The director of the National Gallery of Australia has said he is optimistic the government will soon address the institution’s $265m funding shortfall, allowing it to repair decades worth of water damage and to avoid job cuts.
The Albanese government has not committed to increasing funding in its May budget but Nick Mitzevich said he was hopeful given that the NGA was included in the federal government’s new $300m cultural policy.
Launched by the arts minister, Tony Burke, last month, the policy includes $11m in funding to see the NGA’s vast art collection loaned out to regional galleries and museums across Australia.
“We have to be optimistic and that policy was an important first step and a positive sign that the financial sustainability woes of cultural institutions will be looked upon quite favourably, because we are key in being able to deliver and bring to life the cultural policy,” Mitzevich said.
But the policy does not address government-imposed efficiency dividends, which have required the NGA to find $6.2m in savings by reducing programs, exhibitions and cutting staff over the last decade.
The policy also doesn’t deal with a looming budget crunch on 30 June, when an annual top-up payment worth nearly $25m expires.
Mitzevich said urgent repairs to the 40-year-old heritage-listed building were required. The building has been leaking for more than 10 years and its climate control system is inadequate. Lifts and elevators must soon be replaced.
“Over the next 10 years, the NGA will require $265m to replace and repair its buildings, its plant and equipment,” he said.
“[The building] protects $7bn worth of art so it’s both a community meeting space and a bank vault. Given those two very important jobs, a maintenance and replacement program needed to be put in place very early on and unfortunately, over the last two decades, the building hasn’t had the level of attention it needs.”
Burke was due to meet NGA officials and other Canberra-based cultural institutions on Monday afternoon. He said he was listening carefully to their funding concerns and accused the previous government of mounting “culture wars that pushed a number of our most important institutions to the brink”.
“All of our cultural institutions are suffering after a decade of neglect under the previous government,” Burke said.
“Our government is listening. Ahead of the May budget it’s never been more important to get up-to-date information about how bad the situation has become.”
Late last year the NGA chairman, Ryan Stokes, wrote to Burke and outlined what could happen if the funding shortfall was not addressed.
According to freedom of information documents obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald, Stokes warned of forced redundancies, reimposed entry fees and potentially closing the gallery for two days a week. The NGA is now free and open daily.
“We thought it important to highlight the scale of the situation by suggesting that if the situation was not resolved, there would be quite significant consequences,” Mitzevich said.
“Honestly, I don’t think that those consequences are valid because the government values the cultural institutions too much and they want the cultural institutions to deliver the new cultural policy.”
In 2020 the NGA announced plans to cut more than 12% of its workforce due to budget pressures, which the ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr, described as “reckless” and “disappointing”.
The National Library of Australia’s digital archive Trove, which is used by thousands of academics and researchers each year, is also facing funding uncertainty. Annual funding worth about $5m is due to expire on 30 June.
