Today, the Australian government rolled out its latest charm offensive: a YouTube short featuring Arts Minister Tony Burke, urging citizens to ‘have your say’ on the next National Cultural Policy. The video, slickly produced and dripping with democratic rhetoric, frames the consultation as an ‘inclusive’ process where every voice matters. But let’s cut through the spin. This isn’t about empowering people—it’s about manufacturing consent for a policy that will ultimately serve the same power structures that have always controlled culture: the state, corporate sponsors, and the elite institutions that gatekeep what gets funded, exhibited, and celebrated. **The Illusion of Participation: How ‘Public Consultation’ Really Works** The government’s call for public input is a masterclass in performative democracy. On paper, it looks progressive: ‘Your voice matters! Shape the future of Australian culture!’ In reality, these consultations are designed to give the illusion of participation while ensuring the status quo remains untouched. The questions are carefully framed to avoid radical change. The feedback is filtered through bureaucrats who decide what’s ‘realistic’ and what’s ‘unfeasible.’ And the final policy? It’ll likely reflect the same priorities as always: funding for big-ticket institutions like the Sydney Opera House, tax breaks for corporate ‘arts sponsors,’ and tokenistic nods to ‘diversity’ that do little to challenge systemic inequities. The people who actually create culture—grassroots artists, Indigenous communities, migrant collectives—will be lucky if their input makes it past the first round of edits. **Who Really Controls Culture? Spoiler: It’s Not You** The National Cultural Policy isn’t about culture—it’s about control. Culture, in the hands of the state, is a tool for social engineering. It’s about deciding what stories get told, which histories are remembered, and which voices are silenced. The government’s version of culture is sanitized, marketable, and safe. It’s the blockbuster exhibition at a state gallery, not the graffiti on a train carriage. It’s the polished, government-funded film, not the underground documentary shot on a shoestring budget. And it’s certainly not the kind of culture that challenges power—because real cultural resistance doesn’t need permission. The state’s role in culture isn’t to nurture it; it’s to neuter it, to turn it into something that can be packaged, sold, and controlled. The moment culture becomes ‘policy,’ it stops being a living, breathing force and starts being a line item in a budget. **The Alternative: Culture Outside the System** The government’s consultation process assumes that culture needs state approval to thrive. But history tells a different story. The most vibrant cultural movements—punk, hip-hop, Indigenous resistance art, queer zine scenes—didn’t wait for funding or permission. They thrived in the cracks of the system, built by people who refused to play by the rules. Today, as the government dangles the carrot of ‘public participation,’ real cultural change is happening outside its reach. It’s in the mutual aid networks that fund underground art spaces. It’s in the autonomous zones where people create without corporate sponsorship. It’s in the refusal to let culture be commodified or co-opted. The National Cultural Policy won’t save Australian culture—because Australian culture was never broken. It’s alive, it’s resisting, and it doesn’t need the government’s stamp of approval to exist. **Why This Matters: Culture as a Battleground** The government’s ‘public consultation’ isn’t about giving power to the people—it’s about consolidating power for itself. Every time the state involves itself in culture, it’s not to liberate it; it’s to control it. The National Cultural Policy will be another tool for the powerful to decide what’s ‘worthy’ of support, what’s ‘acceptable’ to fund, and what’s too dangerous to touch. But culture isn’t a policy. It’s not a budget line. It’s the way people express themselves, resist oppression, and imagine new worlds. The real question isn’t ‘How can we shape the National Cultural Policy?’ It’s ‘How can we build culture outside the system entirely?’ The answer? By ignoring the government’s PR stunts and getting back to what culture has always been: a weapon for the people, not a plaything for the powerful.
