meeting with the council’s executive management team over the next few months to identify funding opportunities in upcoming budgets that could be reserved for the existing proposal, or for a staged approach to the development. Mr Bath could not put a figure on what the council’s contribution might be.
Once a figure had been discussed with the full council and the community, Mr Bath hoped to return to the arts minister with a proposal.
Mr Bath said when he met with Mr Harwin at the gallery he made the point that without the redevelopment, there would be a “gap in what would be one of the great revitalisation projects in the western world”.
“In every great city around the world, you need a thriving arts precinct,” he said, adding that without the redevelopment, “we’re underselling ourselves, and we’re limiting the potential of our revitalisation”.
Cr Nelmes said, “this is not the end of the story as far as I’m concerned with the art gallery.”
“This has been a long battle, and we will keep fighting until we get the funds that we deserve.”