When Goorie and Koori poet Evelyn Araluen won last week’s $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, along with the $25,000 Indigenous Writing prize, she called on the Australian government to change the way it taxes arts prizes.
Araluen won for her poetry collection, The Rot, described by the judges as “a work of remarkable poetic intelligence; formally bold, emotionally exacting and politically uncompromising.” Out of her $125,000 prize money, Araluen, who now works as an academic, may pay more than $40,000 in tax.
In Australia, while the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards are tax-free, others, such as the Stella Prize and the state-based awards, are not. While acknowledging the importance of our tax system, Araluen spoke of how other countries have “really intelligent taxation laws” that take into account artists’ fluctuating incomes.
