Still going over it folks but not a lot of excitement to be had from what I can see. At least there’s been no cuts and everything (at least for the arts) seems steady as she goes. Are they saving something up for the National Cultural Policy? Doesn’t look good does it?

The amazing thing is 20% of the funding boost Arts Minister Simon Crean has announced is going to attracting production of the feature film The Wolverine to Australia.

Then there’s $39.3m over four years for Australia’s national collecting institutions to expand their capacity to open their collections, including contributing resource to the national school curriculum. Sounds like a lot of scanning and digitising to me. So of that $64.1m, it means about 12% will be going to the National Archives, 10% to the National Library of Australia, 9% to the National Museum of Australia and so on.

Full discussion on artsHub tomorrow.

Total announced funding boost to the arts in the Federal budget 63.90
Amounts are in $m
National Archives of Australia 7.70
National Library of Australia 6.70
National Museum of Australia 5.50
Australian War Memorial 5.30
National Gallery of Australia 4.30
National Film and Sound Archive 3.40
Australian National Maritime Museum 2.90
Old Parliament House 1.90
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies 1.30
Bundanon Trust 0.10
Islamic Museum of Australia — contribution 1.50
Antipodes Centre for Greek Culture — contribution 2.00
Private Sector Support for the Arts — amalgamation of Australian Business Arts Foundation with Artsupport 3.20
Resale Royalty Scheme for Visual Artists — continuation 0.70
Boosting Music Industry Innovation and Exports 3.00
Australian National Academy of Music — increased funding 1.60
Filming of The Wolverine — contribution 12.80